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Language Exchanges | ||
Tags: Skype | Tandem/Language Exchange | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| kevingreece Newbie United States Joined 3831 days ago 12 posts - 20 votes Studies: Greek | Message 1 of 6 20 April 2015 at 4:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello everybody. I do lots of language exchanges with people on Skype. I enjoy talking to many different
people, but I don't have time to consistently talk to everyone. How do you all handle a situation like that? Sometimes I talk to the same person so much, that I practically don't know what else to say. Does there come a point when you decide to not talk to certain people anymore because of this, or do you try to build friendships, so the lack of interesting topics doesn't matter? I don't ever try to use people on Skype just to get what I want and then stop communicating with them, because I care about them and I am genuinely interested in what they have to say. Thank you in advance. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5064 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 6 20 April 2015 at 4:48am | IP Logged | ||
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The mistake lies in "just chatting". If the chat is more focused, it can be kept fresh. With a regular partner, one who really wants to learn, I have suggested that we both watch a TV series and discuss the episodes or both of us read a book or long web article such as a news feature. When English is your native tongue it's a bit easier for you because you can find a translation in your TL and share the original with your partner. Of course, that's assuming that they're interested and have the time to do an activity.
I have talked about "The Walking Dead"(I watch the dubbed version, they watch the original English) in Portuguese and Spanish with people who happen to be fans. I've talked about "The Little Prince" in Haitian Creole. If that fails you, rdearman has a long list of topic starters in his output challenge thread. This can be a little artificial but also can be quite varied and interesting. Edited by iguanamon on 20 April 2015 at 4:50am 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| robarb Nonaglot Senior Member United States languagenpluson Joined 4861 days ago 361 posts - 921 votes Speaks: Portuguese, English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, French Studies: Mandarin, Danish, Russian, Norwegian, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Greek, Latin, Nepali, Modern Hebrew | Message 3 of 6 20 April 2015 at 5:54am | IP Logged | ||
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I find first-time talks with an exchange partner to be almost useless, because I usually have to introduce myself
(and any travels in the target language country), and I can do that without any help. My best successes with exchange partners have been when we had some common interests. We could "just chat" and managed to keep it going for over an hour, for dozens of meetings. Even if the topics got somewhat repetitive, at least the specific words and phrases stayed relatively fresh. I think it would be really great if you could get your exchange partner to mutually watch a TV show or read a book with you. However, I've never been able to find an exchange partner who was that dedicated. Not on the Internet and not among my in-person friends. Where do you find people like that? Maybe at the Polyglot Conference? I hope so... Compromise option might be using the first 10 minutes of a 1-hour Skype talk to read/watch a short thing together.
I think, if you are not coming up with interesting conversation, then you are probably a poor fit for language exchange and ending the exchange may be the best thing for both parties. When you find a language exchange worth keeping, you won't want to end it. Sometimes language exchanges are productive, then run their course and you lose interest after several sessions. It's natural. (Just like romantic relationships...) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5177 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 4 of 6 20 April 2015 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've had a ton of skype language exchanges. I've found that having "assignments" simply does not work. The best exchanges for me fall into two categories 1) those where I've developed friendships with my partners and we can just chat and 2) situations where it is actually an exchange of my knowledge in a certain non-language area (business, economics, history, etc) for my partner's Spanish.
If you are lucky enough to fall into a #2 situation it is great. I have a few people who I can mentor in their fields of study and we talk in Spanish for hours about whatever subject they study. It is a true win-win and it is much better for language learning for me because I get to spend 100% of the time in my target language. I get to speak Spanish the entire time and it is easy to talk about things I have studied in the past. My partners love it because they get to discuss/learn what they are studying or what really interests them from a free tutor. Regarding the original question, I think it is totally normal to have a lot of partners who just don't work out. That is fine and unavoidable. There are a lot of people you won't click with and there are tons of people who are just not serious. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| solocricket Tetraglot Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3478 days ago 68 posts - 106 votes Speaks: English*, French, Italian, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Icelandic, Korean, Polish | Message 5 of 6 20 April 2015 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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@James29 How do you find people to talk to in an "information" exchange? Are these in-person tutoring sessions or online? I'm asking because I want to find situations to practice Spanish, and 50/50 language exchanges don't interest me a ton.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5177 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 6 of 6 20 April 2015 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Great question. I wish I spent more time pursuing this type of thing, but I've usually been too busy. I've had two particular partners on skype who I did this with extensively and I just never really needed more partners. Both of these partners were people who were initially looking for a language exchange, but, in actuality, were not too motivated to learn English. They had much more interest in their primary area of study and the things I could offer. I guess they both were things that "just happened." Basically, what happened was we would get talking in Spanish about their questions/concerns/homework/etc and the discussions just kept going and they preferred to continue with the ongoing discussion instead of switching to English.
One was/is an economics/international affairs student and the other was studying American History/Politics. Our basic rule was they get to pick the topic and lead the discussion as long as it was in Spanish. It worked great. I read research articles, discussed homework tasks and listened to some very interesting theories these students were learning from their professors. The stuff that gets taught in foreign countries about American History/Politics is extremely basic stuff that we get in grade school so it is simple. I have often thought that there must be an easier way to find exchanges like this. They are so incredibly useful for both sides. I thought about becoming a member of a forum on a topic where I have some useful knowledge and simply finding people that way, but I never really needed to. Maybe what you could do is go to one of the language exchange websites where you list your interests in your profile and simply seek discussions with people who are interested in your area of expertise. On Italki you can read people's homework and questions and really get a sense if you can offer some help to the person. Edit: by the way, I agree that 50/50 exchanges just don't offer that much. They are inefficient and just don't interest me that much. Edited by James29 on 20 April 2015 at 7:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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