Experience With HelloTalk

I can’t tell if this is a real app. Sounds weird but let me explain.

Annoying ads and popups aside, I can’t tell if the users themselves are “real” sometimes.

Of course, half the guys on here are looking to date someone from another country, for whatever reason. Half the non-English speaking women seem to be not actual English learners and are looking for visas.

For the remainder of the people who will engage in “normal” human interactions, a good chunk of them seem to be NPCs, responding like an AI chat bot. I can’t tell if they’re actually real people. They could also just be just pasting Google or LLM Translated messages to me, who knows.

So that leaves about 10% of people who will talk to you. I mean all I really needed was 1 person to talk to, so I’m not unhappy with it. Then again, being on the app itself is quite a hassle, with the ads. I’d like to move off of there and talk on another platform, but then I’d be the one to come off as weird.

Overall, horrendous UX, to be honest. I’m just curious if anyone has ideas, comments, concerns, or feedback, regarding HelloTalk.

I'd love to do a visa deal with someone lmao

They can live in this shothole that's the UK (why they would want to is beyond me) and I can live in Japan lol.
Makes me wanna use hello talk

I started in 2017 and it was pretty nice. Over time I gained around 100 followers and they were very nice and helpful. Made a couple friends too.

During covid I started doing voice and it was very helpful as well

Last month I installed it again several years and it definitely feels less personal and sometimes shadier

Used HelloTalk a bit. Talked to a couple of good people but like you mentioned, few seem to be really there for language learning. I found most people on there weren't trying to learn a language and were just using a translation app to talk to you which is a shame. I think even if they aren't, because using another language that isn't your own is hard, conversations naturally aren't the most interesting because you can't really express yourself perfectly and are limited on what you can talk about.

Agree that the UI/UX is a horrid experience and it's a horribly built app.

Tandem is flat out better than HelloTalk in every aspect. UI is clean and modern, less scummy subscription model, free public voice rooms, fewer bots.

You still have to talk to like 100 people to find 1 person who you hit it off with but that's I guess just life lol

When you find someone good tho, try to move to LINE or something ASAP. People will eventually get tired of using the langEx app and will disappear. If you're on LINE then it's just part of every day life than a specific activity you both have to maintain.

My experience with HelloTalk is very recent, it looks like a dating app that started out as something else, chicks using it as social media and farming likes/followers, dudes just commenting on their stuff as if it was Instagram. There seemed to be auto-translation things and whatnot which I didn't fully get... not even sure why that's really a thing.

Similar to dating apps, if you're a chick you'll have an easy time finding tons of people willing to talk to you in whatever language you want, if not then tough luck, there's still people who will use it for language learning but it seems hard to find them.

I got recommended HelloTalk recently, is it that bad?

\>You still have to talk to like 100 people to find 1 person who you hit it off with

Is this a job application process? is it that hard to find someone to talk to?

I’ve had no problem with it. Of course, there are bots and scammers but there are real people too.

I’ve met 3 people from hello talk when I went to Japan. When you use it to study and learn languages rather than most people do (for dating) you can meet people who will talk and help.

It’s not the best app, but I used it to help with speaking practice and I’ve been lucky to meet real people and make good friendships.

Found so interesting many people there
But I recommended it to many friends who didnt had the same luck

Its like every Social Media if you look good and are interesting you will have more success

Finding someone you actually enjoy talking to on a daily basis without it feeling like a chore is not that simple...

Oh yes, especially when you want to talk for longer periods to do more than the basic smalltalk at the beginning. I have tandem for around a year and I have found 2 persons 😝

Voicerooms are the only thing I use, I ignore new chats. I only chat with people I've met in a voiceroom