hi friends welcome to my channel if you're new here i'm zoe
i'm a language enthusiast
who speaks seven languages
at the same time i'm doing a phd in sociology in France
you can check out my videos
speaking in different languages on my channel
today
i'm very very happy to make this video with my turkish friend
Hilal
Hilal introduce yourself okay
i'm Hilal
twenty one years old i like learning new cultures and languages
and i'm happy to be here with zoe too
today we are gonna deal with the language exchange actually
we have been practicing Turkish and French for
about one year and a half yes
I still remember at the beginning we were only speaking
few words yeah after one year and a half now
we can hold a conversation
we really have improved a lot
I can say this is the best way
to practice with the native speaks yeah
native speakers
freely freely
but to be honest language exchange is not just about chatting
but it depends on the people of course you can you can
you can just chat of course
What I want to say is that there are a lot of method and strategies
which can make this kind of exercise more effective
for example
how to find a good language exchange partner like Hilal
and how to organize our study session
how to send each other notes and how to review
how to encourage and how to help each other
there are some tip and tricks as well
this is what we gonna share with you today
we gonna talk briefly
about our story how we met each other
how we study with each other
in French in Turkish
and so you guys can have a look what we have achieved
with this
beautiful exchange
we will be sharing with you
all the methods we use in language exchange in more detailed
possible
so let's get into the video
so let's talk about how we met each other
Hilal, you start in French
i can make mistakes okay
but it's normal you can still correct me in the video of course
yeah we are not perfect in both languages
i think we just have intermediate yeah
intermediate level yeah
since the pandemic one year and a half so go ahead go ahead okay
First of all, I am not a polyglot
Yes you are
I'm just interested in the language and culture
Before the pandemic I took
a course at the university
but
it's just the basics
Yes, just to discover
During the pandemic I said to myself why not
continue to learn this language
I started to study on my own
after I downloaded the application (Tandem)
I have sent many messages to find someone
who is serious
like me?
then I saw your profile, Zoe
I sent a message
then we have
studied together
you can continue in Turkish
in Turkish? me, the same
it's almost the same story
I also sent a lot of messages at that time
I always wanted to find someone who wanted to study seriously
This is why in the message
I wrote in a clear way
for example, I am Zoe and I want to learn Turkish
I want to study Turkish with someone seriously and regularly
I can help you in English, French and Chinese
I have sent many messages like this
thankfully
finally
I met Hilal
We did a video call, it went very well
for me, it's not just
about practising the language
but I met a good person and a good friend
It's nice
That's it
English
there are a lot of our friends wrote to me they say that
Zoe is very difficult to find
a language learning partner
because you know people
use this kind of platform for different reasons
some people they just want to meet they just want to chat or
they're just curious they just want to discover
different cultures
and but we are here to tell you there are still people like us
who are serious about language learning
but you know
it did take a bit time to find someone like this
and it's okay for chatting with people in that
language but i mean
studying seriously is really helpful for being more
professional and for motivation too
because you have someone with whom you can study regularly so
do you know how many messages
i've sent before i found you
i sent many messages too
I was saying
i can help you in turkish people are saying oh
i want to learn Turkish
but i don't know whether they really want to learn turkish
my point is like from my experience i always write clearly my
message to make it clear to tell you okay
i want to do the video call i want to study regularly
if you have time
we can make it i can help you
in these these languages
i still remember your first voice note! really? yeah
i sent a message
i can help your Turkish and i want to practice French
and you send the voice note okay
um i don't have much time
i don't know yes you say that
i don't have much time if you really want to study regularly
we can
no it's not this attitude i was yes
i said yes i found it finally
i want
like you i mean it's not a bad way but
what i mean is you were serious i got it in
first message
you were serious
people always ask me when
should we start to do the language exchange? from my experience
i always
prefer to study a bit
by myself to have a basic structure of the grammar
some basic vocabulary at least i can already speak
some basic things but you and you can correct me
especially in pronunciation
and in the grammar how to make sentences
i don't really recommend you to
find a language exchange partner from the scratch
you know
a language exchange partner is not a language teacher
sometimes a native speaker they can't teach you their language
mandarin chinese is my mother tongue i can
correct your pronunciation the tone
but i can't teach you how to write
HANZI
i can't explain you a lot of grammar points
so you need to work by youself
you need
you need to learn by yourself or for example
there are a lot of structured books
how do you think about this
yes i agree i did the same
i have learned some basic french vocabulary first
but i think i say
someone find a really good person for practicing
and that person teaches that
it's okay but like it's not just relying on that person
exactly
at the beginning we were at a beginner level
we couldn't speak a lot of things so we did the exercise
we did a lot of translation exercises do you remember
yes because our level
we are lucky because
We almost had the same level
yeah A1
so because we didn't have much vocabulary
we clarify a topic for talk and just
some sentences we translate if i say something in french
you need to say
translate it in Turkish and same for me
we have started with translation now we don't need it
there is a trick to sending each other note
you are good at it
i'm more organized yes
we always talk on whatsapp
and then for example
if i say something wrong with my pronunciation or wrong grammar
you will just she will just send it back to me on the whatsapp
so i can see the correction
and i will send her back in french
so we will have basically a word in Turkish and a word
in French because after our video call
I can copy directly these notes
into an Excel for example i will have Turkish and French notes
then I will send it to you again to check everything
and she can send me back with a voice note so i can repeat
i can know for example
this pronounciation
I always make the pronunciation mistakes yes
yes so reviewing after the class
