Language exchange apps: Maum(마음), HelloTalk(헬로우톡), and Tandem(탄뎀)

Hello, today I brought some apps,  Maum, HelloTalk, and Tandem.

Many language exchange apps nowadays, so please look through those apps.

(Will bring other app reviews in another post)

I started to study languages to make language practical use in some places or in tour.

The reason I picked 'Maum', 'HelloTalk', and 'Tandem' is both are great for simple language exchange with each's represented features on their apps in the great specialty.

Once you become friends through chatting, you can also have voice calls, which is a huge advantage that can practice both listening and speaking.

Interestingly, while using those apps, I noticed that many foreigners are actually residing in Korea and studying Korean. So, in the beginning, many of them mention that they are living in Korea. Perhaps this is because Tandem charges for the feature that allows you to search for friends who are close to your location, while Maum takes position in the other way.  Let's look through it each.

1. Maum(마음)

Here's the main page of the 'Maum' app.  You can choose the option for the best match with your Talk-mates.

• Select my interests, you can choose as many as possible.  Based on those you can meet and connect with your Talk-mates and can freely change interest anytime!
• Select 3 options: Age / Gender/ Country with my own taste.

Then, just simply tap the button below 'Search Talk-mates' 

This is the screen that you are calling users. You can naturally keep talking with your 'Talk-mates' (Words for users who are talking with) by seeing interests or checking conversation cards that make proper topics for the call.

You can see your recommended Talk-mates in three tabs which are moments / for you / new. 

In the 'New' tab, you can check your new signed-up users' feeds freely.

This is the 'for you' page. In here, you can check recommended friends based on your options, such as interest, preferred language, countries, etc.  If you can make conversation with certain friends,  you can tab 3 dots on the right side, and start chatting.

You can freely chat with your mates in your preferred languages. For any language, it doesn't matter because there are translation features so it makes you check chat in your preferred language.  

And if you want to continue talking with your friend, you can just simply tap the call icon on the right top to call!

At the early step, I can choose your preferred languages.  Based on my priority on this, I will match and meet with my friends in my preferred languages.  Of course, it can be freely changed by my choice.

There's a page that can freely make my page (feeds) like Instagram.  Here,  my chosen interest and uploaded pictures are shown. Anyone who likes to make their own SNS variety will like this.

When the call ended,  it made me try to connect with other Talk-mates with the same interests as best as could.

There's a page called Moment, I think this is the page for free to communicate community on any topic with all users.  Can reply to any posts.   If the conversation and common interests are very fit,  can chat with your mates or make the call.

 

Good things:  Connect and matching with Talk-mates are fast and there are so many nice people who can make meaningful and pleasant calls and chats.  Private thing such as the face, and other personal information is not essential to be shared, but can make talk very much safe.   For the purpose of language exchange,  this is a great app for users in real speaking with users from various countries.  Much beneficial to learn and study languages.

 

Weak things:  Call makes connect very fast, new users are might a bit confused,  but this is going to be get used to it.

Balloons(virtual items to use service) are a bit expensive for use service, but there are missions and events to earn them. 

 

Direct install link below:

https://maumapp.page.link/HKvKzMDHdAZELsg8A

Maum - Friendly Voice Chat

2.HelloTalk (헬로우톡)

 

 

HelloTalk is also a simple and distinctive system and images follow the right sequence. As for the purpose of language exchange, the very first page can see is the list of language talk friends whom I am talking with. And the upside, there are few lists of frequently used features in most HelloTalk users.  And bottom menu also has contents of user-friendly features.

 

This is the Moment page and has various menus for checking lists and posts by user's preference, I felt that HelloTalk has put more effort into it because it is not a free post with everything with any gossip and normal daily life with chat up with a storm, but even in a single post user can make correction each for the right use of certain languages, so users and viewers can learn and study more about languages with better use. 

