HELP & FAQs

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OVERVIEW

GETTING STARTED

COMMUNICATION

BE SAFE

SYSTEM STUFF

Java

Skype

Other

Other help


Please note that there is on screen help throughout the site.

We have tool tips in many areas when you move your mouse over text or an entry field. Try it here on this line.

The blue question mark icon is a sign of pop up help. Just click on the icon and a pop up will appear with a full explanation of the relevant field or feature. Like this: (?)

What is FriendsAbroad.com?

FriendsAbroad.com is the world's largest online community for people learning languages.

It's a completely different way to learn a language that's fun and enjoyable on its own, or in addition to your current methods.

So for example, if you speak English and want to learn Spanish, you can find Spanish speakers who want to improve their English – you help them with their English and in return they will help you with your Spanish.

The idea is to just do it! Join FriendsAbroad.com and meet and communicate with new people from all over the world, and by just doing it, you will then improve your language skills.

What can I do?

Our current version is easy to use, safe and it's completely free to join.

You can:

  • register your own profile
  • search for language learning partners all over the world
  • speak to each other using FriendsTalk
  • have live text chats using our new and improved chat system
  • email each other
  • write in different languages using our phrase translator and virtual keyboard
  • correct each other's mistakes
  • have live text chats


We also have an online shop for all your travel and language learning needs.

How do I start?

Fill in the quick registration form on our homepage and click on 'Get Started'. You can now browse our site and start looking for friends.

Validate your account. Before you can communicate with other FriendsAbroad.com members, you need to validate the email address for your account. We will have sent you a validation email to the email address you provided upon registering. Simply click on the authentication link in that email.

Complete the 'About me' profile (found under 'My home' in the main menu). The more information you enter into your profile, the more likely you are to make suitable friends. Once you have completed the form, click on the 'Preview' button to see how your profile appears to other members.

How do I find a friend or language partner?

We want you to find the most suitable language learning partners and hope you will become friends.

To find people select 'Friends' in the main menu and you'll see the simple search form. You can also select Who's online from the submenu, or click on one of the people shown in the gallery to view their profile.

When you first go into the search page, it's set up for a fast search by language. Just select the languages (if they aren't already the right ones) and click the Search button.

There are many thousands of people to choose from! You might prefer to find someone with similar interests to you or living in a particular place, and if so, click on More search fields to reveal all the search criteria.

The search functions are very flexible, so for example you can find someone with a particular interest such as skiing or sailing by entering a word or two in the field 'Description contains'. You can also enter the age range, location and whether you are looking for a male or female friend. You can also search for subscribers ensuring you find language partners that are serious about learning a language.

What is the definition of a friend?

At FriendsAbroad.com another user is automatically added to your friends list if they send you an email or have a chat with you. You can edit your friends list.

What is My home?

'My home' is your starting page whenever you log in to FriendsAbroad.com. From this page you can:

  • see which of your friends are online
  • see your mailbox
  • do a quick search for new friends
  • go to the shop and
  • see up to date feeds from the FriendsAbroad.com blog and the language learning tip blog.

How can I manage my account? (About me, My languages, My preferences, My account)

Your profile and how you use FriendsAbroad.com can be set up in the four pages under the My home menu.
  • About me is the main page for editing your profile and how others see you within FriendsAbroad.com. A recorded voice message, friendly photo and specific information in the My interests field will really help make you more interesting to other users.
  • My languages - here you can add your language interests, your current level and some comments on why you are interested in each particular language. A good way to practise is to change your navigation language to one you are learning.
  • My preferences is where you can change the way other users can contact you. See the on screen tips and pop up help for full details.
  • My account - allows you to change your username, password and email address. Remember that if you change your email address you will be required to validate it again before you can communicate with others.

How do I call someone using FriendsTalk? FriendsTalk

We're sorry - FriendsTalk is currently only supported on Windows operating systems. We hope to add support for Linux and Mac OS in due course.

