Girls with Skype

[Kitchen Queen]

I have been looking for a girl to chat to on Skype - I'm a married lady and don't really feel comfortable chatting to a man - it's just too intimate. Trouble is all the contacts with Skype on xlingo.com (one of the places recommended by you to find an intercambio) seem to be men!

Where can I find net-savvy Spanish women to chat to? I've been in touch with a couple of people but trying to persuade them to download Skype and get a headset has got nowhere!

Help!

[alanmalarkey]

Well, you can advertise here or I would recommend investing a month's membership ( a few dollars) of http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/. You should get a few hits but you need to stipulate female and Skype only. Otherwise, I guess that you could talk to selected men but make it clear that your intentions are purely linguistic - some of us can respect that! The other thought is to use http://spanishconversation.wikispaces.com/ which are generally group sessions - I belong to the Sunday beginner plus group which it the moment is all girls except me!!!

good luck

Alan

[Tracy]

I've been looking for an intercambio as well and gave mylanguageexchange.com a try this week.

The search function is really useful - you can specify gender, country, an age range, and what type of contact - email or voice chat.

I got about 9 pages of listings for over 25yrs, female, from Spain and voice chat. Just to give you an idea. Seems that there are plenty of net-savvy Spanish women out there!

I've found someone now and we're planning to meet on Skype this weekend for the first time.

The only bad point I've discovered so far was the confusing sign-up process for the gold membership, which you need to have to be able to send messages. I found it frustrating that if you select payment by paypal, it says you get instant verification. In reality, it was more like 24 hours. It leaves you wondering what went wrong, but works out in the end.

Good luck on your search! :)

Tracy

[DocMolly]

I just signed up for mylanguageexchange.com and it was a great way to find people to exchange languages with. I love the idea of helping someone with their English as she helps you with your Spanish. Also, it was neat to look for peopel from certain countries. :thumbs-up:

[Margot]

Me too.......good luck to all of us...we can all return here as true hispanohablantes...or at least, hopefully much improved.

[omeyas]

Have you tried the search facility in Skype itself?
I just put in Spanish as the language, female, and there are dozens coming up. Try the Skype forum, (http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showforum=6)as well, do a search there. There are lots wanting to swap languages

[Summertime]

Can anybody recommend a really good spanish chat or forum?
Thanks in advance

[Kitchen Queen]

Thank-you for all your replies! I'll sit down this evening and have a good look at those places you recommended - new to me so well worth a try!

Many thanks

[landlady]

Kitchen Queen, I understand your wish for female chats. I too felt like that and found what I was looking for by joining mylanguageexchange for a Month. I now have a regular skype chat with my new friend and we have actually been joined by a male member of this site, (as Alan says, they're not all bad ;)) It works very well with the three of us, two learners and one Spanish speaker. She seems to enjoy helping us with our Spanish, and we don't really do an intercambio as she is fluent in English and only reverts to it when we are struggling to understand something. Couldn't wish for a better outcome and well worth the Months membership. Good luck to you.

[ValenciaSon]

Doesn't "Girls with Skype" sound like one of those old film documentaries you had to watch in junior high Hygiene class?:rolleyes:

[eldeano]

Doesn't "Girls with Skype" sound like one of those old film documentaries you had to watch in junior high Hygiene class?:rolleyes:

What, the ones your mother used to warn you about? :lovers: I feel itchy.

[tad]

Yep, kitchen queen , I can see why you want to keep it girls only;)

[eldeano]

Yep, kitchen queen , I can see why you want to keep it girls only;)

Would the blokes ever get a word in? :chat:

[Diana]

Would the blokes ever get a word in? :chat:

Nope!;D

[Damian Corrigan]

Another solution is to use one of Skype's rivals, most of which these days offer completely free calls to landlines. Then you can speak to anyone who has a landline, rather than trying to convince htem to buy a headset. www.freecall.com (http://www.freecall.com), www.voipbuster.com (http://www.voipbuster.com), www.voipstunt.com (http://www.voipstunt.com) all offer this, and there are many more.

Most of them only offer a limited number of free minutes to begin with, but its usually a couple of hours' worth. Then, if you buy credit, you get about five hours a week of free calls. It's worth making the switch from Skype, who in recent weeks have become all evil and started adding cheeky little surcharges.

[Edith]

Can anybody recommend a really good spanish chat or forum?
Thanks in advance


http://www.notesfromspain.com/wp-content/themes/wp-andreas-new/images/nis_header2.jpg (http://www.notesfromspain.com/forums)

A great forum for girls & guys!

