Finding a foreign language exchange partner can be very easy if you take the right approach. I was able to find exchange partners when I was living in Germany even though most of the people that I would meet were really interested in German and I was not a native German speaker. Still because of my attitude, I was able to overcome some obstacles to which otherwise would’ve doomed to be without a foreign language partner or to have to have paid a foreign language partner to spend time with me.
If you happen to be in the larger city one of the best ways to find a foreign language partner is through the university language department. You can either call of now probably go online and see if there is some sort of service or language board or bulletin board where you might be able to post your interest in finding a language partner. If that doesn’t work, I’d make a phone call to the university to the language department. Normally, the people there are very helpful especially if it is a public university.
If you have problems finding a language partner at the university or you don’t live near university town and so the distance to get there would be too much to make it worthwhile then a second alternative or an alternative to the university would using a website such as MeetUp.com. MeetUp.com basically brings people in a local area together for all kinds of different situations and definitely there are a lot of groups for studying foreign languages.
Another possibility is a virtual language exchange partner which you could find by going to a website such as MyLanguageExchange.com. There they have an interface where you can sign up and find people wanting to learn your language offering their language in exchange and you can filter by whether the person is interested in only chatting, only sending emails or doing voice chat which is something that you can easily do in a program like Skype.
Whatever you do, try to find a language partner as soon as possible. It will definitely make it easier for you to continue and to advance your language skills.
Roger Easlick is passionate about languages and would like to get you motivated to start speaking a foreign language today. For more information, check out his website at www.CrushALanguage.com.
