People here write a postcard, tie it to a balloon and let it go. Pop one, read it, write back — and watch your own card collect postmarks from around the world. Sign in and the sky fills up.
Sign in to look upWrite your postcard to the world.
Slow mail, in a fast app.
Postcards is a slow, quiet corner of TalkSibi, the free language exchange. You answer a prompt in a few lines, tie the card to a balloon and let it go. It drifts to people who are learning the language you speak, so what comes back is written by somebody who can actually use your help — and who can help you with theirs.
Open up to ten balloons a day; the count refills at midnight and the sky shows a countdown. Five of your own cards can be in the air at once. Open one and you can write back, or let it fly on to somebody else. Either way you stamp it, and its author watches their card collect postmarks from every country it passes through — the part of a message in a bottle that usually gets thrown away.
A card shows two letters of a first name and two rows of flags: what they speak, what they are learning. When you have both written to each other, the correspondence moves into Chats by itself. Every card is written by a person and passes the same word filter the rest of the site uses; the house rules apply here as everywhere.
Free, no cost to send or open. You need a TalkSibi account, and TalkSibi is for people aged 18 and over. There are more ways to practise on the games shelf, and the blog explains why writing to a stranger works.