Best Korean Language Exchange Apps & Sites – Find Friends & Penpals

Going to Korean language exchanges is one of the best ways to up your Korean conversation skills. Not only is it lots of fun, but you’re likely to make some new friends in the process and learn about Korean culture!

A woman and man and talking while holding coffee cups

As you improve your listening skills, watching movies and listening to Korean music will start to make a lot more sense.

What is a Korean Language Exchange for?

Korean language exchanges are an amazing tool if you want to learn Korean or learning about Korea. They allow you to practice what you’ve learned in a friendly, casual, and educational environment that adds a fun new element to the learning process. Language exchanges can be done in person or online.

Korean Language Exchange Websites and Apps

We’ve compiled a list of our favorite Korean language exchange sites and categorized them based on their most useful features to help you find a site that will be an ideal fit for you and your unique learning style. Let’s get started!

1. HelloTalk

Best all-in-one app for talking with Koreans

Android | iOS

HelloTalk allows you to set up a Korean language exchange through their app. You can easily find and chat with a native speaker from South Korea and make foreign friends from all around the world in the form of your exchange partner. Looking for someone that can teach Korean can be done with chat, voice, and video through their easy-to-use smartphone app.

Download the app and search for Korean pen pals and language exchange partners. You can search based on the city, distance from you, and native language. If you’re a beginner in Korean, start chatting over text first and work your way up to video.

2. MyLanguageExchange

Best for learners who’d like a consistent Korean pen pal

Website: http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/

MyLanguageExchange is great at what they do – rather than typical forums where individual users post threads and wait for responses from many different individuals, MyLanguageExchange makes searching for the best language exchange partners personal.

Each user has a profile complete with details like a profile picture, spoken languages, languages they would like to learn, location, and a general description. These details ensure that users can find a unique pen pal and exchange partner that match each other’s language learning style, fostering ongoing, educational friendships rather than one-off responses in a forum.

Check out MyLanguageExchange if you think you would benefit from keeping in touch with a local from South Korea while embarking on your journey in learning Korean – you won’t regret it! This will help you learn more about Korean culture too!

Can't read Korean yet? Click here to learn for free in about 60 minutes!

3. Craigslist Korea

Best for learners looking to hire a Korean professional

Website: www.craigslist.com

While Craigslist may not be the first site that comes to mind when thinking “language exchange partner,” it’s actually an incredible practical forum if you’re seeking something a bit more advanced than the typical pen pal.

Need something professionally translated to Korean? Look no further than the Seoul Craigslist, which hosts thousands of native Korean tutors, Korean teachers, and interpreters who are willing to help out students in the process of learning Korean, either informally as a pen pal or professionally as a contractor.

Group of happy young Asian friends having chatting and having coffee

There are also plenty of other workshops and groups hosted on the South Korea site to find an exchange partner. For example, there is a live posting inviting individuals living in South Korea to join a spring photography workshop you can go to if you want to learn Korean AND cultivate your photography skills!

Don’t let the barebones aesthetic scare you off – you’d be surprised at what you can find on Craigslist.

4. MeetUp’s Language Exchange Café

Best for learners who want to meet Korean speakers in person

Website: www.meetup.com

Remember the days when we were told that we should never meet people on the internet because they might be waiting for us with a chainsaw? Thankfully, those days are long behind us, and when we dropped the paranoia, we gained innumerable opportunities to learn from the knowledge of internet strangers.

MeetUp’s Language Exchange Café is a glowing example of the good that can come from like-minded internet strangers coming together. The group hosts meetings each day of the week in cities across South Korea.

If you’re in South Korea and are looking for someone who can speak Korean, this is perfect for you! If you also speak English fluently, you might be of help to a Korean who wants to practice English!

Each meeting is meant to be a fun, safe environment for those who speak English,  Korean, Chinese, and Japanese and want to practice or study Korean or a new language. Nothing beats learning a new language with the help of people that are as committed to broadening their horizons as you are. Be sure to check out the next meetup near you and tell us about it in the comments below!

5. Facebook’s Korean Language Exchange

Best for learners who want to keep their learning streamlined and all in one place

Website: www.facebook.com/KorLangEx

The best part about Facebook’s massive list of language exchange partners and pages is that you don’t have to do any additional work to take advantage of the millions of Korean speakers on the internet looking to practice and improve.

You don’t even need to be in South Korea for this, as it works wherever you are in the world. You might currently be a high school student, a college student, or perhaps a professional who wants to learn another language.

You don’t have to join a new site, create a separate account, or download a language learning app to find someone you can exchange language with and learn how to speak Korean. This particular language exchange is everyday Facebook users posting in search of Kakao friends or Skype friends to help them practice Korean or speak English, depending on their native language.

Almost no effort is required – click the link and press “like,” and you’ll begin seeing the posts showing up in your newsfeed. Low maintenance, much?

How to get a Korean pen pal?

Looking for Korean pen pals from within or outside South Korea will be easy with the help of the apps and sites listed above. Feel free to start searching for Korean penpals online with the HelloTalk Korean pen pal app, then down through the list to find the perfect match for you.

Keep in mind that if you want to learn the Korean language, it will not be as hard as you think if you’re connected to a solid support network to help you in your journey.

If you speak English or are still learning English and want to learn Korean, the list above will help you! You won’t only be learning Korean, but you’ll also get to meet new friends. Whether you’re learning Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese, or any other language,  do give it a try.

Wrap Up

For other apps to help you learn Korean, feel free to check out our article on the Best apps to learn Korean here. If you prefer to learn Korean through online courses instead, here’s where to go. Let us know which among these language exchange sites for Korean is your favorite in the comments below!

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23 thoughts on “Best Korean Language Exchange Apps & Sites – Find Friends & Penpals”

  1. Hi!
    thank you for the tips.
    I recently started learning Korean online with a Brazilian teacher but I’m losing enthusiasm because I’m impatient and I hope to get quick results. I can read but I can only understand a word or two and I have difficulty forming sentences. Particles, verbs and “speech types” are confusing and I can’t help thinking in Portuguese and translating into Korean (I Know, I Know..LOL)… is there a better way to learn?

  2. Thank you. Really it’s very helpful. I was on Hello talk but coz of some issues i cant use that app anymore , so i was really in need of language exchange partner. i just registered account on language exchange.com
    Hope it would be great help for me

  3. Very informative site. Have been thinking of learning a new language and got to know that Korean is much more easy to learn, compared to Japanese or Mandarin/Cantonese. So hangul, here I come! Your site sure has a lot of helpful articles! Thank you, keep up the good work.. 🙂

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