Is the HelloTalk app helpful for Japanese-English exchanges ?

9 comments

1. It’s alright, it has a lot of people on it but there’s the usual thirsty jerks trying to flirt with an object of their Asian fetish desire.

   I hate the amount of advertising and up-selling it tries, it really pushes me away from the platform, and VIP is absurdly expensive.

2. From my experience, it’s a mix bag. You will find friendly people to chat with, as Japanese people are rarely flat out rude(YMMV), but finding a long-term exchange partner can be challenging.

3. It can be useful but you’ll need to go through a lot of creeps to find someone who actually wants to learn together.

   And likewise a lot of the Japanese people have had a bunch of creeps messaging them and are wary.

4. I mean people on hello talk aren’t teachers, teaching and talking are two different things.

   Also if you try forcing a conversation with someone that doesn’t speak english or speak broken french/japanese to someone that didn’t ask for it yeah it makes sense you’ll get some people could feel like not wanting to talk.

   You either made theses mistakes or have been unlucky.

   But i strongly disagree with the statement that french people are hostile to english speakers, just be polite and make sure they actually want to talk to you.

   Probably, same rules apply to japanese people.

5. I think you’ll have a much better experience with Japanese, depending on how well you can communicate / connect with Japanese speakers.

   English speakers learning French, Russian, and similar languages usually have a poor experience finding partners on the app. On the other hand, a Japanese / Korean speaker learning Chinese (or English if you count non-native speakers and speakers of non-mainstream dialects) will always have someone to talk to. English to Japanese is probably somewhere in the middle (high demand, but also high supply).

6. Personally I found a couple of great native Japanese speakers to write to & chat with.

7. My best advice is use HelloTalk and Tandem and be up front and honest in your interests and what you’re looking to learn. Be aware of the time difference and give times for responses.
   -Clearly state you’re only looking to make friends.
   -You’ll have to text many Japanese people to find the right person.
   -Maybe you have to text 20 people in general to find just 1 or 2 Japanese friends to chat with.
   -From my experience I’ve met one really nice friend on. -2:Tandem and we talk on Fridays and another whom I talk with occasionally on Instagram.
   -2 on Hello talk: One a couple months ago and recently we plan to talk on Saturday’s.
   -You have to be adamant and keep at it
   /Also if given a chance to try VIP for free, DO IT. You’re profile gets highlighted and you have a better chance at people trusting you because you paid for the app./
   You will be grinding for days though so if your ready to expel mental energy on this app and gain 2 or at most 3 true friends to chat with its well worth stress.
   Sorry for the long post.

8. I use HelloTalk everyday to talk to Japanese friends and try to date Japanese girls that are close to me. Have met many cool Japanese on the app that are in Japan as well and possibly meet them in person. So far have dated 2 uni girls and met maybe 10 friends.

9. I’ve had good experiences on there. Made a long-term friend who I talk to everyday and chat to plenty of regulars through my posts. Also had a lot of conversations that quickly went to a dead-end though so definitely a mixed bag. Would recommend posting quite a bit to get some regular followers though and helping other people with their English with corrections etc. is often warmly received.