4 ms·
Are you trying to combine dating, learning a language, and collaborating on 'work stuff'? It wasn't very clear to me. Anyway, when I first moved to a new city,
by kafkaesque 13y ago
Are you trying to combine dating, learning a language, and collaborating on 'work stuff'? It wasn't very clear to me.
Anyway, when I first moved to a new city, I tried doing the whole 'language tandem' thing, which, by the way, is not a popular phrase in the US. In fact, many people don't understand what that is. People usually call it 'language exchange'. At least in my experience.
Anyway, I used http://conversationexchange.com http://conversationexchange.com.
It was frustrating. But it depends what you wanted out of it. I wanted to genuinely learn a language, but had heard a lot of people use it to date.
It didn't work out for me because I was a beginner, and I needed a little more structure. The people who I met just wanted to 'chat', with no real learning material. And many didn't even know what books to recommend.
I think it would've been better if there would've been two people who genuinely wanted to learn a language and were at the same level. But even then, switching back and forth from teacher to student is challenging, especially amongst beginners.
I think it worked out great when both parties had sufficient knowledge to not use a book, and were just learning vocabulary and a small set of new rules.
- mahesh_rm 13y agoHi, you seem to summarize, in this post, the kind frustration we have been experiencing so far by language exchangers telling us about their experiences (commonly known as tandem learners in Europe). This also answer your question: We don't do dating. We do language exchange. For free, done right, and modulated upon your interests. Because you pick up a language much faster if you actually enjoy what you are talking about, and the person you are talking to. :-)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mullr 13y ago> We do language exchange. For free, done right, and modulated upon your interests. This text should be on your front page. Right now it's "a growing community for language and cultural exchange", which sounds fishy and amorphous. The above is much better.
- mtowle 13y agoHey Mahesh, I'm still a bit confused too, but I think it's because I'm American: the terms "language exchange" and "tandem learners" don't mean anything here. So is it like: say I'm fluent in English and conversational in German; I'd meet up with someone who's fluent in German and conversational in English, and we'd help each other learn? Is that the idea?
- alemhnan 13y agoHey mtowle, Alessandro from CoffeeStrap. The idea is exactly what you have said. We are still tuning the format so to deal with different levels of languages. So far for example here in San Francisco we have a lot of people willing to learn Mandarin(or actually speaking! I am looking at you Zack! :) ) and fluent in English. Another trend here in the bay is about Korean/Japanese. And a lot of Spanish speakers and Portuguese as well. Those are the main languages so far!
- gknoy 13y agoThank you for your explanation. The blog post didn't really detail that, so I mistakenly thought it primarily was about getting together to discuss Creating Things -- like a blind date for hackers to find coding/project partners -- rather than what seems to be primarily about learning languages. Fortunately, your main page is VERY clear on this main goal. Well done! It makes me wish I were trying to learn a language, as I expect that there's not much use for someone who only speaks English.
- scott_s 13y agoI had the same impression from the blog post. I think it's a good idea, even in a blog post, to always say, "Our project is a tool that ______".