Provided you have set up FriendsTalk, you can call anyone who has their preferences set to receive calls and who is online. Whenever you see this green phone icon in colour it means that you can call someone.

It's really easy to make a call. You just find the person and click on the Example of the call button call button! All the voice calls are free* and with 500,000 users there’s a lot of calls to make. You choose who you call and who you receive calls from (and your Skype address remains confidential).

For example using Search, Who's online or your Friends list, you’ll see the other person's details. If they are online and available to call, the call button is green. If they are offline or not set up to receive calls right now, then the button is greyed out like this Example of the call button.

When you make a call, FriendsAbroad uses Skype to set up the voice channel and the FriendsAbroad chat starts at the same time. This is particularly useful if you or your friend have trouble hearing each other, eg if their microphone is set to mute.

The chat system can also be really useful during your conversation, eg you might want to write and send a word you've just said to explain the spelling.

Ending a call is also very easy. You just click on the red button Example of the end call button in the chat window.

Alternatively, you can close the chat window and this will automatically terminate the call.

How do I receive a call using FriendsTalk?

We're sorry - FriendsTalk is currently only supported on Windows operating systems. We hope to add support for Linux and Mac OS in due course.

If you receive a call you'll hear the Skype ring tone, and see a notification panel on any FriendsAbroad page. You know what to do to answer the call: just click Answer! If you're busy, you can of course Decline the call. The Chat button is useful for example if you don’t have your headset ready and you want to be polite and explain that to the caller in writing.

The Options menu also enables you to Block the caller and/or Report concern. If you Block then no further calls, chats or emails from that person will reach you.

If for any reason, you receive a call and you don't have a FriendsAbroad page open you will notice the tab or title of the browser changing colour repeatedly.

What is a hi? Hi

This is a way of making quick contact with a potential new friend with a single click. The idea is to save you spending a lot of time writing an introductory email until you know that the person is likely to respond. Feel free to send hi's to plenty of people and don't be offended if some don't reply at all.

You can edit the words sent in your hi's from the My preferences page. All hi's received and sent are displayed in your Mailbox.

How do I email someone? Email

Whenever you see this icon in colour it means that you can send that person an email. Try to write in their language - it's good practice for you - or in a mixture of their and your languages if you prefer. When writing you can use the virtual keyboard and phrase translator to help.

All emails sent or received appear in your mailbox. Emails are arranged in dialogues – if you email another user and then you both send emails back and forth to each other using the Reply button, then all those emails are kept in the same dialogue. Note that each dialogue appears as one row in your mailbox. You can start another dialogue with the same friend by changing the subject.

How does chat work? Chat

The chat icon is shown in colour whenever the person is online and their preferences are set so that you are able to chat to them. If you click on the chat icon, the person is sent a chat invite and your chat window opens. If the other person accepts the chat invite, then their chat window opens and you can both chat for as long as you wish.

You can have several chats simultaneously with different people and they will all appear in the same chat window under different tabs. Just click on the tab to move between the different chats.

Within the chat window you also have access to the Virtual keyboard and Phrase translator.

What is the Virtual keyboard?

Computer keyboards around the world are laid out differently and have some different characters specific to the language. The FriendsAbroad.com Virtual keyboard helps you to enter language specific characters without needing a special computer keyboard.

When entering text, e.g. when writing an email or during a chat, look for the Virtual keyboard in the right column of the page. Select the language you are writing in using the dropdown and the language specific characters are shown in alphabetical order. Just move your mouse to the relevant key, click and the character will be inserted in the right place.

Can you translate for me? About the Phrase translator

The Phrase translator powered by WorldLingo is in the right column when you are entering or reading text. Choose the languages you want to translate from and to using the dropdowns, enter the text in the box provided and click on Translate. You can translate fairly long phrases and when writing, feel free to cut and paste the answer into your email or text chat.

Note though that the translations are computer generated and so are not always perfect. The Phrase translator works best if the initial phrase is spelt correctly, is a well structured phrase or sentence, and doesn't contain slang.

