This thought of making foreign language partners never occurred to me but I was motivated after a link in a friend's blog brought me to a language exchange community..Some 'communities' require you to pay to register so that you can talk to partners...Most are free...I'll recommend the few I go to at the end of this...
To start out, I wrote up my profile stating my korean language interest and of course, what I could offer to my prospective language partners...After which, I realized just as I am looking for Koreans to teach me English, there are as many Koreans looking for 'native' English speakers like me...Well, I had more to offer..Chinese...haha..Think my deteriorated A2 Chinese still can make it to teach foreigners..errr..yeah..should be..I just got a Korean who said he wanted to learn Chinese from me...haha..good luck to us~
My first language partner's 문영 Moon-Young~hehe..She's sweet..left a couple of msgs on my guestbook and then I added her on MSN...But haven't seen her online for much..So yeah..haven't talked much...But I did manage to find out from her that average salary of an office worker in Seoul is paid about 1.5 times higher than a Singaporean...BUT..If you've been to Korea..You'll know..that's just ample for a normal standard of living there...For instance, a movie ticket is fixed at 8000 won (about S$13 )~
However, on the language side..hehe..I am not absorbing as fast...I try hard to jot down all those phrases and words my Korean friends mention..along with their meanings..but I've not been really able to recite or use them in my convos without referring to the notes I've made.Aish..guess I need more hard work...
Jus for the stats..Made about 15 Korean language partners so far...Anyway..This language exchange thingy also let me partially fulfill my childhood dream of being a teacher since I really had quite a bit to teach as more words filled our convos...
As promised..If you wish to exchange languages with foreigners...whether its Korean or not, I'm recommending these two for starters
www.hanlingo.com > Mainly to learn/teach Korean or English..
www.sharedtalk.com > To instantly chat with foreigners from all over the world
