Talk to native speakers

Does anyone know a good resource for talking to native Japanese speakers? I guess a learner around my level would also be nice if native speakers are rare. I will be staying in an apartment in Houston near Rice University for an internship over the summer. I was wondering what was the best way to find native speakers I can practice speaking with. I would preferably like to meet someone in real life, but over Skype is fine too.
Does anyone have experience with this? Right now, I’m not doing anything besides my college courses and also WaniKani. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Hellotalk is pretty cool for this. You can get it as an app for your phone, and you just enter what langauge you’re learning and your current ability in it, and it will then connect you to native speakers of that language who are of a similar level in your native langauge as you are in theirs. Then you get a Facebook style newsfeed where you and others can post photos and status updates and correct each others langauge use, as well as giving the ability to private message. :slight_smile:

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I like HelloTalk, but it’s a hassle on the phone. I’d love a web interface for it.

Word of warning on HelloTalk: Enter “English” as your native language.

I found out after the fact that you can only have multiple “competent” languages or change your native one in the expensive pro version, so I am now stuck in the フランス語 desert, with like 5% of other people’s matches in searches…

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can’t you just create a new account ?

Either I’d need to deassociate my whole Android device from the Google Account I use for everything else or I’m too lazy to deinstall/reinstall and type in an alt email address.

I don’t remember how accounts work in the app and if they use your Google or not, it’s been a while :stuck_out_tongue:

Italki is full of people to talk to. There are lots of Japanese people learning English who are willing to hop on Skype and do a free language exchange. There are also tutors, both casual and professional, if you ever want to go that route.

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