Language Partners QQ?

[lakers4sho]

Sorry for bumping this old thread, didn't want to create a new one, but how does one acquire language partners through QQ? Sorry, I'm new to this kind of business. I mainly want someone who I can speak (voice/video) Chinese with, I guess I can teach them English in return. 

 

I have created a QQ account (through QQ international), what's next? I also have Skype if that platform is better for this purpose.

 

lakers4sho

[AdamD]

how does one acquire language partners through QQ?

 

I'd love to know this as well. My account lies dormant, apart from last week when a complete stranger found me. I don't even know how or why.

 

If I may veer off-track for just a moment (it's relevant, trust me): HelloTalk is a spectacularly useful iOS/Android WeChat clone built entirely for language learning. Loads of Chinese users put their QQ and WeChat IDs in their profiles, so if you're disinclined to type on a phone all day you can take those people straight into QQ. I get a lot of friend requests on HelloTalk—at least two a day on average—so you'll have no trouble finding some excellent QQ language partners really quickly.

 

Edit several months later: The proliferation of HelloTalk users exploiting the service for WeChat/QQ contacts could weaken or kill it, so I'm no longer in favour of doing that.

[Elizabeth_rb]

Just a note of caution:

 

QQ is known to be monitored, so for the sake of your conversation partner, please remember to avoid any politically sensitive topics.

[mouse]

 

QQ is known to be monitored, so for the sake of your conversation partner, please remember to avoid any politically sensitive topics.

 

Well, everything is monitored whatever country you're in. I haven't heard of ordinary people being persecuted based on what they say in private on QQ. Maybe I'm misinformed, though.

[Elizabeth_rb]

There's monitoring and there's monitoring. In most countries it's a different kind of security from that under a totalitarian regime. Best not take any risks.

[mouse]

 

There's monitoring and there's monitoring. In most countries it's a different kind of security from that under a totalitarian regime. Best not take any risks.

 

The difference is direct censorship of public debate, particularly online. As I said, I was not aware that ordinary people have to be careful on QQ or anything like that.

[gato]

There was a guy in his 20s living in Chongqing who was sent to labor camp for posting criticism on Weibo when Bo Xilai was the party secretary. It does happen from time to time.

[mouse]

 

There was a guy in his 20s living in Chongqing who was sent to labor camp for posting criticism on Weibo when Bo Xilai was the party secretary. It does happen from time to time.

 

I'm not trying to underplay that. However, I'm not aware that this sort of thing happens to people who express opinions in private. Now, messaging services like QQ are a bit ambiguous in terms of the public/private divide, but as far as I'm aware they seem to be treated as an essentially private forum. I know that like everything else on the Chinese internet, certain keywords are censored. At least, that's what happens on the Line app, so I assume the same thing happens on QQ. But if you try to send a message with a prohibited term, the message fails to send. What Elizabeth seems to be suggesting is that you shouldn't talk about certain things with Chinese people on QQ otherwise something bad might happen to them. Is there any evidence of this? If so, I will stand corrected, but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing doesn't happen.

[haoyu]

how does one acquire language partners through QQ?

 

I've been on QQ for about a year without attracting more than one random friend (who didn't seem too excited about being a language partner).  Recently, I started using a find-an-online-tutor site (italki.com) and have had about 70 different people contact me to be language partners (since January).  Although I'm paying for tutoring classes on italki, you could just create a free profile and make friends for the purpose of doing a QQ language exchange.  (Most of my Chinese language partners do this.)

[Manuel]

Catch 22. Chinese people who want to practise their English look for foreign friends on Skype, and foreigners who want to practise their Chinese look for Chinese friends on QQ.

 

If your Chinese is good enough and the other party finds you interesting then you might strike up a friendship, but generally speaking it's pretty hard because, realistically, there is very little to talk about with a stranger unless there is some romance going on.

[imron]

Apparently all the cool kids are using WeChat anyway.

[lakers4sho]

Geez, why can't they just stick with one? 

 

lakers4sho

[AdamD]

If your Chinese is good enough and the other party finds you interesting then you might strike up a friendship, but generally speaking it's pretty hard because, realistically, there is very little to talk about with a stranger unless there is some romance going on.

 

It's trial and error. If you persevere you can find people who are as invested (and helpful) as you. I now have a number of solid language partners in China who I speak to several times a week.

[coolicool]

does anyone want to study chinese?i work in a international business company,i am chinese and i want to study spanish also

[AlinaKitti]

I've been using QQ to chat with my friends for a while, but just decided to use it to hunt down new people to chat with. I see some other people getting random chats and invites everyday, but I've never got any of those invites in all the months I've been here. What do I need to do? Is there something preventing from my name from coming up on the random search or how to other people get invites from random friends? I might just randomly invite people myself, or should I find a group?

[Webber King]

I think we need a QQ group or something like this to chat in Chinese every day, this will be a great opportunity for us to learn Chinese, do you agree? So I've set such a QQ group for all the users in this forum. This group is newly founded, and it can contain 500 people, we need you to join us!

 

QQ group: 134072489, it's called Chinese 角

 

 

我认为我们需要有一个QQ群或类似的东西，这样我们就可以每天用中文一起聊天了。这将是一个很棒的契机来学习中文，你觉得如何？所以我已经为论坛里所有的用户建立了这样一个QQ群，这是一个可以容纳500人的新群，我们需要你的加入！

 

QQ群号码：134072489，名字叫“Chinese 角”

[skylee]

I think many people in Mainland China and also the world chat on WeChat, no? That said, I am not a WeChat user and have no idea if it supports chatting among 500 users. It's just that QQ sounds very dated (but I am not a QQ user either).

[Johnny20270]

I always seem to get contact requests on QQ. I never understood how they found me. I quit after a lot of depressed 19yo girls seem to contact me telling me about how sad their life is. I ended up becoming a support line.

 

WeChat is top notch. I still try get my Western friends to use WeChat rather than the much inferior Whatspp, but unfortunately as WeChat is a Chinese invention, there is great mistrust in the technology.

 

When I was in china, I did get the odd few contacts from that "look around" facility. I guess having a western face on Wechat makes you stick out as a potential language partner