#hello talk

[mbiceta]

I Tried Using HelloTalk Again!

I recently said that there are lots of better Duolingo alternatives you can download for free, so I thought I’d talk about one of them! Hello Talk is very good at teaching you one specific thing: conversation. It is essentially a social media app for finding language partners. It therefore not only helps with language learning, but also connects you with people who can give you even more…

I Tried Using HelloTalk Again!

[thisblackwitch]

I got this either because of mention of the Sitong Bridge protest, or because I run a group for LGBT people on the app, Hello Talk. I'm there to learn multiple languages, including Chinese. Because I get so many Chinese language partner requests (and the vast number of people who send them are a) obscenely boring b ) ghost no matter what or c) are just plain obscene), I will send a copypasta message of "I'm not taking new Chinese language partners - except LGBT Chinese language partners and Chinese language partners who talk about mental health". Hey, I get so many, I can afford to be extremely choosy.

Hello Talk, I have been on since about 2010. As you can see, it looks radically different than when I first joined. Now, it has heavy Chinese-styled censorship but prefers to play it off as "we're keeping this a safe community". They're based in China, which, at one point, honestly didn't matter at all but now, it really is a glaring problem. I have butted heads with Hello Talk before about their shadowbanning behavior and how they take down posts that tends to be about Chinese politics (but have kept up harmful posts about pretty much anywhere else or about anything else). Their excuse is "we're abiding by local laws in your area" - I'm American, this nation sure does suck (if you want blind glowing praise of the USA, find a White person, you'll have a way better success rate. I'm Black, be glad that short phrase is all I'm saying on the subject) but at least I know enough to know Hello Talk isn't being honest and when blatant censorship does occur, these companies are sat in front of Congressional hearings they hate and class-action lawsuits they find agitating. Is there issue of digital censorship in America? Yes. Does it look like digital censorship issues in China? Heck no. I pointed that out to Hello Talk and they then dropped the issue and tried to focus on something else. Again, they changed a lot since 2010.

Due to me butting heads with Hello Talk, I certainly have an account at Tandem recently, which is also a language exchange app but is based in Germany. So you genuinely have a bigger freedom of speech there. I can actually have actual conversations with people in China on that app (when they're not a) boring b) ghosting or c) disgusting). Problem is, is that the people I talk to on Hello Talk in China may or may not have access to Tandem. Otherwise, I would just tell them, "Let's talk on Tandem instead". Ditto with the queer group on Hello Talk, they seem really happy, especially the ones in nations where talking openly about queerness is a major no no, to literally just have someone who is like them to talk to. Even if all that is talked about are very regular subjects. It's really nice. I have some gleaming of a contingency plan but the toughest users to onboard elsewhere are in China because of how much surveillance and censorship they're under. Not everyone has a VPN, can afford it or know how to use it. And trust, getting a VPN in China is not a EZ 1-2-3 step. Not to mention, it can be going fine one day and then flop on you eternally the next. It's chicanery, that's certain.

Also, this censorship extends to other online places that are based in China, so it is a very sure thing that they do collect information on their users and what they say. I know because I personally got banned from WeChat in roughly half an hour after making an account - I didn't even say anything yet. And it isn't because I'm American, plenty Chinese-American users are on it to simply keep contact with relatives overseas. I do rip on places like Tumblr and Facebook but at least I get to say it before bs occurs.

I feel like, at this point, even if someone learning Chinese wasn't aware of the issues over there, they would eventually be by this point. All the monitoring, all the banned words, all the bs annoyance. It would definitely let even a simple-minded or ignorant person know that something isn't right and get possibly curious. It reminds me of a joke that I thought wasn't great at the time but really seemed more poignant now when I told a person that Chinese is one of the language I'm learning. They replied, laughing, "Oh, everyone can speak Chinese, it's the easiest language to learn in the world. Just be silent - boom, now you're fluent in Chinese." Hello Talk started going downhill a few years ago with this censorship mess (starting with anything to do with Hong Kong, I believe) but they're really kicking on the Nitro now.

Even when people ask me now about learning Chinese - actually I know several languages: French, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. I can understand Spanish and bits of German (thanks to my mom spending the first 5 years of her life in Germany due to WWII - my granddad was fighting German White supremacists "alongside" American White supremacists (it wasn't alongside, segregation existed :/) because Reasons) - back to me getting asked about learning Chinese, I just go "Ehhhh, it's a nice language buuuuuuuuuut the bullsh*ttery tho. What's the point of learning a language when you can't really say anything in that language?" It's frustrating because I 100% don't have to deal with this in French, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, German or Italian (I learned Latin in high school so Italian is a "I somehow understand it, I'm as surprised as you are" language). These are all languages with separate nations with separate histories. And I still have way less of a headache of talking to people in those languages and learning those languages because I have more, well, freedom of movement. I don't have to sit here and get a new double-consciousness of "Welp, can't say that word anymore, gotta code it up, it just got banned somehow or gets you flagged somehow". And it won't be words that by themselves make sense to get banned - like if someone was making derogatory comments about how certain groups simply shouldn't exist anymore … simply because they exist, no other reason - it's words that look like total nonsense, like "candle" "bridge" "crab" "year".

Look, being an academic who is multilingual, I have researched countless restrictive governments. My focus usually is on, well, people issues. Queerness, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, all of that and all their intersections - it really isn't that hard to learn. I also code and build tech in my spare time, it's harder to learn how to make a computer say "Hello World" (which is just three or so lines of code) than it is to understand "not everyone has the same experience and there are reasons why" - this is what I look into. One thing I have noticed is how much I sometimes wonder "Ok, but what is the end goal of these nations acting this way and oppressing people and making basically everyone miserable?" There's quelling trouble and then there's just making everyone afraid you're going to Blip them.

This is honestly very aggravating, to say the least. And deeply concerning, to say the most.

Oh, and you can't ask them what the "offending content" is. So you never really know what kicked it off.

[sebslanguageblog]

People who use HelloTalk or Tandem, how often do you reply to people who message you but don't speak your target language ?

[bilingual-culture-is]

Bilingual culture is downloading HelloTalk to practice more only to be ignored

[nanashiii]

Jesus I hate the hello talk app

[alicielalone]

So I’m on HelloTalk now so I can improve my Japanese and Spanish and I’m so sad reading posts from people who went abroad for school or to study another language and they were stuck there more than expected because of COVID. I hope they’ll be able to head home soon...

My user is Leliel and ID is krisrazi333 if anyone wants to chat.

[fritalianblr]

Now I got a functional phone, I installed “Hello Talk” ! As well as japanese learning apps. Even though I haven’t got internet in my phone bundle, I will have to use the wifi and therefore won’t be able to use the app at anytime.

I’m looking to talk in italian to improve, and mostly, not forget the language XD Anyone to talk with me there ? Add @ht_zorume.989614 on Hello Talk !

Of course I can help with french ;)