HelloTalk - Language Learning Reviews

by Tundras21

I have been using this app for a few years now. At first, I only used the features for one-on-one conversations, but last year (in May) I started to use the public feed every day in order to post a daily journal and get feedback. I didn't know, though, that these posts were being filtered by the this app system. There have been a handful of time when my posts were blocked because of, in my opinion, overprotective measures. More recently, though, I learned that they're also filtering the photos that can be posted with the writing. They've apparently decided that selfies are somehow at war with language learning, so these are blocked from the public feed. I skyped with a friend a few days ago, took a screenshot of us chatting and posted that along with my daily journal, and apparently the filter thought it was a selfie, so it was also blocked. I have been a paying subscriber to their app and a very active user, but when these changes were made, I was not made aware of them, nor did I even get a pop-up or something to be notified when my post was blocked/caught in the filter. I am currently very disappointed by the developers.

by Jr198283

I have been using HelloTalk strictly to help English learners and I posted videos to help people with their English and they suspended my account. I’ve been following the rules and even pay for a VIP subscription. This also happened to a friend of mine who paid for the VIP subscription. I think this app is just out for people’s money. So disappointed, all I wanted to do was help people with their English, I do it completely for free and this is how I’m treated.

Added to the developer response:
Again, don’t waste your time, why pay for a VIP subscription if you’re only limited to post a moment once or twice a week. Maybe, instead of suspending an account remove the post like how YouTube/Facebook/Instagram does. It’s not fair to people who pay for a subscription and is following the rules. Basically, you’re saying someone can ask people to report a person and they can target that person and you’ll suspend the reported account. Please do more investigating before suspending an account, posting three different helpful videos within 24 hours shouldn’t make someone’s account be suspended.

by Wolfman 2020

Read the privacy policy and data processing before using HelloTalk!!!

I have been using HelloTalk for awhile. Yesterday I got a message from HT team saying my account is suspended because someone complained about me. They are asking send them a document to show my identity. My question to HT is what proof you have from that person who complains about me so that you suspend me sending message? Why would I share my Id with you while I did not do anything wrong? If you look are my moments I havent post anything that is not related to the language and grammer. Can you please check if I had any message exchange with the person who complained about me? You can do that right. If that is a person who complained about me had exchange messages me would you please ask the person reveal the messages to see if anything wrong? Or just check the messages if there is any between us. I give you the permission. It is ridiculous the way you process this. If you are really concern about the members identity then ask everyone provide the ID when while joining HelloTalk . Also can you please check everyone's id in HelloTalk because it is also my concern now that your app is full of trolls and fake ppl, criminals, hackers. How will you deal with that now???? I will also complain about your improper practice to App store.

by Damikesta

My review of this app would be good, but their is a big issue that makes any of its benefits useless. I purchased a VIP subscription, because unless you already know the language you are studying well you will struggle. The VIP subscription is very useful with many cool features. The problem is that I want to cancel my VIP subscription, but keep my account. My goal of learning Spanish is going to have to wait for a few months. I am in college and at the moment getting into medical school requires all of my attention. Anyways, I tried to cancel my subscription to this app, but there is no way to cancel it inside HelloTalk itself. After doing a google search I figured out that you have to cancel the auto renewal in iTunes that apparently is automatically selected when you purchase the subscription. (Pretty convenient for them). The problem is when I view my subscription in iTunes, this app does not show up. I looked on reddit, Apple support etc. if this app had a customer support number I could call it would be great, but it seems like they do not. I canceled my Netflix subscription via iTunes with no issues. So why is HelloTalk any different. VERY DISHONEST!!!!!

by Farsome

First, I am a paid VIP member of this app, and am very experienced with this platform. HelloTalk’s high rating causes me to question who’s doing the rating and how the ratings are compiled and/or manipulated. The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of users are from parts of the world which view the US negatively. Thus, slurs against Americans are commonplace, and —from my experience — administrators do nothing to remove or even discourage anti-American posts. It should be noted that I never once saw a US user use any language even remotely approaching an ethnic slur against anyone.

Worse yet is the harassment aimed at those who identify as LGBT in their profiles. Other users can say what they want — both in public and private chats — and they go unpunished. LGBT users, however, can have their account suspended for any reason, based simply on a false report from a homophobic user who suddenly realizes they’re talking to a gay person. Appeals to administrators are either ignored, meet with insensitivity, or result in further harassment.

