French Language Exchange Online: Find a Partner Who Wants Your Language

French is spoken on every continent: in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, and across West and North Africa. French speakers learning English, Spanish, German or Japanese are easy to find. The harder part is getting past textbook French and into the way people actually write.

Tu or vous?

In a language exchange, tu is the norm:

• Salut ! J'apprends le français. Ça te dit de faire un échange linguistique ? ("Hi! I'm learning French. Fancy a language exchange?")

If you start with vous, expect the friendly reply on peut se tutoyer ("we can use tu").

Texting French is its own dialect

Written chat French drops letters and uses abbreviations you won't find in a textbook:

Chat	Full	Meaning
mdr	mort de rire	lol
stp / svp	s'il te plaît / s'il vous plaît	please
jsp	je sais pas	I don't know
bcp	beaucoup	a lot
tkt	t'inquiète	don't worry

Ask your partner which ones they actually use. The answer depends on age and country, and it's a great conversation.

France, Quebec, Belgium and beyond

• Quebec French has its own vocabulary: char for car, magasiner for "to shop", and bienvenue also means "you're welcome".
• Belgian and Swiss French count differently: septante and nonante for 70 and 90, instead of soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix.

Where to find a partner

• HelloTalk and Tandem. Both have large French communities. See Tandem alternatives.
• Discord and Reddit. French-learning servers with partner channels.
• Olu's Language learners planet. Set French as the language you're learning and tap to take off. French speakers who are learning your language are matched with you first.

On Olu their messages arrive translated, with the original French shown big because you're practising it, abbreviations and all. Honest limits: it's text only, and the planet is new, so some hours are quiet.

Openers that get a reply

• C'est quoi un plat typique de ta région ? ("What's a typical dish from your region?")
• Tu écoutes quoi en ce moment ? ("What are you listening to at the moment?")
• Il y a une expression française que tu adores ? ("Is there a French expression you love?")

Then offer your side of the exchange. More on finding and keeping a partner: how to find a language exchange partner online.