Comments on: How to NOT find a Japanese language partner

By: ram

ram — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:52:00 +0000

hi am frm india …i need a good language partene for me..any body theer….pls cntact me…..007.ramasubbu@gmail.com….frnds……..

By: Anonymous

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By: Meg

Meg — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 04:51:00 +0000

I like the idea of preparing a list of topics and vocabulary and emailing it to your language partner beforehand. I met with a Japanese girl from the language school I go to and it was awkward because we had no idea what to talk about. The questions I asked her were the ones she either didnt have an idea about or was not interested at all. :(

By: koichi

koichi — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:21:00 +0000

Hard to say since it depends a bit on the person, but things like bringing prepared topics (and emailing them beforehand letting them know what topics you’re covering, is probably good) help a ton… gets rid of the ‘what should we talk about I dunno” issue, and if you warn them ahead of time they can at least study a bit beforehand… you could even create a list of vocab words for the particular subject, which would give them direction and things to prepare for conversation practice.

That’s about all I can think of off the top of my head. If all else fails, there’s always a beer or two to get the embarrassment out of your systems! :D

By: JGeeks

JGeeks — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:30:00 +0000

This post is right on. I was tutoring a Japanese girl once and couldn’t for the life of me get her to speak. She was exceedingly bright and aced the grammar tests I gave her — but could barely say more than one or two words. My Japanese wasn’t so good at the time either — might have helped if I could have spoken more, with some of those intentional mess-ups.

Any thoughts on how to start one of these conversation practice sessions (once you have a partner, I mean)? Or tips for when you get stuck?

By: Zezen

Zezen — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:35:00 +0000

A great article, Koichi! I have found it by googling the keywords.
I have also read the comments. I have not realized that a simple language exchange could be such a touchy subject…

First of all – there are some double standards at play here ;). A sizeable number of you mention “creepy” language partners, of whatever sex they may be, and then end up marrying exactly the type of person that you had been trying to avoid. At least you take it in a stride and write about it – it helps.

But more to the point – pure language exchange and advice to the seakers of language exchange partners. I have tried Lang-8 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang-8) and http://www.language-exchanges.org/ for that purpose. Couchsurfing.org and their local meeting is also a great place to hook up with a willing expat.

(No, I have no commercial interest in any of them, I am but a user – and my account there is zezen, in case somebody wanted to exchange their Japanese for, say, Polish.) Ciao!

A Pole

By: Anke Meiering

Anke Meiering — Thu, 19 May 2011 22:49:00 +0000

I hope some of them want to learn German :)

By: Johnrabeisi

Johnrabeisi — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 03:57:00 +0000

please become my friend

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