Perhaps HelloTalk simply reflects the attitude of the country where the owners are based, and I am projecting my values onto them. But I feel my values are shared by many others in the western world, and that potential this app users should be forewarned.

by Katieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeq

I downloaded HelloTalk per a recommendation from my Spanish professor. The first message I received immediately commented on my appearance. Unfortunately, this was a common occurrence. I felt so harassed that I changed my profile picture multiple times in an attempt to stop people from commenting on it. Unfortunately this did not stop the comments, and I decided to delete HelloTalk after only having it for 2 days. Additionally, I was extremely overwhelmed by the number of people messaging me; at the time that I deleted HelloTalk , I had 67 unread messages. The tools that HelloTalk provides are awesome, and they would be a great tool to practice my Spanish, however I cannot being myself to use an app that makes me feel ashamed just for using a photo of my face as my profile picture. One of the top rules of HelloTalk are that it is not to be used as a dating app, but there is no way to stop people from using it in such a way. One message I received said “I like women from the USA, they’re pretty like you.” I wish I could take advantage of the resources on HelloTalk, but there needs to be changes before I can bring myself to download it again.

by DommiArt

I have used HelloTalk for over two years now. I think HelloTalk is a great idea, and overall implemented very well. I use this app to practice Japanese, and find that overall people are courteous and honestly want to learn. I quite like the Moments function, and in my experience people use it to share pictures of where they live, or ask many people for language corrections, which is great. Now, there are many superfluous posts like “ Please teach me English!!!”, but I think it is a small price to pay. I do wish that Moments allowed for video posting, though. Many times there are short clips of concerts or scenery that I would love to share with people.

As for sexual harassment, whenever it has happened, it is generally handled quickly in my experience. However, I do know of a few notorious people that keep rejoining HelloTalk despite being blocked many times. There is not much that can be done for those people, but hopefully they will learn someday. There are some people that are more interested in finding a foreign girlfriend/ boyfriend, but it is easy to find these people and kindly decline or misdirect them.

I have had this issue on an off, but sometimes my app will show unread messages, but I cannot see them. Before I would have to delete and redownload to fix it, but as of today when it did it I was able to fix it by closing and reopening HelloTalk . It isn’t a huge inconvenience, but a bit annoying at times.

by Ajrt2118

Edit: I was able to get in touch with customer support and they were very quick to resolve the problem once they saw my ticket. Note to self and others, don’t use a VPN when using HelloTalk to prevent any confusion. I can’t wait to use it this weekend and continue my language journey and conversation practice!
…..

I’ve been getting this error message for two days now. I’ve tried to contact support via email, Twitter, and HelloTalk and haven’t heard anything. I’m in the US and even allowed HelloTalk to track my exact location. Deleted and uninstalled HelloTalk as well. It was working a few days ago which is what makes me sad since I really enjoyed the live event I attended and loved that there were live captions in my target language. But HelloTalk is now unusable and I can’t figure out why or get help from app support. I haven’t even been able to find any support forums online to help me troubleshoot this further.

by Leigha Babineau

If you're looking to expose yourself to more native content or speakers in a language you're learning, this is a great place to start! But actually finding solid advice and explanations is much harder haha.

I'm learning English > Japanese so my experiences may not be universal among the community, but the user-base as a whole could stand to be far more critical when giving feedback. People will let small mistakes slip through and give learners a pass despite the fact that what they are saying IS incorrect, probably to try and seem polite. And I've seen more than a few people giving straight up WRONG advice- mostly non-native English speakers explaining English to others, but theres been a few native speakers who explain things poorly or give incorrect feedback as well. I think the moments feature is really hindered by the inability to edit comments or corrections after you send them, and the way comments are ordered under posts can be really confusing. The fact that you can't reply to a comment, only tag them in your own under the same post, is mind boggling, especially because they're in reverse chronological order. There's also no way to "downvote" other peoples corrections in those instances where they're giving the wrong advice, which can lead to misunderstanding and misinformation. You basically just have to take all the advice you get from HelloTalk with a grain of salt.

by Scrapples-the-coo

Love the potential of HelloTalk and met some really good people however as of late I have been getting frequent crashes and apparently some people (not all) had been able to contact me for about 30 days and thought I was disconnected. As of today constant network errors (really bad since the last update) until finally I was considered completely disconnected and unable to do anything despite getting a few messages in return yet unable to send or view any myself (but could still see the message previews on the iphone home screen). Now having tried clearing cache and doing all the network stuff on my end, I decided to try reinstalling (after hard copying the ids of friends should I need to create a whole new account). Now I cannot log into this app as it seems my password was entered incorrectly too many times even though I just reset it once. I’ll see what happens after the needed 24 hour wait period to try again. It’s a shame as I loved helping others learn, meeting people from other countries, and sharing culture.

