Hi there! I am Vas from Russia. I love learning languages, and I often practice language exchange. I want my learning sessions to be productive both for me and for my partners. Below, I’ve summarized my thoughts about the practice.

A short summary

  • Everyone has their own way of learning. I am happy to teach you Russian/English using the approach of your choice. Please teach me Thai/Mandarin using the approach which works for me. We might learn differently and that’s ok.

  • I want to learn how to speak. That’s why I ask to make audio or video calls. If you want to learn from me by chatting, I’ll be happy to spend time chatting. But please spend the same amount of time talking to me.

  • Strait to action. If you are interested let’s schedule a call. I am in GMT+7. These days I am busy with work so I can practice mostly at evenings or on weekends.

  • Chatting doesn’t work for me. Chatting makes me constantly switching from one activity to another. This makes me less focused and more anxious. Doing 1 activity at a time makes me less anxious, more focused, easy-going, and happy. Better let’s have 20min conversation than chatting for 2 hours.

What we should practice

My belief is that we should concentrate on having positive experience. Practice should be easy, so that you want to practice again and again.

First of all, we need to eliminate difficulties:

  • simplify scheduling

    I am very flexible and it’s easy to reach me out. We can practice only once or we can agree to practice regularly. The practice can take 15 minutes or 1 hour. Everything will work.

  • eliminate fear of failure

    Memorizing things takes a lot of time and I understand that. I am ok repeating things 40 times. You don’t need to record words on paper, I am ok repeating it for you. You also don’t need to prepare. Practice should be easy and there should be no fear of failure.

Then you need to find a reward. It’s hard to track your progress especially with language which has “tricky” pronunciation. It’s really hard to measure how much better your comprehension is today compared to yesterday.

I would say, you should find reward in practice itself. Find songs and listen to them regularly. Discuss topics that are interesting for you. Find a movie and watch your favorite episodes again and again. Notice how your comprehension improves over time.

How we can practice

This mainly depends on your current language level. People often fear that “there will be no things to discuss and there will be a moment of awkward silence”. I’ll give a few strategies for different levels of proficiency:

  1. Pointing at things in the environment and naming them.

    I can point at my hand and say “Рука” in Russian. For sure you will understand. There are many objects around which I can show and name. I can introduce some concepts like “color” or “shape”. I can show some actions. Frankly speaking, we can spend weeks training like this.

  2. Making requests. Asking questions.

    I can ask Yes/No questions about things I’ve just shown. It’s easy to understand and answer such questions. Eventually, I can ask you to do something. Like “show your hand”, “close the window”, etc. We can practice like this and with enough repetition, you’ll learn the basics of languages.

  3. Discussing pictures.

    My room doesn’t have all the objects you might encounter in your daily life. But I can show you pictures. I’ll point at a person and say “This is a person”. Easy to understand. I’ll ask questions as well.

  4. Discussing stories.

    Pictures don’t capture much interaction. But stories do. Stories introduce concepts of time and causality, hypothetical reasoning, and other abstract concepts.

    You can discuss movies/cartoons, children picture books, you can create your own stories. I like to draw pictures and telling a story at the same time.

  5. Discussing certain topics

    We can just agree ahead of time to discuss a given topic. Because we agreed on the topic in advance, we can research information before the session.

Which languages we can practice

I learn Thai and Mandarin. I can speak English and Russian.

English

Most people gave me positive feedback about my English skills and I have several language exchange partners who practice English with me.

  • My speaking is good enough

    I’ve been living abroad for 2 years and I use English for everyday communication. I am fairly comfortable using English for almost everything.

  • It’s not perfect though

    I speak with a Russian accent and occasionally I wave hands to explain things.

  • My grammar sucks

    Sorry for that :(

Russian

  • My speaking is good.

    Russian is my mother tongue and I speak very well. I can’t say the same about my writing: I write with mistakes.

  • My grammar is ok.

    If you are just starting out and you want to ask me questions about grammar, I’ll probably be able to answer.

  • I am patient enough to teach people from 0.

    I have some experience helping people to start learning Russian from 0. It takes patience, but you can learn it and I can help you.

What software to use

Any video conference app would work. I prefer Google Meet, but we can use meet.jit.si, weechat, or even Tandem app. The reason why I prefer Google Meet is because I can connect from my PC and from my phone in the same time. PC allows me to record meetings. Using the phone allows me to capture a sketchbook while I am drawing.

Frequently asked questions

Q. Can we just send a voice message in Weechat?

A. Chatting doesn’t work well for me. Voice messages are good and they help you to hear your own speech. But the difficulty with chatting is that it requires me to switch from one activity to another. This is time-consuming and it makes me more distracted. I prefer doing 1 activity at a time.

Q. We don’t know each other, I am shy to do audio/video calls.

A. Chances are, we will never meet in real life. We are practicing over the Internet; I am not a part of your everyday Environment. The practical chance of meeting without mutual cooperation is 0. I’ll not affect your everyday life in any negative way. Just reflect on your negative feeling, and try to identify what is their real source. Also realize, that achieving something requires going outside of a comfort zone.

Q. Do you want to meet friends?

A. I do! And I consider everyone who helps me as a friend. That’s why the more we practice the better friends we are. Speaking Mandarin is part of me. And everyone who helped me to learn Mandarin has a place in my memory and in my heart.

Q. Do you want to meet in real life?

A. I travel quite often and I certainly will be happy to meet if we have a chance. At the same time, I am completely ok with Internet friends. Some people just popped up and then disappeared. This is completely fine and I respect their freedom \^_\^

Conclusion

Language learning is a marathon. I hope this text will help to identify the right people to run this marathon together.

Resources