Probably going to move to tandem or some other similar app. Used to be good, but now it's just become a premium scam and it's hard to meet anybody now. I've had lots of conversations that the person blocked/reported after only a minute of chatting. I asked "where are you from?" on an app about meeting people internationally and got restricted. I used to have a lot of fun posting things and getting hundreds of likes and comments, now I want my wasted premium money back.
Milinium O
A really great app for connecting with native speakers of your target language. I have been using this for months and it doesn't really have any draw backs. Just like on any social platform, weird and untrustworthy people will message you, but you can just report and block them. I really love this app, it is so helpful in learning laguages, and even has it's own classes you can take (even ones with live teachers). You can easily use it for free, or pay extra for a few additional features.
A Google user
No other app has given me access to native speakers of a target language! It's so easy to correct someone's writing in the app but I'm most interested in practicing my speaking, but unfortunately, HelloTalk doesn't have a great option for this. You can send voice messages, but they can only be 60 seconds and it's very difficult to have a conversation like that. I hope they update the app so you can make phone calls so I don't have to go to a different app to do this!
Hui An Xin
While this is a nice app for regular language partner use in a variety of languages, there is a MAJOR issue regarding synchronizing with the web version. Messages regularly delete themselves, and are wiped from the phone and the computer, despite being normal conversation that does that violate any rules. It's purely a matter of synchronizing messages, which fails more often than not. Makes keeping track of conversations incredibly frustrating. Both phone and computer connections are good.
Brian Katchmar
It's an amazing companion app for learning languages. Finding people to talk to is easy. I really want to give this 5 stars, but the number of notifications I get from this app is insane. The number of people who try to talk to me is enormous, some of these people send me 5 or 6 messages at a time before I can respond, and the app sends me a notification for each one. It turns my phone into a constantly chiming device. This app needs to really limit the number of notifications it sends.
M
Tried using it to help me learn Japanese. I didn't find this app to be a helpful at all, in all honesty. It's mostly just foreign guys trying to hit on Japanese girls as something of a substitute for Tinder. Out of 10 people on here, maybe 1 or 2 were genuinely interested in helping TEACH Japanese rather than solely taking in English lessons or seeking more attention on their posts. Of course, the scene of different languages might be different. This was solely my take as a Japanese learner.
Keith Wood
This is a very good app because I can learn languages by speaking to native people and not to AI. The people are very friendly and serious about learning foreign languages. I also can help those who are learning English. The only downfall to HT that it is very limited. A subscription is needed to do the extra activities, make more friends and have unlimited translations. I have to use Google translate to get the translations when I run out of my daily translations which I only get about 5 daily.
Noah VanderVeen
I personally really like this app, and have learned quite a bit just within a couple days of having it, especially through corrections of my "moments" posts. Speaking of moments, I wish there was an option in moments to be able to post videos, as there's some clips of my hobbies I would like to share. If there is a way to post video clips and I just missed it, then this critique can be disregarded :)
ShxdyNeo
I really like the concept - it makes it super easy to learn from native speakers (the best way!). I really don't like how the app limits how much you can translate, and I have to either pay, or take an extra step and use Google/Microsoft. You can't even just remove the translate button; each time I tap a message instead of holding it, I'm presented with an ad to pay for the app. It calls itself free to communicate, but it's not as free as it sounds.
Michael
Works very well, lacking stickers (unless I can't find the others) but the app is very fast and very simple to figure out. It's unfortunate that there isn't a word-for-word dictionary lookup, but perhaps that's something that can be added in the future. Edit: 7 years later, I've gotta lower my rating. The app is basically unusable is you don't pay. Everything you press leads you to the subscription screen. Nobody messages back anymore. Notifications don't seem to arrive on time or at all.