Edit: thanks this app team, the issues were solved and thank you for the timely responses

by Kcraft73

The features of HelloTalk are incredible. It has everything you need in one place to communicate with someone who speaks another language, and to practice speaking another language. I love the translate feature which can translate an audio recording into text of its native language, and then provide a translation into an alternative language. You can check sentences you’ve typed through a translator to make sure you said what you thought you said. It’s incredible.

I took one star off because of issues with users. HelloTalk does not have an easy way to change my profile settings to avoid this problem. I am a 47 year old married woman. I am overwhelmed by the number of men from other countries who reach out. You can’t reply to them all, but of the handful I did reply to, 90% try to get romantic and they do it fast. Uggh! Two have told me they are looking for true love - which apparently only exists in The US with a woman who barely speaks their native language.

If you can find a good partner - HelloTalk is amazing and totally worth it.

by Jazie797

Overall it’s great and, as with everything, there are pros and cons.

Pro: HelloTalk is an amazing way to practice the #1 language that you’ve been learning even if you already have people around who speak it. Though it can be difficult to find people who will stick with you for the long haul, you can meet some pretty incredible people! There are so many different countries represented that you’ll even be able to learn about many different accents and cultures in your new language.

Con: The con is that you should probably be close to the intermediate level before joining. I’ve learned that this is not a place to find teachers as a novice, but a place to practice what you’ve already learned. There will most likely be times when your partner doesn’t know how to express themselves in your language, so you have to have a basic understanding in order to get the general idea of what they’re saying. The translator is great, but sometimes it makes no sense.

by That Disney Lover Kwaii

I love HelloTalk, it’s very helpful and makes me want to learn. You meet other people who make you feel better about learning a language. I’m in my younger years so I get help from people closer to my age group. It makes me more comfortable to talk to people my age, I’m glad that you can be any age and not have any restrictions.
But here’s the problem! A notice keeps coming up on my screen to tell me dating is not allowed. I’m not talking to anyone sexually, I’m using HelloTalk for what it’s meant to be. It annoys me that it comes up so many times when I’m not doing anything wrong! I also help people learn my native language English, but when I try to message people it comes back it interrupts me from chatting. It probably makes the other people think I’m leaving them on read. It’s confusing. I didn’t know if it’s meant to be there just to tell me, or if is accidental. OR if it thinks I’m really doing something wrong! Please help!

by Pewdie111

If you are learning a language, HelloTalk is a MUST have. Not only will you learn the language that you’re studying faster than on any other app, but you’ll have fun in the process. You’ll forget you’re even learning a language it’s so much fun. Because of HelloTalk, I now not only know how to speak German near fluently, but I also have made some of the best friends I could ever ask for. Ultimately, that matters to me more than learning any language. I also mentioned HelloTalk during my college essay. HelloTalk helped me grow as a person and broadened the horizons for me in terms of new friendships, a curiosity to explore the world, wisdom and linguistic knowledge. The essay was recently returned with an acceptance letter. I owe it to Hello Talk. I was recommended HelloTalk by one of my classmates who was using it, and I decided to give it a try a few weeks later, without too much excitement. The days that followed were some of the most productive, fun and eye-opening of my life, I swear, HelloTalk is awesome. Even now, one of my best friends in Germany and I laugh about how boring life would’ve been had we not downloaded HelloTalk at the right time and had never even gotten to say “hallo” to each other for the first time hahahahahaha

by An Eckename

HelloTalk is so totally awesome ❤️❤️❤️!!! Finally a new way to learn languages that isn’t just taking boring classes... It’s a perfect modern way to learn languages, cultures and make friends from all over the world 🌎 I’m learning Japanese on HelloTalk and now I have tons of friends from Japan and other countries,( I’ve been really good friends with a girl from Ageria, and a boy from the U.S too ever since I started HelloTalk )
It’s amazing being able to talk to people your age from all over the world about your hobies, and even help each other with their school work😂, and it doesn’t matter what language you speak ! The translation function on HelloTalk is super accurate👍.
Also, I really enjoy the fact HelloTalk is very secure and you don’t have to worry about cyber bullying or harassment or inappropriate language or anything!
Seriously, this is my favorite app ever... I learnt so many things about the Japanese language and their culture ( one girl even thought me how to make Mochi cookies😋)
Thank you sooooo much this app !!!!!!

