How to find a Native Japanese friend online ?

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This blog is just my experience in learning Japanese, not for advertisement purpose.

P/s: I also add refferal link for online tutor system. Please use it if you don’t mind so that I will get some credit to learn :)))

First, I know learning Japanese only with Minna no nihongo is really boring and not up-to-date with real Japanese that people use daily. So we have to seek for a friend who is a native speaker. Japanese people are not that good at English as I know, and they’re very introvert in some way, especially in real life, at work, in street, even in same sharehouse. You have very few chances to pratice Kaiwa even you are living in Japan. This is a very problem!

NO WORRY! They’re very out-going, even I think they have a love-chatting character. So they will be very happy if you chat with them to share about daily stufss. I think they are introvert in life but very extrovert online.

Hereby I will introduce you some apps/website/software which I used for learning Japanese

🗣️ HELLO TALK (CHAT – VOICE CHAT)

I bet each of you learning Japanese must at least one time heard this community. It’s running like a mini Facebook. They have timeline moments for you to post, and you easily find your same language-study buddy, not online a japanese native friend.

What I like in Hello Talk is that, it has a correction function. So that people can show and correct your word, your grammar!

And, IT’S FREE to use!

Download Hello Talk at

🗣️ FAV TALK (CHAT)

Fav Talk (or Fav Talk – Same Hobby Chatting) is a social networking app developed by SnTown and jeong-sik kim that connects people based on shared interests or hobbies. It’s designed to help you meet others, chat, and even practice foreign languages through language exchange.

I found that this is easier to catch a Japanese native speaker rather than Hello Talk. But, this app has more hentai Japanese than Hello Talk (which is designed for language learning).

It means that you have to be careful when choosing friend here.

Download FAV TALK https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sntown.snchat

🗣️ TANDEM (VOICE + CHAT)

If you love voicing rather than chatting, then this is your must-download app. It’s free and very helpful for language learning.

You can create a room, or join a room that is made by other people, as a quiet listener or one of speakers there.

And yeah, you can send a friend request to speakers that you would love to talk with.

I loved Hello Talk 10 years ago, but now I really recommend you to download this Tandem if you have reached level of intermediate or advanced. Because with Hello Talk, people talk in a very academic and maybe somehow polite, not really sound daily.

But with Tandem, you can learn exactly daily Japanese slangs, words, accents …. and watch how they act, how they talk with other.

However, sometimes you will be shy, ashame of your low level, do not have brave to turn on the micro to start speaking. Because they speak very very fast here. Just turn on the mic and start your journey there ! I bet you would love it if you have passed N2 and have enough vocabulary to talk.

Download Tandem: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.tandem

👤 PREPLY (Japanese native online tutor with a cheap cost)

If you are seeking for not only a friend, but a real tutor that can guide you how to learn Japanese, how to speak Japanese in correct way, then this is must-register system. Thanks to Preply tutors, I have master Japanese N1 and also started a new journey with Chinese learning.

Traditional Japanese course is a bit expensive if you are living in Japan. Hourly tuition must be above 1,500 JPY for a professional course. But with Preply, you can find Japanese native teachers/tutors just around 800 JPY. And easily to change tutors or reschedule the lesson to another time for free if you want.