I made my first pen friend using the Bottled pen pal app in 2017. We are still in contact, and I have learned a ton of things from him.
These apps will help you extraordinarily understand the world. It is a unique way of communication to learn more about foreign culture and people.
With the internet, you can connect with anyone using emails, social media platforms, etc. in a few seconds and start chatting. But pen pal apps help you uniquely express your self.
This relation sometimes grows into life long friendship, love, and sometimes even marriage. Even I have a few pen pals in foreign countries, and we have been sharing messages for over two years now.
Show your creativity and writing skills and start making life long pen-pals internationally.
What is a pen pal app?
Pen pals are people who regularly write to each other. Earlier people used to write letters, but now with the internet, dedicated apps are developed for pen friends.
A pen pal app allows you to make pen-friends across the globe using your smart devices. These apps provide you with a platform to share and communicate with foreign people and understand their culture.
You can make friends according to your interests, hobbies, language, age group, etc. You can even filter the specific countries in which you are interested in making pen pals.
How to use the pen pal app?
The apps are pretty much easy to use. Just create an account and send a message.
You don’t have to specify the receiver as the more than one person will receive it. Anyone of the recipient will respond to your message.
Similarly, you will receive messages from random people. You have a choice whether to start a conversation or not. Just reply to the letter, and you are good to go.
You can write something impressive about your place or can start with fun facts, or even jokes are excellent. It up to your creativity how you begin your conversation.
Best Pen Pal Apps for Android & iOS
1. Slowly
Slowly is the best pen pal app that allows you to write a letter to the world. It is a great pen pal app by which you can quickly meet pen friends from your smartphone.
Find a pen pal according to your passion, language, and interest. Write a letter and collect unique stamps from around the world.
You can send one letter at a time to a person, and the time of delivery is dependent on the distance of the person (just like a real letter). The farther the person lives from you, the longer the message takes time to travel.
You also have the option to block certain countries or people if you wanted to. For those who have considered making pen pals, this is a great app to help that craving.
2. Bottled
Bottled is an excellent pen pal app for Android and iOS users. It allows you to meet strangers, chat, and learn new languages.
You get a private island from which you are communicating with the world using bottles. It is a free and secure app that allows you to start a private chat with strangers.
All you have to do is to write a letter, put it inside a bottle and send it. The bottle circulates all around the world to different users. If someone likes it, you will get notified and start chatting with the person.
You also receive bottles from different users, but the frequency is very less. You can increase the rate of bottles by using a booster.
It has the option to keep messages by recipients depending on the content of your Bottled message. You can also use filters so that only a person of a specific gender, country, or language can receive the letter.
3. Lettrs
Lettrs is a great, unique, and different pen pal app. Add images, signatures, texts, and you can make it just like a real letter with graphics. There are tons of great paper styles and stamps.
You can explore autographed messages authentically signed from your favorite celebrities. Some of the famous celebs are Andre Wiggins, Jordan Clarkson, Paulo Coelho, Izabella Miko & Michelle Phan.
It is also the official fanmail app for Major League Baseball Players Association.
This app also allows you to edit the unopened delivered letter if you forgot something to add. Download the app and instantly connect with international pay pals by sending a message.
4. Paltalk
Paltalk is another popular pen pal app that is great to start a group video chat with your friends.
It has different chat rooms that you can join based on your interests. After entering a group, you can have a conversation with anyone.
You can message directly to an entire group or start a chat with a specific person from the group.
In a free program, you get to visit the rooms and have audio and text chats with limited features.
Paltalk has different chat rooms, just like Reddit having various subreddits. You can join a group based on music, politics, sports, and more.
5. HelloTalk
HelloTalk is a popular language learner app which helps you to learn a new language and make pen friends. It allows you to chat, speak & learn foreign languages without the help of any tutor.
One of the best features of this app is to allows you to practice your target language with native speakers via text/audio messages.
You can quickly start free audio and video call with your friends.
The application can be used even without the knowledge of languages, to chat with different people around the world.
Use Moments to share and ask questions about language, culture, or travel for all native speakers to see and comment.
It’s not entirely a pen pals app, but you can use it to make pen pals with photos.
6. Tandem
Tandem helps you to learn and speak any language quickly. The app works both online and offline.
It allows you to share topics with our learning community to find partners that share your interests.
You will meet people from different countries who will help you to understand foreign speech well and speak fluently yourself.
This app enables you to find a real international interlocutor, a pen pal, with whom you can practice in the language you are learning.
