Tandem: Conversation exchange

I really want to leave more than three stars because this app is so fantastic in theory. The problem is that a lot of the time your messages are in accessible because you have to scroll up and then down and then up and then down and repeat about four or five times to actually get your messages to load. When I first downloaded the app I had gotten over 200 messages the first day and it made it really rough to talk to people and figure out who would be a good teacher and mentor and that I could help in the same way because with so many messages coming in and not being able to load more than the first 10 to 15 messages made it extremely difficult. Right now I have my free 30 day trial for pro and so far the pro options are really great. I would give this App five stars in a heartbeat if and only if we could get a little bit smoother interface and a better flow when trying to load Messages. This app has so much potential and you can really learn a lot there are many very helpful people I still highly recommend that you download this app and try to get to know people and talk with them about the languages you’re interested in because it’s still a very valuable app. I really haven’t had any issues with spammers or bots or Advertisements or anything like that which is great!

Honestly looking back at what I’ve written I’d move it down to 3.5 stars. I’ve had tandem for roughly 2 weeks. It’s a simple and fairly easy to use app. I’ve talked to multiple people online and have even tried out some of the tutors. Price wise it’s a bit expensive. If you want multiple tutors and keep the app monthly it adds up QUICK. On a smaller note I think there should be a better way that the app deals with tutors. It’s understandable that sometimes you’ll have to reschedule, but it’d be nice if there was some way to rebook or move a lesson around for both tutors and students. I’ve had to do that recently and I think my tutor is good for it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have anxiety that I’ve just lost about $17 because my tutor just wanted my money. It’s also a bit annoying that you have to pay the full amount for just an introduction to your tutor. I get we are taking their time away from things and they do deserve to be compensated, but could their be some kind of mandatory 10min conversation either through their chat or something where you guys get a feel for each other before spending any money?

Does have all the normal problems of language exchange sites, namely that it doesn't give enough prompting to start interesting conversations and you have to do all the work if you want to actually find practice buddies. I would love it if there were better search options, like self-assignable tags that allow you to search for people with similar interests. The existing search options also shouldn't be so limiting. I personally prefer to talk to non-natives learning the same languages as me because it's less intimidating. Also the "only show natives" and "only show perfect match" buttons shouldn't be mutually inclusive. I think the thing I dislike the most is the topic prompts. Almost everybody uses the dumb autogenerated topics like "I can teach you German grammar" or "Let's talk about what it means to be human", even if they have no interest in talking about that. It's a nice idea in concept but I think it at least needs more interesting, relatable prompts, and if possible just more incentivizing to customize your profile in general might go a long way towards more interesting conversations.

I only downloaded the app just today, so maybe that's not long enough to judge it, but I'm thinking of these things now. I really love having live conversations with people all over the world! I am mostly talking to people from the Spanish speaking world, but I can't figure out how to also search for and start a conversation with someone who speaks a different language (because I also want to improve my Korean). I have enjoyed my short text conversations, but I haven't used the video calls yet because of my schedule. Another problem I have with the app is that it has limited translation abilities, which I guess can be a good thing so you don't rely too heavily on built in translation, but sometimes it helps to move a conversation along faster if you can look up a word rather than ask "Cómo se dice "..." en inglés?" each time you don't know something. This app also has an option to play a language game with someone who is also active on the site at the moment, but it always says "connection failed" when I try to play a game, even over a strong wifi signal. If these small things are fixed, I'll definitely change my rating!

C’est super! This app does almost everything i want it too. I like the text functionality that allows you to correct & translate messages people send you. I also like that you can just send voice messages instead of calling each other. It’s much less pressure. Overall you get such a bang for your buck with this app and you get what you put into it. So far I’ve met many people who are serious about language learning. Very patient and willing to help you if you help them... the fact that you can skip the line and get a 7 day free trial for tandem pro (without entering any card information) is so nice. After only 2 days using pro I can say paying for a subscription is absolutely worth it. One functionality I’d like added is the ability to turn voice messages into text... at times if someone I’m chatting with doesn’t understand what I said in a voice message I write out everything I said. It would be nice if a speech to text feature was available for voice messages. Also at times I want to speak but I don’t know what words I want to say. The quick action translate button is handy for texting but not for speaking. This means if i toggle from a text translation to a voice message I lose what I just translated... and unless I have a great memory I forget what I wanted to say. If there was a way for the translation to still be seen on the screen where you record a voice message that would fix everything.