InterPals

InterPals is a community where people from different countries find pen friends and partners for language exchange. It has been online since 1998 and deliberately differs from dating services: there is no swiping or matching, only genuine profiles, photo albums and long conversations.

Members can be filtered by country, city and age, as well as by which languages they speak or study. You can see visitors to your own profile and who is currently online. For practice, you can look for a tandem partner, and built-in translation helps when words run out mid-sentence. Chat supports photos and GIFs, and there are interest groups with a shared community feed. Message requests keep the inbox under your control, and blocking or reporting is available at any time.

It suits language learners, travellers, students planning to study abroad and anyone curious about life elsewhere. Creating an account, searching and messaging cost nothing; an internet connection and a profile are needed. The age rating is 12+.