What do these symbols mean: ? About email correction

Whenever you send an email, you can select a checkbox to 'Please correct my mistakes'. If a friend has asked for this when emailing you, then when you click to Reply, you will first be given their message to correct.

Just make corrections in the text box and when you click Done, you will see the corrected email with extra text underlined and deleted text crossed out. If you want to make further changes click on the correction icon to go back.

When you are reading a reply where a friend has corrected your writing, you can choose to view the original message , the final version or the corrections version . Click on the circle to cycle through these different views of the text.

Are my personal details safe?

Your safety and security are paramount to us. We will never reveal your email address or any other information you wish to hide to any other user or third party.

Please do your bit to stay safe too: do not pass your confidential details onto any other user and in particular remember to keep your email address, phone numbers and address to yourself.

If you stay within the FriendsAbroad.com service, then it is extremely safe even though you are making contact over the Internet with new people all over the world.

If you are getting too many people wanting to make friends, consider making changes on the My preferences page. You can choose to allow only friends to contact you via email and/or chat. You can also hide your profile from searches.

How do I block a user?

If you are uncomfortable with the communications from any other user, you can block all future communications from that user quickly and easily.

Find and view the person's profile using a search or the My friends list. Click on the text link Block user which appears under the person's photo and the system will prevent them from reaching you in any way.

You may unblock any user at any time at the Blocked users page in the Friends section.

What is Report concern?

If you find a user's behaviour/ photo/ description unacceptable in any way, please report this to us at FriendsAbroad.com. Simply click on the Report concern link in their profile. Please complete the form with as much specific information as you can. Our Customer Service representatives will investigate the issue and deal with it accordingly.

Recommended system requirements for using FriendsAbroad.com?

FriendsAbroad.com works on systems at least as powerful as the following:
  • Pentium II or higher / AMD (500MHz or higher)
  • 256 MBytes RAM
  • 56k modem, but better with broadband 256kbs or higher
  • Windows 2000 / XP, or Mac OSX ?
  • SVGA Graphics


And works best with these browsers:
  • IE6.0 (works with IE 5.5 with a few issues), or
  • Firefox 1.5 (works with 1.0 and above with some issues), or
  • Safari 1.2, or
  • Opera 1.8 (with a few issues).


Please note: although we have tested the site using the various browsers, we may have missed some display problems associated with them. So if you see anything please tell us so we can improve the site.

If you need to update your browser go to:
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/all.html
or
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.mspx

Problems with Speak it and using Firefox or Opera as your browser?

If so, here's how to get the Windows media player plugin working in Opera and Firefox

Find these three files:

  • npds.zip
  • npdsplay.dll
  • npwmsdrm.dll

in the Windows media player install directory, which is usually:

C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player

Copy all three and paste them into the plugins folder for your browser. Usually:

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Plugins

or

C:\Program Files\Opera\program\plugins

Once you have copied the files, close and then restart the browser for the changes to take effect.

Setting up FriendsTalk

Why do I need Java?

FriendsAbroad.com uses Java to connect to Skype, so that you can have voice calls with your FriendsAbroad.com contacts without revealing your Skype name. Also, it allows you to add a voice clip to your profile.

Sun Microsystems maintain a dedicated website where you can find out more about Java.

Java is installed, but FriendsAbroad says it isn't

When FriendsAbroad.com looks to see if you have Java, it checks that all these things are true:

  • Java is installed
  • Java is enabled in your browser (it's possible to have it installed but disabled – click here to find out how to enable Java)
  • You have a recent version of Java – we require at least version 5

Also, sometimes your browser won't realise something new has been installed until you close it down and open it again.

If you've checked these things and FriendsAbroad.com still doesn't recognise that Java is installed, please contact us and we'll try to help.

