Spanish chat environments
Just about the best way to practice your Spanish without the expense of a trip abroad is to chat with native speakers of Spanish through the Internet.
Warning! If you choose to get involved in chat rooms or online forums, use all the caution you would use when walking down a street in a city you’ve never been in before. Never give out your full name, nor your phone number, nor your postal address. But enjoy yourself! If you become uncomfortable with what the other person is saying, stop talking to them. It’s that simple. You owe them no explanations nor good-byes. Just close the chat window and go to another chat room or invite someone else to chat.
Having trouble getting someone to talk to you?
- Open the “Cien preguntas” page and start asking questions.
- Invite someone to a private chat (double click on their name).
- Ask them where they live, then ask questions about their town.
- Ask about their favorite food; ask how to make something they like.
- First learn about currently popular sports teams in their country, then ask about their likes and dislikes about those teams.
- Ask what kind of music they like.
- Say, “Estudio espanol, quisiera practicar.”
- Type something to them frequently, even if it’s only “momentito…” or they’ll think you’re chatting with someone else and will leave.
Don’t understand something?
Ask “Qué quiere decir _______?” Such as: Que quiere decir cebiche?
Or just say “No comprendo.”
Chat environments contributed by a former student, his comments included:
ElChat.com – this is a very large and easy to use site. 124 different rooms w/ no need to register, etc.
Spanish Chat – this one is real easy- my favorite. No registration, no commitment, but lots of rooms & topics.
RedPlaneta One of the businer chat sites, RedPlaneta has been useful for a lot of classes.
CLICK HERE to read instructions on how to use RedPlaneta
espanglishchat.com – this is a bi-lingual site intended to help Spanish speakers learn English and vice-versa. An interesting site to just read, in that a lot of native Spanish speakers hang out fielding questions & translating back & forth. Not such a good place to practice because lots of conversations move toward using English more than Spanish.
My Language Exchange.com – this is a really cool site. It lets you search a database of people from 114 different countries who have signed up noting their native language and their desire to help with their own, or learn other languages. It has chat rooms (but they are really full and sometimes difficult to get into, I think they need a few more servers…) This site would probably be best used to generate a pen-pal type conversation using e-mail.
LatinChat.com another large and easy one. 13 different “zones” with 5-10 rooms per zone. Lots of ages and topical rooms, some huge and some quite small and managable for conversation. No registration needed, make up a nick-name and chat…
Virtualismo This one is pretty easy too, lots of rooms, many ages, no registration, etc.
Universia One last good one– Very easy, no registration, small but serious user group- (lots of women w/out the rutting males) This one lets you add symbols for emotions like mundohispano… but you can’t seem
to cut & paste ^%$%$#$%!! I just spent 45 minutes there in a real conversation 
and now I can’t show it! asi es vida…
