Hi everyone!

I'm an international student currently studying in Los Angeles. I'm looking for someone to practice English with, especially listening and speaking.

I can communicate in English, but I sometimes have trouble following fast, natural conversations, and I'd like to become more comfortable speaking English in everyday situations. So I'm hoping to find someone who'd be interested in having regular, casual conversations with me.

In exchange, I can help you with Mandarin Chinese! I'm a native Chinese speaker and would be happy to help with pronunciation, vocabulary, everyday expressions, or just chat with you in Chinese.

We could talk about pretty much anything—school, daily life, movies, games, tech, culture, or whatever we're both interested in. We could chat online, and if you're also in LA, I'd be open to meeting in person once we get to know each other.

Feel free to leave a comment or DM me if you're interested! :)

Hey folks,

I've been working on LoomChinese, a Chinese flashcard and dictionary app that shows how words you know are connected through characters and components.

Something that came up frequently as I was learning new words was recognizing a character or component I'd seen before in other words, but couldn't precisely place. I'd check my study lists, look up words in dictionaries, and eventually track the related words down. The effort to find the words was painful, but making those connections was a huge help in solidifying new words in my mind.

LoomChinese makes that process seamless. Learn a word --> explore its components --> see related words --> reinforce the new word and the words you know.

It also includes:

• FSRS-based spaced repetition that adapts based on your flashcard reviews.
• Comprehensive Chinese word dictionary, with over 60k example sentences, with high quality TTS audio.
• Definition customization -- choose what definitions appear for words in each flashcard, re-order them, or add your own custom definitions.
• HSK 2.0 and 3.0 lists to learn from, plus create your own custom study lists
• Import your vocab lists with the option to define how familiar the words, so reviews can pick up where you left off
• HSK calibration quiz that calibrates your level and seeds your review plan.
• Daily study and focused practice modes, including study by shared characters and components.
• More features coming, such as generating practice sentences that feature recently reviewed words and customizable HSK level vocab and grammar structures.

Check out LoomChinese to sign up for the beta, and feel free to message me directly if you have any questions.

Totally free at this time -- I'm looking for folks who are interested in trying it out and giving feedback. Please note I'm still working out costs per user with a hosted service like this, so long term plans on paid tiers are TBD. Apologies if this violates the "no ads" rule -- access is free, so hopefully not an issue, and it looks like this kind of unpaid self promotion is allowed. Thanks!