Should You Use iTalki for Free Language Exchange? (iTalki Detailed Review)

Language learning has become one of the most important hobbies at present time. Most people have started learning a new language either due to personal interest or to get good jobs and admissions in colleges and universities. If you also want to learn a new language but are not sure what platform to choose then iTalki can be a perfect choice for you. If you are not sure about this platform then here we will help you to discuss whether should you use iTalki for free language exchange or not.

Quick Takeaways

• Italki is a platform where you can learn various languages with the help of different tutors.
• The price for getting classes on this platform can be as low as $5 per class to as high as $60. 
• You can get up to 100 languages on this platform.
• There are many other free features like language exchange partners that will help you in boosting of your language knowledge.
• If you do not want to use money, you must try to free language exchange partner feature that will help you learn the language.

However, you must read till the end so that you get a detailed review on iTalki and you use iTalki for free language exchange.

What is the iTtalki app?

iTalki is the platform where you can learn various languages (just like Duolingo) with the help of different tutors. On this platform, you can either take one-on-one sessions or group sessions according to your own choice. It does not matter whether you are learning Estonian or Tagalog language, you will get tutors in each and every language. There are over 100 languages that you can take up to learn the language. You can choose the tutor that perfectly fits in based on your needs like style, schedule, personality, etc.

All the teachers have different pricing and their own scheduled timings. The classes on the platform are generally taken on Skype but there are a lot of other options like Facetime, WeChat, etc still available. If you already know a second language then you can also earn from it by becoming a tutor on it. If you are interested in learning more about how to use it as a tutoring platform then go through this guide.

Should you use iTalki for free language exchange?

Whether you should use iTalki platform or not will depend upon your own personal needs. If you are a person who wants to have someone who can personally teach you then this platform is for you. You can enrol in group classes or take up one of one session depending upon your needs. Below we will be discussing some benefits and drawbacks of using iTalki platform for language learning-

Benefits

The following are the benefits of using iTalki platform for learning the language-

• As mentioned earlier there are a lot of tutors available for learning languages even which are less popular.
• Many of the skilled tutors have low prices. You can get classes starting from as low as $5 to as high as $60.
• You can schedule the class according to your convenience as there are multiple tutors on the platform.
• With this platform, you can also ask questions from your tutors and also find a free language exchange partner.
• The free language exchange partner program can help you connect with a lot of people who will help you develop your language knowledge.
• There are a lot of other communities that will help you to work more on your language like Discover, exercises, questions, language exchange partners, etc.

Drawbacks

The following are the drawbacks of using iTalki platform for learning the language-

• You need to book the class in advance.
• When you are using iTalki on the app then there is no community feature available on it.
• You may need to give it a try to a lot of tutors till you find the best one for you.
• Although now you know what are major benefits and drawbacks of the platform let us understand other things related to the platform in detail.

Further, we will help you to get a detailed review of iTalki so that you can decide if it 9is a better choice for learning the language or not.

What are the languages available on the platform?

As discussed above you can choose from 100 different languages which have different numbers of tutors. Following is the list of some of the languages along with the number of tutors available on the platform-

Languages	Number of Tutors
English	4680
French	834
Spanish	1916
Greek	76
Korean	230
Portuguese	389
German	501
Romanian	47
Afrikaans	36
ASL	9

To find out what other languages are available on the platform click here.

What are the different types of Tutors on the platform?

When you are using the iTalki platform, the first thing that you will need to remember is that there are only two types of tutors available on the platform – Community and Professional tutors. Further, we will  help you to know more about them one by one-

1. Community tutors

Community tutors are the ones who are native speakers of the language they are teaching or have advanced knowledge of it. The price for them is also generally lower than that of professional tutors. If you are learning the language just for casual conversations then you must go for community tutors.

2. Professional tutors

Professional tutors are the ones who are verified by the members of the iTalki platform. These are the tutors who have varied documents like university degrees in education, professional teaching experience, teaching certificates, etc. They are the tutors who generally have higher teaching experience and can be a great choice for you if you are interested in deepening your language knowledge. 

However, you must remember that every tutor has a unique style of teaching and therefore you must understand their teaching style first. There are many community tutors that are much better than the professional tutors. Thus when you want to choose the tutor, you will need to ask the following questions yourself-

• Are you looking for a tutor who could help you understand the grammar rules?
• If you want to focus on casual conversations or deepen your language knowledge?
• What are the things that you like or dislike in lessons?
• Are you having a specific material that you want to go through?

