Download Hellotalk For Pc

[Sanna Pospicil]

Ive been on HelloTalk since I started learning Korean in August of last year (longer than I've been here), and I actually like HelloTalk better than italki. First, as an English speaker, I like that the only people who see me with the standard search options are Korean-speakers learning English. In all the time I've been on HelloTalk, I've only received 2 messages/requests from anyone who didn't speak Korean. Second, as a woman, I like that they have extremely strict guidelines in place about dating solicitation/sexual harassment. Also, since chatting occurs in the app, there's no chance of harassment happening on a third-party platform like Skype either. Third, although I've never used it because my Korean is still so bad, I like that there's the option to basically force your exachange partner into speaking both languages. Since my Korean is so bad, I find that my language partners and I default to English anyway, and it can be hard to get people who want to practice English to switch to speaking Korean, so I like that there's the structured language exchange option in HelloTalk. Fourth, I like the built-in translate function. Although it never produces fully understandable output, I like that the option is there - mostly because it can help me to understand my partners' Korean sentences without leaving the app, but also because if they use it to produce an English sentence, it shows me the original Korean sentence so I can get a glimpse into how my partners would be speaking to me if I were at a higher level. And finally, this is very minor, but I really like that in the chat window it shows my partner's local time. It saves me from having to do the "What time is it in Korea" calculation myself.

the first thing is that on Italki I find more serious people who are passionate about language learning writing and doing more advanced stuffs that lead to fluency. On hellotalk since it's an app people use it leisurely without really having goals.

in fact, most people have stopped using the useless app, more than 50 percent of the members have not visited the app, for a long time(sometimes more than 3 months). This is because the app is so annoying and inconvenient.

I would say it's pretty good for beginners/lower intermediate levels but not that beneficial after that since at least in my experience chats with people tend to be rather short and a one time thing. I rarely talk to the same person after the first 15 minute initial conversation. So you pretty much end up having the same type of conversation just with different people.

The features they use are cool but very few people seem to actually use them like the voice message recorder and the exchange feature where you spent an equal amount of time conversing in your target language and your partners.

I used hellotalk for more than six years and posted more than 4,000 messages on the public moments section. I was a teacher at hellotalk for a while through their t4e program. They interviewed me to help promote their app. I helped thousands of Chinese people in English both through my moments posting and through 1on1 discussion over those six years. And the good thing I will say is I also received a lot of good help and it helped me to learn Chinese. I can speak fluently now.

But recently things have really changed there. There have been a lot more politically minded Chinese users joining up and Reporting any sort of post that is even mildly controversial. For example I posted a question politely asking for the Chinese explanation why the Chinese Constitution calls their government form a people's Democratic dictatorship. I stated that in English Democratic and dictatorship are terms that are in opposition, and clearly said I did not want to have any sort of political discussion, but rather just wanted to understand the Chinese explanation of what these terms mean in terms of the Chinese Constitution. This is probably my most controversial post that I've made. So according to HelloTalk users complained and I was filtered so that my posts would not appear on the public wall. I was not giving any sort of explanation of what I did wrong. This was not the first time this happened and in the past they would actually apologize and say my account had been unfiltered again.

On the other hand there are tons of Chinese users posting in the comments negative things about America and I didn't even argue with them. I just ignored them. So I guess sadly I have to say goodbye to hello talk because they have now Banned Me. I really don't have any reason to feel like I did anything wrong, and I think it's really it more a reflection of their character for not explaining clearly what their policies were or what I needed to do to improve. They just said that people complained.

Now I have tried to avoid the obvious which is that China controls this app and I suppose there are Chinese people who have been receiving a lot of information that is negative toward the west and they are overzealous in criticizing and Reporting westerners. So the bullies win and I lose and I accept that. there are better places for me to spend my time. It's really unfortunate that this app has gone downhill so quickly. I suppose they can't do anything about it because of the Chinese government's control on information inside this app. it was my favorite app for many years and now I'm switching completely to the other way of thinking and saying this is the app you definitely should have avoid and there are lots of other good ones like tandem which is based in Germany or even HelloPal which is based in Canada.

I think there are probably similar problems with other politically-relevant translations such as 宣传 xuān chuán being translated as "promotion" or equally "propaganda" with little awareness (in Chinese-speaking circles) of the differences to a western ear, and of the negative connotations of the latter.

What irritated me most about the app is the heavy handed, underhanded and hypocritical attitude of the moderation. I actually had sanctions placed on my account several times for various infractions which, in my opinion, were fairly innocuous. The thing is, usually they don't even tell you that your post are being filtered or whatever restrictions they put on your account. I just noticed one day that I started receiving almost no responses to my posts. Only when I directly asked them about this did they tell me that I had broken some rule and had my account limited.

The other thing is, adverts with all kinds of skimpily-clad and sexualised girls dancing pop up between posts on the app, and HelloTalk does not seem to be concerned. Yet what finally got me banned is that someone posted a picture of herself(?) writhing (albeit fully clothed) on a bed with absolutely no accompanying text, so I left a flippant comment, "Nice picture of you contorting on the bed". Apparently this one crossed too far over the (rather nebulous) red line.

I feel I made a substantial contribution to the app with many popular posts in Chinese about various aspects of English, and answering countless questions about English from Chinese learners. I can't say that the app was extremely beneficial to my Chinese, but flicking through the posts was something to pass the time while sitting on the matong. I agree that recently, though, the general tone of the content has changed. Now there is a much more anti-foreign vibe. However, this sadly just seems to be a reflection of Chinese media and society in general.

I once got freaked out when a Chinese colleague offered to get me some cream to get rid of my freckles - as if I had some disfiguring skin disease. But he was sincere and very well-intentioned, as I'm sure you were.

Yes, I remember HelloTalk got completely removed from the Chinese app stores a year or more ago, and they said it was because they had to add "filters" to their app, and then they would be able to be re-added. It seems that since that time it has been perfectly fine for Chinese people to make crude remarks toward westerners, but the opposite is not true. The result is an unbalanced environment.

I started thinking about this when I decided to visit some Facebook groups today that are for Chinese/English conversation, and I am under the impression there is some filtering going on there too (by the admins of the group).

Anyways, what I said on HelloTalk was very soft gloved, and they must just be having to suck up to the Chinese authorities who are afraid to let common Chinese people talk with Westerners. It shows cowardice.

I have no path forward now with hellotalk. So I'm just done with them. I have no other choice. I would say the result though is I'm a little less sympathetic now when it comes to the Chinese government controlling the social media. And I feel a little bit more free to talk about anything I want now. I even more appreciate that I have that right that I did before.

I know some of you will have read these, but for anyone that hasn't, this has come up before. To be honest, I don't envy the Hello Talk staff their job and I'm not sure that, in the current environment, it would be possible to run that kind of site without these kind of issues. A larger company might feel a bit more secure, something as small as they are will be at constant risk of a knock at the door and being told to shut down. And possibly worse.

Off the top of my head, all I can think of to do is charge for entry to keep it serious-people only. But then user numbers and ad revenue plummet, and the whole thing quite possibly becomes unsustainable.

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