It'll be a year since I found Tandem. I was looking for apps to try to improve in Latin. Haven't found any. I still thought that Tandem might have people to interact with in Latin, although I did install it and immediately was drawn to Italian, which I always wanted to learn, but never had the money. (Before Tandem I thought I needed to pay in order to learn a language...) But it was unexplainable to hear the Italians chitchat, you know? It felt like "wow! now I can learn Italian!"
It's been 10 months of Tandem and Duolingo. As a Portuguese native speaker, Italian isn't that far away. Duolingo gave me a good basic knowledge. (I also have a verb book, and conjugated a few Italian verbs, to get a general notion of it. I should do it more, it feels like, but, well...) Now I'm beginning to force myself to speak a little more Italian on Tandem, and I will try to begin use Falou (another app, focused on speech). Then, after a couple of months, I'll jump on to Busuu Italian, and try to go on learning, acquiring language on Busuu.
(The reason for the interval is that Duolingo is a little game, as some here might know, and I want to reach 365 days using it before I break, so I decided to begin learning Czech, on Duolingo, so as to have the experience of a language really different from my own, and test the app a little on that... It's a little harder to find people making language parties in Czech on Tandem though, but you can find them. But I'm not yet looking for that, because I'm too basic in Czech, and I'm just trying to get the jist of it with Duolingo before I try any interactions. After 365 days though, I'll reduce the rythm on Czech -- not interrupt, but radically reduce -- because I'll go back to Italian, which is my priority, and will go on with Italian on Busuu, as I said above.)
I really enjoy Tandem. There was a time there was a bug on the app, and I couldn't have access to the language parties (audio rooms), so I tried Clubhouse, but Clubhouse is not language oriented, so it doesn't work the same way as Tandem. Tandem is really interesting, because people there are really open, and you don't only practice language, you also make friends, if you are friendly enough. It's also fascinating to be able to be instantly in contact with people from all around the world, no matter what time zone: There's always someone awake. It's really funny, I usually get the night owl Italians, because the time gap now is 5 hours from Central Europe to Brazil, and there are always some Italian there when it's like 9 o'clock in Brazil! It's also great to make parties in English, you find a lot of people from Indonesia, Taiwan, etc, beginning their (next) day... It's really amazing! I interacted with a guy from Nepal, recently, he was talking to me about his culture, and the Geography of Nepal. I'd never had known anything if I hadn't talked to him. I didn't know about the political stress that there is between Taiwan and China, which I came to know talking with Taiwanese folks. Also, I met recently a girl from Cyprus, who was saying that there is political tension there too, because a while back in the 20th century, I think, Turkey occupied part of the island, so it's divided in two know, the northeast is Turkish, the southwest is of Greek culture. She also told me that, although very distant, Cyprian Greek resembles ancient Greek a little more than continental Greek, in vocabulary...
Does anyone here use Tandem?
It's been 10 months of Tandem and Duolingo. As a Portuguese native speaker, Italian isn't that far away. Duolingo gave me a good basic knowledge. (I also have a verb book, and conjugated a few Italian verbs, to get a general notion of it. I should do it more, it feels like, but, well...) Now I'm beginning to force myself to speak a little more Italian on Tandem, and I will try to begin use Falou (another app, focused on speech). Then, after a couple of months, I'll jump on to Busuu Italian, and try to go on learning, acquiring language on Busuu.
(The reason for the interval is that Duolingo is a little game, as some here might know, and I want to reach 365 days using it before I break, so I decided to begin learning Czech, on Duolingo, so as to have the experience of a language really different from my own, and test the app a little on that... It's a little harder to find people making language parties in Czech on Tandem though, but you can find them. But I'm not yet looking for that, because I'm too basic in Czech, and I'm just trying to get the jist of it with Duolingo before I try any interactions. After 365 days though, I'll reduce the rythm on Czech -- not interrupt, but radically reduce -- because I'll go back to Italian, which is my priority, and will go on with Italian on Busuu, as I said above.)
I really enjoy Tandem. There was a time there was a bug on the app, and I couldn't have access to the language parties (audio rooms), so I tried Clubhouse, but Clubhouse is not language oriented, so it doesn't work the same way as Tandem. Tandem is really interesting, because people there are really open, and you don't only practice language, you also make friends, if you are friendly enough. It's also fascinating to be able to be instantly in contact with people from all around the world, no matter what time zone: There's always someone awake. It's really funny, I usually get the night owl Italians, because the time gap now is 5 hours from Central Europe to Brazil, and there are always some Italian there when it's like 9 o'clock in Brazil! It's also great to make parties in English, you find a lot of people from Indonesia, Taiwan, etc, beginning their (next) day... It's really amazing! I interacted with a guy from Nepal, recently, he was talking to me about his culture, and the Geography of Nepal. I'd never had known anything if I hadn't talked to him. I didn't know about the political stress that there is between Taiwan and China, which I came to know talking with Taiwanese folks. Also, I met recently a girl from Cyprus, who was saying that there is political tension there too, because a while back in the 20th century, I think, Turkey occupied part of the island, so it's divided in two know, the northeast is Turkish, the southwest is of Greek culture. She also told me that, although very distant, Cyprian Greek resembles ancient Greek a little more than continental Greek, in vocabulary...
Does anyone here use Tandem?