by Iheartthisappsofreakinmuch

I have been a member on HelloTalk since 2014 and I honestly have not gotten bored or tired of it. It still continues to be a fun and interactive way to learn languages. I love the new features added with every update. HelloTalk seriously has come a long way from when I first became a member. You learn a language through a sort of social media platform, where you post statuses similar to Facebook or twitter, but with the added bonus that native speakers actually get to read and correct your texts, and you can help out as well by doing the same with people learning your language. I have met so many fun and intelligent people on this apps from so many countries, and I love hearing their ideas and sharing each other’s cultures. It’s exciting getting a message from someone and engaging in a fun conversation with them. Sure, it has its downsides. Like for example, may girls report getting harassed, but in all honestly, you choose who you want to talk to and who you don’t want to talk to. Anyone can easily be blocked. Anyway, I really love HelloTalk and I thank its developers for making learning languages fun!

by MoOnLiGhTsUn7511

I love it no complaint it’s not anything bad but I would like some help because I had HelloTalk a while ago and I deleted because I wanted to get another app and then now I remembered about it so I installed it and tried signing in but I couldn’t because I didn’t remember the password , so I decided to create another one ... I tried and it said that you can only make one account on each device . So the problem with that is that I don’t know how to make a new email to use , so I want to ask if you could help me get rid of the other account with my email so I could create the new one , or help me find my password because I tried the thing that said “ forgot password?” , Or something like that and it wouldn’t send me an email ( now that I realize maybe it is because I don’t have the mail app ) and said that it was non registered . So that’s it it is a great app overall .

UPDATE:
Ok so I downloaded the mail app and it still didn’t work which I know feel like I was being dum about that so my only thug is that if you could erase my previous account. But I am blaming myself because I don’t remember it and apparently my only email doesn’t work .

by Bodhizinka

I can not say enough good things about HelloTalk, especially as it applies to Russian and Chinese (which is rare in terms of language apps). I really think it’s the best thing for language immersion next to actually living in a different culture. this app actually makes me motivated to practice everyday without noticing I’m doing some really hardcore studying. The social media platform, group audio chats, voice recording so I can hear myself and native speakers talk, watch live classes, high quality lessons, and the ease at which you can look up words and grammar this app has improved my language skills more than four years of college classes... Plus I have made some very meaningful friendships through HelloTalk .

Suggestions: please allow photos in comments; if possible allow for opening comments, photos and translator while doing audio recordings; and improve navigation to messages and notifications (after looking at mine or browsing other moments and users’ pages, I always have to hit the back button a hundred times to get back to messages and lessons... am I missing something on that?)

Hope this review helps.

by 14911776

I’ve used pretty much every language method, tool, and book out there, and while some have been very good, none compare with this app. I joined ten days ago and think I’ve spent more hours studying than in the previous two months. For example, I’ve already done six hours of zoom chats, when until now I’ve only done an hour a week because tutoring is so expensive. And the only reason I haven’t done more is because I joined right before Christmas and got busy for a few days. Part of the reason HelloTalk works is that people keep talking to you. It’s too easy to put an ebook or Anki or LingQ or whatever on your phone and promptly forget it exists.

I was concerned when I joined that there might be a lot of creeps and weirdos using it as a dating site, but out of 217 people that have visited my profile (in ten days!) only two were obnoxious and their accounts got deleted soon after, so this app is doing a really good job keeping it clean. You’re basically guaranteed to find at least a handful of normal people you hit it off with and talk to regularly. If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m really impressed with HelloTalk and can’t recommend it highly enough.

by Juanita119

HelloTalk has completely changed my motivation for practicing Spanish. I’ve always wanted to learn to speak and dreamed of having fluent conversations in Spanish. But it is intimidating to speak with people when you are first learning the language. HelloTalk covers literally everything you could want when learning a language.

1). Real people. You are having conversations with real people from all over the world who want to practice with you and will help you learn...no matter what level you are.

2). Texting. At first, it can be a bit scary to just hope on and try your hand at speaking. You don’t have to. You can spend time texting with people and creating “moments” were people can correct mistakes and guide you through the process. Plus, you get to read so many posts and chats in the language you want to learn that you get used to doing it and become more comfortable.

3) Audio messages. Still worried about having a tough time conversing? Don’t because you can ease into it by just recording audio and leaving it up. You can talk to other people or in the moments. You can also use this feature to ask others how to pronounce words/phrases. Brilliant tool!