Java works for me on other sites, but not on FriendsAbroad

This could be caused by a few things, including:

  • FriendsAbroad.com needs at least version 5 of Java
    • The application's digital signature has been verified. Do you want to run the application?
  • The first time FriendsAbroad.com uses Java to do something, it asks for your permission, by showing you a box like this. If you click 'Cancel', then FriendsAbroad's Java features won't work. It's quite easy to do this accidentally. If you think this might be the problem, you'll need to log out of FriendsAbroad.com, close down any browser windows you have open, and then open a new window and log back in again. This should cause Java to ask you again, and then you can choose 'Run'.

If you've checked these things and FriendsAbroad.com still doesn't recognise that Java is installed, please contact us and we'll try to help.

How do I enable Java?

In Microsoft Internet Explorer:

  1. Go to Tools > Internet Options and click on the 'Security' tab
  2. Make sure 'Internet' is selected
  3. Click on 'Custom Level'
  4. Almost at the bottom of the list there is an entry for 'Scripting of Java applets'
  5. Ensure that 'Allow' is selected
  6. Click 'OK' until you're back at the main window, and try again. If FriendsAbroad.com still doesn't recognise that Java is installed, please contact us and we'll try to help.

In Firefox:

  1. Go to Tools > Options and click on 'Content'
  2. Make sure that 'Enable Java' is selected
  3. Click 'OK' until you're back at the main window, and try again. If FriendsAbroad.com still doesn't recognise that Java is installed, please contact us and we'll try to help.

Doesn't Internet Explorer come with Java as standard?

Microsoft Internet Explorer does have a 'Virtual Machine' feature that gives it the capacity to run some Java commands, but for FriendsAbroad.com to connect to Skype we need version 5 (or higher) of Java from Sun Microsystems.

What is the JRE?

This is short for Java Runtime Environment.

What is the J2RE?

This is short for Java Runtime Environment.

What is the Java Runtime Environment?

Java is actually a much larger program than the one you need for websites. When we say 'Java' on FriendsAbroad.com, we almost always mean 'the Java Runtime Environment', which is the part of Java that works with your web browser.

What is Skype?

Skype is a program that lets you talk to people across the internet. You can learn more about it, and download the latest version, from skype.com.

Skype is installed, but FriendsAbroad says it isn't

Another program wants to use Skype

When another program (in our case, your browser) tries to connect with Skype, Skype checks to make sure you agree, using a box like this. If you click 'do not allow this program to use Skype', then FriendsAbroad's Skype features won't work – and Skype won't ask you again. It's quite easy to do this accidentally. If you think this might be the problem:

  1. Open Skype
  2. Go to Tools > Options > Advanced, and look for the link 'Manage other programs' access to Skype'
  3. You should see a list of programs that have tried to connect with Skype at one time or another. Find the entry in the list that corresponds to your browser (for example, IEXPLORE.EXE for Internet Explorer)
  4. Click on the 'Change' button and then check 'Allow this program to use Skype'
  5. Click 'OK' and 'Save' until you’re back in the main Skype window.
  6. Switch back to FriendsAbroad and try again. If the website still can't connect to Skype, contact us and we'll try to help.

What do the different preferences mean?

Your preferences determine whether you can be called by anyone, friends only, or nobody. The default setting allows anyone to call you whenever you're online.

Remember, someone becomes your friend if you send them a message of any type. So if you say, for example, that only friends can call you, then other people have to send you a hi, and then only if you reply can they call you.

Why do I need to restart my browser?

When you open your browser (for example, Internet Explorer), it checks various parts of your computer setup to find out what programs are installed. For this reason, when you install a new program that is going to work closely with your browser, it's best to close down all the browser windows that might be open, and then open your browser again.

You don't neccessarily need to do this straight away - you can finish what you're doing in other windows, for example - but the new program you've installed might not work properly until you do.

Has this page answered all your questions?

If not, please read our Terms of Use, Acceptable Use Policy and Privacy Policy.

Or, contact us to ask the Customer Services team a question.
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