Transcription
Been following me for quite a while, you will know that learning languages is one of my biggest passions outside of traveling. My name is Olivia. I'm a polyglot and I speak four different languages. English and Mandarin are my native languages and I've been learning French since moving to Switzerland 7 years ago and Spanish is currently now my fourth language.
If you're a language learner, I'm sure you come to this same plateau or this same problem where you understand the text, you understand the video conversations, but when it comes to actually speaking with a native, you realize that all the words are just stuck in your mouth and there's no output. It's just so hard to string together all the various words in your head to form a conversation. And that's when I realized that I want to find more ways where I can converse and interact with native speakers. That's why today I want to share with you an app that I've been using lately called Tandem and why I think it's a great addition to anyone's language learning journey.
So, Tandem is basically one of the world's largest learning exchange communities. Instead of learning just from a classroom environment or online lessons, you are matched with people from all around the world who are learning your native language at the same time learning the language that they are speaking. Think of yourself as bartering your language skills with someone else. So, in my case, I can be teaching someone how to speak English and Chinese, which are my native language, while at the same time learning French and Spanish from another person.
I'm going to show you how my current profile looks like. So, here I have my picture and it also indicates what are the languages that you are native in. So, it's important that you set this up correctly because this is how you'll be matched with another learner. So, here I indicated that I'm native in English and I'm fluent in Chinese and I am currently learning French and Spanish. They also will ask you questions about what you would like to talk about. So, here I wrote that I'm interested in living abroad, uh talking about travels, and also food. And you can also set some criterias or some wish list on how your ideal exchange learning learning exchange partner is like. So, I wrote that I like someone who is funny and curious, who is also patient, and who have also similar experience of living abroad, and is like-minded with me. And I also indicated my language learning goals at the moment, which is to be able to speak and write in casual French, and to converse with a local fluently.
Another part that is interesting is how you can actually indicate your learning preferences. So, here I indicated that I am more interested in how I would like to communicate with my learn learning exchange partners through text and audio messages, because I just feel more comfortable texting than say video calling. And also, you can indicate your time commitment, how much time you want to be spending on the app. So, here I just indicated that I would like to spend about an hour per week on Tandem. So, that's probably about like 10-15 minutes a day. And also, the learning schedule that you're looking at. And also, you can indicate like your your correction preferences. So, how often should your language partner be correcting you? So, here I really want someone that is like a grammar Nazi when it comes to my mistakes, because I want to be very conscious of how I should be writing, and what are the correct forms of my grammar. So, I wrote here that I want someone to correct me every single time I make a mistake. So, that your language partner will know that this is the the the the amount of corrections that you would like him or her to to take note of and to correct your mistakes.
Let me show you some of the key features that I use within Tandem app, and the first is definitely the chat function. So, this is where you see all of the people that you can chat with. And there are some really cool tools that are really helpful within this chat function. So, sometimes, say when you are connecting with a language partner to you, in in my case, Spanish, and I don't really understand what he or she is typing, because I'm still not at a very proficient level. So, I like to use this translate function because it allows me to check exactly what he or she has written. So, in this in this example here, uh I read that she's saying that Chinese food is delicious. I finally had to eat spicier ones, but overall my mouth waters every time I think about that food. So, I wouldn't have been able to understand this entirely in Spanish, but with the translation function, it helps me to understand better.
And some really cool features is that I can actually choose how to respond back. And I always use this inspire feature. So, this is actually uh a prompt, a suggestion, or prompted by AI where it gives you suggestions on how best you can respond back to your language partner, which I think is super cool because a lot of times you don't really have a lot of inspiration on how to kick-start a conversation. So, in this case, I can explore back and tell her um te gustaría explorar más la cultura de alguna ciudad en particular, which means I can tell I can reply her back, "Would you like to explore the culture of a particular city more?" A big problem when it comes to language apps is that sometimes the conversation stalls and you don't really know how else to continue the conversation. So, this one has been really good in keeping up with the momentum of the conversation. And I also like to use this word finder. So, there have been many instances where I do not know the exact uh how do I translate a word to the target language I'm learning. So, for example, I don't know how to write the word luggage. So, I can type it here, luggage, and it literally helps me to find out what exactly it is in Spanish. So, luggage in Spanish is maletas or equipaje. So, when I don't understand a word or I cannot remember, I can use this function to to get the correct language.
The next feature is the community tab. This is where you can just scroll and browse and find language partners whom you find interesting and whom you think you can strike up a good conversation with. So, there are so many people from around the world and they often share like what are some of their interesting topics or where they are from, what they are fluent in. So, you can just look through the profiles and see if someone is interesting and if you like to chat with the person, you can either follow them first or send them a message or if you like you can even audio call or video call them.
The cool features for the pro users is that you can sort users based on your location. So, here you can see people that are living nearby you, not the exact location for privacy purposes, but it's really helpful if say you would like to connect with someone in person outside of the app. Let's say you've been talking for some time and if you would like to meet up with the person to meet for coffee, then this is a great feature because then you are actually talking to people that are within your city or around your radius.
There is also the travel tab. So, let's say for instance I'm going to Madrid soon. So, I can search by Madrid and here is going to show me all the different people that are based in Madrid and if I like I could actually click on one of them and talk to them and say that hi. Hola. ¿Cómo estás? So, that's a really great way for you to meet with locals say when you're traveling to different cities and also be able to pick up a conversation and meet them in real life.
One of the new features that I really like is this thing called language parties. So, think of this as an audio room where there are many people with different topics and they are all gathering to to to share about their interests and their hobbies. So, let's try joining one language party right now. There's one that say speak English or French. I think it's like a casual room where you can just speak anything in French. Let's join and see how it sounds like. >> française pendant les Okay, let's try to join. Sometimes I just join in just to listen for a couple of minutes, and if I'm interested or if I'm curious to share more, I can raise my hand to to talk. I think this is much more interactive and fun where you are learning in a group setting, and it's also less daunting than say starting immediately with a one-to-one conversation, which can feel a little bit intimidating for some people. This allows you to just listen as an observer, and if you feel like you have the courage, you can join in and participate and speak actively in the language room.
So, having used Tandem for over a month, what's my honest take on it, and would I recommend it? I would say it depends. So, I really think that this app is not going to replace your structured lessons. You still got to put in the hours when it comes to your grammar, your vocabulary, because these are the essential foundations, and it's not going to be replaced by just one single app. Where I think Tandem is going to shine and really going to elevate your learning journey is when it comes to bridging the gap between studying and speaking. This is the part where a lot of learners struggle with and still feel nervous when it comes to like speaking with a native, and this is where every features around the platform is really centered on helping you to connect with people, and I think this is really it makes learning much more and it's more fun. And it also reminds me that learning a language is not just about like studying. It's really about connecting with other people, learning other people's culture, like discovering hobbies and interests and so many features within the Tandem app that supports that. And I think it's really great that you also get to meet people, learn from other people's experiences through through languages.
If you would like to try Tandem yourself, I've included my discount code in the link down below. For the first 100 people that sign up through my link, you can enjoy 7 days of Tandem Pro for free. So, that gives you ample time to explore the different paid features and to see if this is a right fit for you. If you're currently learning a language, let me know down in the comments below. What are you learning at the moment and what are some of your biggest challenge when it comes to language learning? Thanks so much for watching and I will see you in my next one. Bye.