At tokimonki, we are on a mission to create language exchange platform for
serious language learners.
Why?
It all starts in 2019.
William, goes on a transformational one-year
exchange program to Tsinghua University in Beijing 
As a heritage Chinese speaker, it lets him immerse himself in a native Chinese
speaking environment - something that was impossible to achieve growing up in Australia.
On exchange, his Chinese improves by leaps and bounds 🚀, and he also gains a much
deeper appreciation for his cultural background 🐼.
Then, he comes back to Australia and starts his career in management consulting.
Busy with work, he realises that without the environment to actually use the
Chinese language, it begins to quickly regress 🧊.
It’s a serious case of BYE-lingual.
Desperately trying to find a way to improve his Chinese, he tries
language exchange.
This turns out to be an AMAZING way to replicate being in a Chinese
speaking environment, which is a no brainer.
If you want to sound more like a native, practice with a native and
learn how they ACTUALLY use the language.
But things are not as perfect as they seem. People seem to use language
exchange platforms for seemingly anything BUT language learning.
You get heaps of people looking for romantic partners, and others are
trying to scam you out of money.
There’s a reason why H****talk is considered a dating app in Japan
instead of a language learning app!
This leads to incredibly guarded interactions, hours spent messaging and
mailing people in hopes of finding someone who’s willing to jump onto a
video call for language exchange.
Then, when you FINALLY find someone who wants to do language exchange,
it doesn’t feel effective because these platforms aren’t really made for
language learning!
William loved the idea of language exchange, but just couldn’t find a
platform seemed to genuinely care about language learning.
So, he decided to take matters into his own hands and reached out to
Leo 
.
Leo understood the problem from the other side.
English as his second language, he knew just how important it was to build a
native level English fluency, not just so that he could succeed in his
academics, but also to thrive as a full-stack developer.
You see, these days many students passed IELTS tests and thought this would be
enough to study overseas, but they never built the practical language skills
that were required to make the most of their international education.
These students would spend years working their way through an entire
degree in countries like Australia, go back to their home country and then
realise — that they STILL would struggle to hold a conversation with a native
English speaker!
Something needed to change.
In 2022, the two of them kicked off their first meeting for this platform.
After hosting 160+ exchanges, countless surveys and user interviews for
thousands of serious language learners, they built tokimonki:
The language exchange platform designed to help you build the language skills
that you wish you had.
If you’d like to start sounding more like a native, and less like a
textbook…