The 'Best' tap menu is based on one language that one wants to learn and one' native language, nearby is based on one's living location and area of the country, can see other friends who are near one's site.  

One can click the Unlock button, even if it needs to be charged to use more service features, but it allows someone to see more friends nearby, which makes it possible to contact more people.

 

Chatting has also various features to follow the purpose of language exchange, such as grammar check, translation, correction, practice, etc. 

I think translation is the most useful, because for language talk and chat,  translation is the basic and fundamental feature but, here HelloTalk provides translation service for most languages. 

Others are also can send images, make, give a present, set a location, have a call so on and on! 

 

 

Also, it has features of live streaming and radio for voice only.   

And those lists are shown based on one's start language and native language.  Users can select listen and enjoy live streaming in their own preferred language.

Of course, can change languages anytime in settings once set any languages either native or learning, priority options and list are changed at the same time, so any effort to change its options in the filter is not needed.

One who really wants to learn and study languages, can check those on the Find partners page and look at paid practice, serious learners, or others.  Paid partners can pay the user with HelloTalk's virtual item, the coin, and get lessons and teach.  Or serious learners, who are literally study partners for certain languages.   

You can see the profile for making choose partners, but someone who did make more hundreds of times, a maximum thousand times for practical actions of language study purpose,  but I think I can't even keep up with my toes even in a single try...

 

Good things:  There are so many features to study and learn languages in a practical way.  One can be a mentor or mentee for certain languages and has interesting features to enjoy studying and learning.

 

Weak things:  In terms of proper use of this app,  have to charge on some features and get more connection with users for the effective way to get to the field of language exchange. It may vary and depend on the user's pattern or personality but it's a good app regarding languages.

 

Download page link:

https://brc.hellotalk.com/uywseWUzTCb

Join me to practice languages on HelloTalk!

 

3. Tandem(탄뎀)

The Tandem feature is quite interesting and easy. I can see users who have visited and by mapping, can see and check a friend's location based on my spot and contact them nearby me.  Some of the option filters make users use this feature better.

This is best because it could be a solution for the time gap issue with communicating with friends without waiting to connect between users to have a talk.

 

Another great feature of Tandem is the "Party" which can make it possible to communicate more than once, as a group call.  For the purpose of language exchange and free talk, this is useful to talk with users regardless of country.  Some details are as follows:

• Users can act as hosts and create voice chat rooms called "parties" on various topics.
• Other users can freely join these parties as listeners or participants.
• There are interactive features like hand or heart icons at the bottom of the screen that allow users to express themselves or make comments during the party.
• The host of the party can grant permission to other participants, allowing them to also speak and participate as speakers.
• The app supports a wide range of languages, not limited to just English but also including Spanish, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, and more.
• Users can create parties with combinations of different languages, such as English & Spanish, Korean & Japanese, English & Korean, Spanish & Korean, etc.

---> The following type of feature seems to be designed for social interaction, language exchange, and discussion across various topics and languages. It provides a dynamic and interactive environment for users to engage with each other and connect on a global scale.

Also, chatting is also available in Tandem, so I can freely chat with them,  and translate any chat message into my preferred languages so natural continuous chat is possible here.

 

The tutoring feature is also possible to use in Tandem.  In this, I can learn or study certain languages in a professional and great way.  So if one who wants to learn and practice with the best effort,  this will be very helpful to one's language skills.

 

Good things:  Can connect and match with a foreign friend easily and tutoring and pary features are focused on the one who really wants to learn or study languages for the purpose of grammar, text which is a more professional way.

 

Weak things:  There might be uncomfortable and resistance to using the service because most main features and services need charges to use.  But it provides a subscription model with 3 options, so once it is charged, can use all services.

 

Download page link:

 

Tandem integrated link

Download the app

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These are the apps that I most frequently use.  Using an app with suits its own purpose, would be very helpful to one's language skills and other uses for one's goal and I want to recommend it in terms of languages.