P.s.: this place would be very boring without the guys!

[landlady]

Another solution is to use one of Skype's rivals, most of which these days offer completely free calls to landlines. Then you can speak to anyone who has a landline, rather than trying to convince htem to buy a headset. www.freecall.com (http://www.freecall.com), www.voipbuster.com (http://www.voipbuster.com), www.voipstunt.com (http://www.voipstunt.com) all offer this, and there are many more.

Most of them only offer a limited number of free minutes to begin with, but its usually a couple of hours' worth. Then, if you buy credit, you get about five hours a week of free calls. It's worth making the switch from Skype, who in recent weeks have become all evil and started adding cheeky little surcharges.

I've just downloaded freecall. As I understand it, you get a few free trial calls, then you will be asked to purchase credit (which I see is €10 worth) you can then use the freecall service through your computer for up to 90 days to call landlines in the areas listed for free - up to a max of 300 mins per week (as you said 5 hours of free calls per week for approx 13 weeks)
* Max 300 minutes per week of (http://www.freecall.com/en/buycredits.html)free (http://www.freecall.com/en/free.html) calls, measured over the last 7 days and per unique IP address. Unused free minutes cannot be taken to the following week(s). If limit is exceeded the normal rates (http://www.freecall.com/en/freetrial.html) apply. With your FREE DAYS you can call for free to all the destinations listed as free! when you have no FREE DAYS left the normal rates (http://www.freecall.com/en/freetrial.html) apply. You can get extra Freedays by buying credit (http://www.freecall.com/en/buycredits.html)

Once the 90 days are up you are then charged at the applicable tariff shown for the chosen Country, this will be charged independently of the €10 credit which you keep in your account, but you won't get back. So, in other words it will cost you €10 for 13 weeks to make internet calls to landline phones in the listed Countries and you can have up to 5 hours talktime in any given week. NOT A BAD DEAL :D
(http://www.freecall.com/en/buycredits.html)Buying credits (http://www.freecall.com/en/buycredits.html) entitles you to 90 Freedays (http://www.freecall.com/en/free.html) (unless stated otherwise). This means you can call all countries in the free* destinations list for 90 days at no costs. When the 90 days are over, you will keep your credit, and the normal (http://www.freecall.com/en/freetrial.html) rate will be charged for these destinations.

So, does this mean that if you purchase a further €10 credit, you will get a further 90 days - same terms as previously?
and it seems like you can talk for 2 hours one day and up to 3 hours another, or even 4hours 55 mins in one day and still be within your time limit, is this correct? It doesn't appear to mention a daily limit, just a weekly one.

What is the sound quality like through a telephone? Is it better, the same, or worse than peer to peer calling through the computer?

Excuse all the questions, but this option may be worth it for Spanish chats as I've found that long distance skype chats, from Spain to America for example, don't always work too well with microphone problems etc. If one end is using a telephone, it may work better for one to one calls.

[omeyas]

You could try jajah or VoipCheap.com, a few more options.
Re Skype conference calls, I tried listening in on a couple a while ago, and I found most of it almost "unlistenable". I think it depends a lot on the moderator, whoever is hosting it. I listened to one, and he went around inviting everyone to speak, one at a time, and that seemed to work quite well, otherwise everyone was trying to talk at the same time. Plus a lot of echo and feedback, even though most were showing as having their mic's switched off. I didn't stay long.

[Damian Corrigan]

Landlady, yeah, I think you got all that right. And yes, every time you top up, you get more free minutes.

And remember, not only does your 10€ get you 13 weeks of 5 hours talk time, but by the end of those 13 weeks you still have your 10€ (assuming you haven't used it for mobile calls or SMS) which will get you another 588 minutes.

omeyas, I could never get jajah to work at the prices they said. Though their 5 minute trial call works well, i put credit on and it went in a couple of minutes. but yeah, voipcheap is good.

Also, freecall (and I think the others too) do "directcall", which costs 1.7c a minute (I think, never tried it) to call phone to phone, which further eliminates the headset.

[tilda]

I have been using a site called www.friendsabroad.com. It's free and you can specify different categories/ages/sexes, etc. I've never used Skype with any of my penpals but it has been suggested so obviously it's possible. I have met girls from all over the Spanish-speaking world.
Buena suerte!!:wave::wave: