German Language Exchange Online: Find a Partner and Get Past 'Wie geht's?'

Finding a German speaker who's learning your language, du vs Sie in chat, Germany vs Austria vs Switzerland, and openers that start a real conversation.

Updated 24 September 2026 · 2 min read

German speakers are some of the most enthusiastic language learners online. Many already speak good English and want to practise Spanish, French, Italian or Japanese, or to push their English from good to great. That makes a German exchange easy to start and easy to keep balanced, if you set it up right.

Du, not Sie

Textbooks start with Sie, but a language exchange is informal. Use du from the start:

Hallo! Ich lerne gerade Deutsch. Hast du Lust auf einen Sprachaustausch? ("Hi! I'm learning German. Fancy a language exchange?")

Your partner will almost certainly reply with du as well.

Germany, Austria, Switzerland

About 95 million people speak German as a first language. You'll meet:

Germans, the majority, with regional words that make good conversation (Brötchen, Semmel or Weck for a bread roll).
Austrians, whose everyday words differ: Jänner for January, Paradeiser for tomato.
Swiss, who speak Swiss German but write standard German, so text chat works well.

Asking "how do you say this where you live?" is one of the best openers there is.

Miss chatting with someone on the other side of the world?Olu lands you in a random country, one person, translated both ways. Free, in your browser. Take off →

Where to find a partner

Tandem. It was founded in Berlin and is popular with German speakers. See Tandem alternatives.
HelloTalk. A large German community.
Local Sprachcafés and Stammtische. Most German university towns hold regular exchange evenings.
Olu's Language learners planet. Set German as the language you're learning and tap to take off. German speakers who are learning your language are matched with you first.

On Olu their messages arrive translated, with the original German shown big because you're practising it. It's a good way to get used to long compound nouns before you have to produce them. Honest limits: it's text only, and the planet is new, so evenings in Central Europe are the busiest.

Openers that work

Was machst du am Wochenende normalerweise? ("What do you usually do at the weekend?")
Welches deutsche Wort magst du am liebsten? ("What's your favourite German word?") Everyone has one.
Was sollte man in deiner Stadt unbedingt essen? ("What should you definitely eat in your city?")

Keep it balanced

German speakers' English is often strong, so the chat slides into English. Be direct about it (Germans generally appreciate that): Lass uns die nächsten zehn Nachrichten auf Deutsch schreiben. ("Let's write the next ten messages in German.")

More on keeping an exchange alive: how to find a language exchange partner online.

Questions people ask

+Where can I do a German language exchange online?

Tandem is popular with German speakers (it was founded in Berlin), and HelloTalk has a large German community too. On Olu's Language learners planet you set German as the language you're learning, and German speakers learning your language are matched with you first.

+Should I use du or Sie with a language exchange partner?

Du. Online, and between people of a similar age who are learning together, du is normal from the first message. Sie would sound oddly formal.

+Is Swiss German different from German?

Spoken Swiss German is very different and hard even for Germans. But Swiss people write standard German, so in text chat you'll mostly understand each other fine.

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