Where To Find Language Exchange Partners

Can anyone recommend websites to find ONLINE language exchange partners for European Portuguese? Those I have seen so far seem to mainly have Brazilian Portuguese members. All suggestions welcome!

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Hi Melinda. The 2 I know of are iTalki and HelloTalk.

With iTalki there is a cost involved. With HelloTalk there is a free offering with a paid version.

They are both highly rated services.

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I tried ITALKI on a recommendation from a friend who is doing intermediate to advanced German. He found a partner and they have become good friends.

For me it was a dud. Mostly it was because the people I came in contact with spoke BRASILIAN PORTUGUES, and that is not what I preferred. Very few were signed up as European Portugues. So I do not use the service anymore.

It is hard to find someone who is at a similar level of experience in the language.

You can try it and maybe have better luck!

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I agree that there are more teachers from Brazil than there are from Portugal, but from my search I get around 25 teaches from Portugal, which is great based on my beginner level. With HelloTalk there’s also more Brazilian than Portuguese speakers.

https://www.italki.com/teachers/portuguese?from[0]=PT

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Yes, thank you for the information! if you got 25 teacher-referrals for your efforts, then that should be enough to start with. I only found three. Maybe I did not search enough options. But, I was surprised at the low number. I have pretty much abandoned the idea of getting a teacher for my beginning level. I have a long ways to go. I only understand 20/30% of what I read in Portuguese revistas and journais. The newscast videos are hardest. Maybe I get five percent of what I hear, and they actually speak reasonably clearly. My listening comprehension level in PP on the “Shorties” is only ten percent, and that is being generous! My reading comprehension on the “Shorties” runs at least 60 percent, however. It shows me that I am learning to read Portuguese, but that I cannot understand the spoken word.

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Thank-you!

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I had the same experience with iTalki as well (more Brasilians than Europeans signed up for language partners).

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Both iTalki and Preply (similar kind of service) let you sort by where the person is from, so if you limit it to Portugal, and possibly former colonies, you will find people who are likely to speak European Portuguese. The next step would be to review the person’s bio or video profile and see if they say where they are from originally — or even ask them directly.