Currently, more than 3 million users in the application are registered, so finding a character that is suitable in terms of age and interests is not at all problematic.
There is also an opportunity to choose your interlocutor and start to live in communication with him. For this, you can use audio and video calls, as well as text chat.
7. Replika
Replika is an Artificial Intelligence. Yes, Its an AI which came out to be very much human and a great pen pal.
If you are feeling low and want to share your feelings with, then try this app.
I’ve played with many chatbots, and this is so immensely superior to all of them. It is a great pen pal app developed by Luka, Inc for Android and iOS users.
Along with these, it also helps you to easily explore your personality and get to know yourself better with every conversation.
8. Airtripp
Airtripp is another pen pal app that allows you to meet global friends and chat with foreign friends.
This app lets you make global friends from 250 countries and regions with ease. Along with these, it also helps you to find language study partners and learn different languages for free.
You can also find travel pal and create your travel plan and get advice from people all over the world. App also lets you see and share pictures of different places.
Other users can also like the pictures you are sharing of different places and can follow your profile. Follow others to know what they are doing. It is available for free, as well as an in-app purchase option.
9. Hello Pal
It is a great language learning app but will let you find a pen pal too.
Hello Pal boasts a friendly interface and extensive functionality. It has listed more than 30 different languages that help you learn the language and to get you to start communicating via chat.
It has more than 2,000 ready-made phrases and sentences with an audio guide.
Communication with other users takes place in a private chat room equipped with an integrated online translator and a phrasebook. Moreover, the program after recording enables you to listen to the phrase, and if necessary, re-record it.
There are 11 downloadable language packs, a game test to test knowledge, search for the most appropriate interlocutors by filtering by various parameters, including the languages studied, gender, and age.
10. Speaky
Speaky is more of a language learner app than a pen pal app. This app lets you instantly practise languages with people around the world.
You can easily find a perfect language partner and learn from each other by merely exchanging your language skills.
Even you can also help a person who wants to learn your native language.
The interface of the free application is similar in appearance to the Skype program environment. Still, in Speaky, there is no need to search for a carrier for a long time, willing to help you with foreign language practice for free.
The built-in error analyzer will help to correct the grammar and will tell you how to build sentences correctly. Those who want to help foreigners to learn a language can try themselves as teachers.
The best thing is the app is completely ad-free and free of cost.
11. AnyGram
AnyGram allows you to make global friends and start a chat with them. This app will enable you to learn a foreign language and culture with the help of an inbuilt translator.
The app is useful if you don’t know the receiver’s native language and can easily use a translator to communicate.
Apart from the translator, it has other cool features too. You will get sentences that are used frequently in 23 different languages to start.
Block the annoying person if you want to from the options.
12. Yubo (Tinder for Pen Pals)
Yubo is just like Tinder.
You have to swipe right if you want to meet or chat with that person or left if you don’t want to. But it can be used as a pen pal app which allows you to meet the world.
It is a perfect social networking app that facilitates you to make new friends nearby easily.
It provides one to one chat option so that you can chat online with your new friends in a private conversation. Send and receive pictures and Bitmoji stickers with Animoji apps.
Go live with up to 10 people at the same time. Livestreams are public, and an unlimited number of watchers can see it.
13. HiNative
If you are not yet ready for direct conversation and correspondence, then HiNative service will be the best choice for communication with native speakers.
You can immediately ask a dozen other users who know the language you need. Connect with native speakers from over 170 different countries.
You can create questions using ready-made templates, if necessary, supplementing them with images or audio recordings. The latter will evaluate your pronunciation and correct it if required.
14. Hit me up (iOS only)
Hit me up is a fascinating chat that connects you with people from all over the world.
If you are looking for an opportunity to meet new people with your smartphone, without revealing your phone number, then this application is ideal for you.
You can create a profile that reflects your character and encourages other people with similar interests to communicate with you.
The first tab is a list of all people online at the moment or recently existed online, and you can start to communicate with them.
Conclusion
Pen pal apps help us connect and understand foreign cultures with a very different approach. It is a very unique and different way to learn things from someone else’s experiences.
You have to sometime wait for hours to receive letters, in some apps, depending upon the geographical distance between both of you.
It makes you eager and requires patience to wait for someone’s message like the old days. You sure want to experience this one time if you are born in the 21st century.
Did you make any friends?
We will love to hear from you about your experience and suggestions by comment section or by Contact form.
