Hack 68. Learn to Speak a Foreign Language
Improve your spoken foreign-language skills by joining a practice group that includes native speakers, or by finding individual Skype users willing to talk with you in any language of your choice. Works with: all versions of Skype. You can think of Skype as an international community that spans the globe. So if you are learning a language and you want to practice speaking it with native speakers of that language, this hack will help you.
If you're merely interested in speaking one on one with a native speaker of a language, by far the fastest method of finding someone willing to talk with you is to use the Skype-Me! forum. Open a web browser, enter the URL http://forum.skype.com/search.php in the address bar, and in the web page that is displayed type the language you're interested in. Then select the Skype-Me! forum to search, and click on the Search button (see Figure 7-7). This will display a new web page (or, more typically, several web pages) of Skype usersand Skype user groupswho are interested in the language you specified and, most importantly, are willing to accept calls from people they don't know (see Figure 7-8). An alternative way of finding native-language-speaking partners and groups of people interested in practicing speaking in a specific language is to join a Skype community of language learners. One such community is the Jyve language-learning group: http://community.jyve.com/lang_learning/language_learning.php. Jyve integrates well with Skype in that it's very easy to talk and chat with other Skype users. Jyve requires that you register to use its Skype-centric communities, but using these communities is free. Jyve allows you to focus your efforts when searching for Skype foreign-language-speaking partners, because Jyve captures a good deal of information on your language proficiency level and learning interests. By using Jyve's search tools, you can easily and quickly find fluent speakers of your chosen language, or find others like yourself who are at the same proficiency level and are willing to talk online using Skype to practice speaking (see Figure 7-9). Figure 7-7. Search the Skype-Me! forum for native speakers of a language ( in this case, Russian) |