4) Call people! You can make friends from all over the world and practice your English practically any time you want.

HelloTalk is one of the best apps I have ever used. I absolutely recommend it for anyone learning a new language.

by Fuckdapolice42068

I have had pretty good experiences so far with HelloTalk. I bought premium soon after downloading it, and have gotten new people to talk to just about every day. Everything works just as intended, and I think this is a great way to practice Japanese and meet new people in my free time.

Now for the one downside. I haven’t quite figured it out, but there seems to be some sort of major delay between sending messages, the server picking them up, and them being delivered. I have never been able to have a conversation that felt normally paced through text because messages just refuse to be read until a few minutes past when they were sent. I haven’t used the feature yet, but I’m sure voice calls will fix this, although they are a bit more inconvenient. There is one more concern I have about this, and that’s business practices. Seen as there are warnings about what kinds of messages and activities you can partake in all over HelloTalk , and there is no sign of a privacy policy in HelloTalk and website I question if these messages are being sent to a server, saved, and scanned before they are actually sent. But, that is just me being concerned about internet privacy, so don’t take it as anything agains the company.

Anyways, to conclude, HelloTalk is great for people looking to practice and learn language skills with native speakers, but may have some delay issues in text chats.

by Cole0800

I have had HelloTalk for almost two years, it is amazing for meeting people who genuinely want to learn. Yes as most other apps with a social aspect there are some problems when people decide to get on the inappropriate side, however the this app team has been amazing with blocking, and removing people that you report. Really I have made some amazing international friendships from HelloTalk that not only allows you to learn your target language, but to also exchange culture as well! Mostly everyone I have talked to on here is glad to help and we all are learners so nobody can judge! I love HelloTalk.
The only problem i and others have is that the software needs updating, it loads slow and recently it has been showing notifications for messages but mot loading said messages. Please fix!! HelloTalk can be slow at times, if these can be fixed i will definitely continue to spread the word on HelloTalk!

by Missbvalid

I use this to learn Spanish and mainly to practice my speaking skills. It’s great when you don’t have anyone to speak with at home or you don’t have the opportunity to go to a different country and learn the language. this app is my favorite language learning app because of all of the cool features, translator, corrector, voice notes, calls, etc. They even have a timeline like twitter where you can post anything and also see posts in the language you’re learning. One of my favorite things about HelloTalk is being able to search for people by country or city. I prefer to speak with people from PR, DR, or Cuba because I’m working on trying to improve my accent as well as learn the Caribbean dialect. So being able to easily search that way is a plus! I’ve tried many language apps and this is by far my favorite!

by QBsince1933

this app is probably the best language learning app you could download. I use it
everyday and have learned so much Spanish because of it. One of the best
features is the wall of moments (this is a feature Tandum doesn’t have as of no), which I’ve used to ask questions to the this app community about grammar,
vocab, and to post advice and lessons about English. The correction feature is
also great and I like how you can save the corrections people give you. In the past year I’ve visited Mexico, Spain, Peru, Chile and Argentina, and I was able to meet up with friends I met on this app while I was there! My only critique would be I wish you could make video calls without having to pay for the premium versoin (this is something you can do in Tandem). Nevertheless, I’ve literally recommended this app to anyone I’ve met trying to learn a language. It’s a must.

by Kaps07

So the thing is that since you’re talking to actual people you’re forced into learning practical speech and things that you’d actually say all the time, which is absolutely not a bad thing. Any anyways it’s much more fun talking to an actual person. When you sign up you have to give your birthday and I’m pretty sure it’s because all of the people you end up talking to are around the same age as you (assuming you don’t lie about your birthday), which makes talking about pop culture and things you like to do a lot easier since it’s much more likely you’d have something in common with some one the same age as you than some 20 years older than you. It also makes making friends around the globe na lot easier in general (even for someone who isn’t very sociable like me). Everyone I’ve talked to was super excited to try to improve my language skills.

by Simpleflame

I have been using HelloTalk for a long time now and I have to say it is one of the best resources out there. I am learning Russian and as an American, this can be quite difficult. Not only because the languages are so different, but also because there are not many people in the US that speak Russian. HelloTalk has connected me to many English speaking Russians at all levels of fluency. While not everyone is a perfect tutor, there are plenty of people out there that are ready to make an effort to help you learn. HelloTalk does a great job at connecting you with people and provides you with resources to help maintain communication even with strong language barriers. I have enjoyed it over the year or so that I have used it and will continue to do so...