Why is it *this* difficult to find a native speaker on the net?

[Super Sonic]

Hi everyone,

As most of you know, improving one's foreign language necessitates him to communicate with native speakers of that language. This is also the case with the English language, of course. However, there are people who do not have the means to travel to the countries where the language he learns is spoken as the main language. One of them is me, for the time being. I have always looked for native speakers on the Internet to improve my English. I couldn't find many of them, and the ones I found were (sorry to say that) completely "jerks". One day, I was chatting on the chat page of a site like this one, and I asked a native speaker for their MSN address (so that I could improve my English) and s/he called me a pervert for doing so. Another said he wouldn't talk to Turkish people etc. etc. I'd just like to know why you can't find any native speakers on the Internet and what the reason for the ones' you find being so prejudiced about the people from other countries is. Thanks in advance for the replies.

P.S.: Admittedly, there have been native speakers who helped me with various things; I am not trying to offend anyone. I just want "reason why"s and opinions.

[rancher247]

Hi, native AmE speaker here.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that there aren't a lot of native english speakers on the internet. You may just not be looking in the right places. I understand that there may not be many native speakers who are willing to start up a correspondence with a person from a foreign country when it's difficult to make such a big commitment. I have, in the past, tried to find native speakers of arabic, spanish, italian, polish, and french in order to improve my foreign language skills, but many of them never really returned my emails/messages on this webpage. I had a correspondence with a hispanic person for a month, but then one of us may have gotten bored or whatever, and we stopped communicating.
Another big reason is security-the American media has continually showed the dangers of internet correspondence, which may be the reason why that one person was offended when you asked for their msn address. it's a scary age, and you never know who you can trust.
Don't give up.

[Red5]

Here are some links you might find useful:

Make friends and meet people!
http://www.usingenglish.com/cgi-bin/...ery=chat&Go=Go
http://www.usingenglish.com/cgi-bin/...ry=skype&Go=Go

[Red5]

Niall, which link didn't work? All 3 are opening for me.

PS - The site you suggested looks v. interesting! Why not add it to our directory at http://www.usingenglish.com/links/

[Tdol]

I made a new section in Links for language exchanges and put it there: http://www.usingenglish.com/links/Sp...ges/index.html

[nyggus]

I have, in the past, tried to find native speakers of arabic, spanish, italian, polish, and french in order to improve my foreign language skills, but many of them never really returned my emails/messages on this webpage.

BTW, if you're still looking for someone to polish your Polish via e-mail, here I am!

Cheers,
Nyggus

[Bartholomew]

Try this for native English speakers:

http://epals.phk.at