You may be right about the female intercambios but the truth is is that I’ve personally had a hard time finding female intercambios. I’ve reached out to females for both online and face-to-face intercambios but the overwhelming majority of people I’ve met online and in person or intercambios have been men. The women have flaked out on me in terms of canceling or falling by the wayside after one or two sessions. There was one Chilean female biochemist who I met with on a regular basis when I was still living in NYC and she was really cool but I’ve had a better track record with the guys.

If it were up to me, I’d rather it be 50/50 but that’s just the way the cookie has crumbled for me. It might be that the men find me cuter than the women do? LOL. Just kidding, nah, I think it is that with many of the women I’ve met, they’ve had really low self-confidence when it came to speaking English and to me it’s a big turnoff when people are constantly putting themselves down and apologizing for their language level. I don’t find as many men putting themselves down as quickly and as easily as many Spanish-speaking women do.

If you ever decide you want to give it a go another try, placing your own ad where you specifically state what kind of contact you’re looking for in terms of age, hobbies/interests, country/location, might yield better results since you’ll be in control of who you decide to respond to.

Also, have you ever checked out the Spanish conversation groups at MeetUp.com. I believe there is a group in your area: http://spanish.meetup.com/37/
If you’ve got time one of these days, it might be worth a look.

On another tack, I have been trying to establish contacts in the city of Piura for my next trip to Peru. I searched Skype and have established 3 or 4 willing to converse – so far this has only been in chat form – they tend to be office workers, I imagine distracting themselves from the daily duties – the conversations are somewhat prolonged while they deal with customers and I look up words – strangely it has been quite a fun way to communicate and because they are at work they are always on line.

best wishes

Alan

I’ve never really ‘got’ intercambios to be honest, despite my very best efforts and several years of trying, on and off. They’ve just never worked for me as means of language learning. I’ve always felt too uncomfortable, and the situation seems too contrived and artificial to motivate me. Shame, because I really, really miss being able to converse in Spanish sometimes. And goodness knows I need the practice

Regarding accepting corrections…for some people it’s tough to accept them and for others it’s tough to give them. But it’s the only way to learn.

Thanks for your comment!

Maybe a fifth point: accept corrections. I know that I felt embarrassed in the beginning when someone gave me correction, but it’s just how things go. Don’t be rude and say things like: “I don’t like to be interrupted”. That’s just plain weird.

I think it’s better for him to get a tape recorder or some recording software and record his own speeches. Hehe, reminds me of something: when I was studying Russian, someone from Georgia added me on Skype. First we’d talk a bit in Russian, but then he put up some Georgian rap and later some kind of folk music, preventing me to speak. Now, THAT’s weird!