When it comes to online platforms for finding a language tutor, Italki often springs to mind. The idea is simple: you get to practice languages like Korean by chatting with native speakers on Skype or similar platforms.

I've had an interesting experience chatting with a native Korean based in Mexico while I was in Korea. It might sound unusual, but in my experience in-person language exchanges in Korea don't always work out, as you often end up speaking more English than the language you're learning.

Using services like Skype, where you pay for your language partner's time, tends to be more effective. It's usually cheaper than in-person lessons in Korea, sometimes as low as $8 for an hour of one-on-one tutoring.

But Italki isn't the only game in town. There are several other platforms worth exploring.

I recently tried Verbling for the first time. Initially, I was a bit hesitant because the teachers there are generally a bit more expensive than the amateur tutors on Italki. Verbling seems to focus on more experienced language tutors, offering both online and offline teaching experience. It's a balance of pros and cons, but you can filter teachers by price to suit your budget.

Verbling requires using their own chat tool, likely to keep control over teacher-student interactions and their service fees. They take about 15% of what you pay, with the rest going to the teacher, which is similar to Italki. In comparison, languagetools.io appears to have lower fees.

My reservations about Verbling were unfounded, though. The platform is quite user-friendly, and the video and sound quality are on par with Skype. They also offer additional features:

Have you used Verbling or similar platforms like Italki or Preply?