Just like these, there are many other questions like if you want to have a practical approach or not while you are studying. Keep in mind the answer to such questions and then decide which type of tutor you want to have. Further, we have discussed how can you schedule the classroom.

How to schedule the class?

Once you have decided what type of tutor you want, you will need to look for the right tutor. However, due to the availability of a large number of tutors, there is great confusion in choosing the right tutor for yourself. Thus there are a lot of different features through which you can get the right tutor for yourself. The filter option can help you to choose the right tutor for you. You can find out where is your tutor from, ratings, availability of their classes, etc. You will be getting all the related information in a video or return introduction.

Once you click on the tutor you will see the tutor profile that will have more information about them. You will see the greetings that the tutor has received. It will help you decide whether are good at teaching or not. There is also a statistics option where you can look at how many lessons you have completed and what has been detected trade.

What is the payment method for the iTalki class?

For taking up the lessons on the platform you will either need to buy the package of iTalki credits or pay for the lesson you are taking up from a specific teacher. There are two main ways to pay the fees either through a debit card or through a bank transfer. When you are paying the fees there is also a processing fee attached to it. Suppose you are buying the credits worth $10 through a debit card then the processing fee will be $0.69.

However, if you are buying credits through bank transfer then the processing fee increases to $8.40 which is huge. Also when you are buying more credits, it will help you to get more discounts. Further, an important note that you must remember is that you must focus on purchasing the credits rather than on buying up the lessons. It is because it will help you to save your processing fee when you pay for different tutors during the trial class. Also, you will not be getting a refund of the credits and thus you must not purchase higher credits. 

Is iTalki legit?

Yes, iTalki is a legitimate platform where you can get tutors to teach you a specific language. There are over 5 million students that are using this platform to learn the language which makes it a much more reliable platform. Further, it also has over 10,000 tutors which gives you more opportunity to decide which tutor to choose from.

What kind of lessons can be expected on iTalki?

Well, every student has a different learning style and teacher needs. What I would prefer in a teacher, you may not like it. There may be lessons which may be too long and you just want to get rid of it. Whereas there may be lessons which may be so interesting that the duration of the class may be less for you. In such a case you must try to take the trial class with several tutors before deciding which teacher you want to go for.

What are the different communities that you get on iTalki?

Another important feature of iTalki is the variety of communities that you will get on the platform. Following are different communities that you get on iTalki-

1. Discover

Discover is the community in which you will get different content created by other members of the platform.

 

2. Topics and post

Here you will get the for you section, where you will see a lot of posts in which you might be interested. You will see a lot of categories in which there will be different topics. There will be general topics like books, food, etc. 

3. Exercises

It is another free feature in which you will be improving your writing skills in the targeted language. The feature is specifically designed for developing your writing skills and boosting your confidence. It is because whatever you will be writing up on the platform, strangers will also look at it. If you are working on this feature try to correct the mistakes of other people as well.

4. Questions

In this section, you are allowed to freely ask questions about the languages of anyone. You may ask the questions related to the language. Some of the common questions that you can ask are either related to grammar or words to use in a certain context in addition to that you can also ask other questions that you come across them. When you post the questions, you also get the answers for them. At the same time when you will be going through various questions, make sure to answer them if you know the answers. 

5. Langauge exchange partners

If you do not want to spend money on buying lessons on iTalki or the credits on the platform then these features are for you. Earlier it was too easy to find a language exchange partner on the platform. But with the current updates, it is not as simple as it was once. Now you will need to first message the language learners with a connecting post in which you will have to say that you are looking for someone to connect. However, just features still have a high potential to get more understanding of language.

This feature helps you to characters your language skills with another person easily. When you will find out a language exchange partner then the person may help you in developing basic knowledge. Further when you find someone with whom you already have a good chat, then you can also add them as your friend. There are also many teachers who take part in language exchange programs.

Conclusion 

Italki is a platform on which you will learn various languages to learn from. It is a flat form where you will find a lot of tutors to learn a specific language. The price you pay will depend upon what kind of language you choose and on the tutor itself. The price can be as low as $5 to as high as $60. If you do not want to pay the price then you can take advantage of free features like language exchange partner. A language exchange partner on iTalki can help you in boosting up your skills and will help you to improve the mistakes you are making commonly.