even i didn't review too much but it's so helpful for doing it
sending notes like these i think is quite efficient
just chatting chatting
no no
but because we are doing mistakes naturally so
being aware of those mistakes is important
i'm still doing the same mistakes in French
but i'm aware of my mistakes so yeah
it's it's a beautiful thing yeah
because we were sending those notes i know my mistakes more
yeah yeah so it's important to send each other notes
because this is a bit
my personality i always prefer to organize
notes after our call for not forget
yeah
and put it into my ANKI so i can review
there is another exercise
i really like at the beginner level
is a verb conjugation exercise
do you remember
okay yes because verbs are so important
because we are talking with verbs action so
i always focus on learning verbs more like
we are talking with verbs
so we did many exercise for conjugation
but while doing this conjugation
Zoe didn't teach like how to conjugate the verb
We have already studied it
then we just practice it
by making sentences
you shouldn't accept that like
this person is gonna teach me everything
it's self studying and with you just practice
for example we are doing the language exchange now
today we're gonna deal with the future tense okay
i'm gonna say one sentence "Yemek"
okay to eat so i'm gonna say
tonight I'm gonna eat dinner with my friend okay
okay and then you have to translate it
so at the beginning level since we couldn't talk a lot
we did a lot of translation exercises
we corrected each other's pronunciation
and
we did a lot of verb conjugation exercises by making sentences
we learned a lot of new words by making sentences
you can learn words by yourself there are a lot
of word list online
but the most important is that you have to use it
in context you have to make sentence that related to your life
if you have an intermediate level
basically you can talk about yourself
you can talk about your daily routine
i like this exercise
every day it's like "What did you do yesterday?"
like we were using
past simple and future simple
like our plans and what did we do like this
it helped a lot to practice verbs
so for this part i think it's not just about
one person for example
you are talking talking
i'm listening and i correct you
we have to know how to ask each other questions as well
for example of course
she can talk about her routine all the time okay uh
she woke up for example and then she ate her breakfast
but we can add some details every time
to make new topic for example
if she say that uh
it's like what did you eat
how did you make your breakfast
every time we can bring a new topic
for asking questions it's like more i think
leads more natural conversation
it's not like we are talking talking
conversation means we need questions yes
and it's more spontaneous
we are
learning talking more spontaneously it's not memorizing
because you don't know
which question you're gonna ask i don't know yeah
yes
of course we don't have time to make video call
all the time sometimes we are busy for our exams for example
we still keep texting each other like
we will say "Dear today"
i don't have time to make the
video call you can send me you always say that
you can tell me what you did today
with a very short voice message
sometimes just take us like one or two minutes
and
but i i like it yes
we try to study regularly
even we can't make the video call
we still sending each other this kind of voice note
maybe it's a good idea for you there's another exercise
you know i have a habit to write journal
in different languages
so sometimes i write some short journals just to tell her
what i did today
some thoughts and then i sent it to her she correct me
and songs too i remember yeah
you were sending songs
yes
so we were talking about songs too
anyway we did a lot of things friends you just have to be creative
so
let's talk about how can you find more topics
hmm it's not just about talking
random routines
yes yes we can go deeper we can go further
yes
okay i think
we were lucky
we are still lucky to having the same interest
so for us it's easy to find topics like i'm not thinking
what i'm gonna talk with you
it happens naturally but for some people
i think they can
just search for
what they like
they say they like
art and history they can search the topic in their
target language
and they can just talk about it and that person ask questions
in natural ways like there are many topics to talk
and examples on youtube and everywhere exactly
for example we all love reading
so every time she say i ask her what did you do
today yesterday she said oh
i read a book and i say what's that book about
and this is a good topic actually
i did the same thing so she
she said that i've watched a youtube video and i would
ask her to describe me that video in french
i think this is a very good exercise
i think asking questions like
it's not about like you are really interested
but you need to ask for that person to
practicing yeah
it's like you're asking really curious sometimes
but asking is better
for any practicing
yeah so we are trying to give you
some ideas and inspiration and be creative
Friends there are a lot of topics we can talk about
if i studied by myself for example
today i studied a chapter about the education
i've learned a lot of words about education
i will tell her today
i want to
talk about this topic education so let's talk about
the education system in france
and in China in Turkey let's talk about this
yes i ask many questions about China
about France yeah
and it's like
it's so good to using languages for learning new things
exactly this is why we are learning language
yeah
to be honest
i think language exchange it depends a lot of things
you know it's
just like one way to practice language
it's not the only way to practice language
not the only way to improve your speaking skill
there are still a lot of exercises you can do like for example
speaking with yourself like repeating
like shadowing
thinking
they are all very good exercises it doesn't mean that okay
you study with a language buddy
you don't study by yourself
this is only one exercise
we really have to do several things together
to find the best method
i think it depends on the
why you learned that language
exactly for both of us because our goal
is communication
so it's most based on
talking in a colloquial way
yeah
sometimes it happened a lot like when we translate some sentences
i'm saying okay
in Turkish we don't say in that way
we are saying in that way in French too
but for some people
it's maybe just for academic or like
they were just they want to just read some articles
so
it depends your language exchange partner what that person want
it depends, it affects your language study program too
yes yes
so this is the end of the video i
hope you guys find this video helpful
if you are doing language exchange or want to do so
maybe you can find some ideas from this video
if you liked this video
don't forget to give us a like and subscribe to my channel
so see you soon friends bye