Frequently Asked Questions

What criteria are used to pair up tandem partners?

All applications are processed by a specially developed software on the basis of the following criteria:

1. Correspondence of mother tongue and target language. The first and most important criterion is that the mother tongue of one of the students must match with the language that the other student wants to learn, and vice versa.
2. Number of hours per week. Secondly, the number of hours that the tandem learners are ready to invest in the program is considered. Ideally, there should be only one or two hours’ difference.
3. Male/female preference. Thirdly, the male/female preference is taken into consideration.
4. Age difference. Finally, the age of the applicants plays a role. We try to keep the age difference between tandem partners to a minimum because, over the years, pairings with a large age difference have proven not to have worked out well (e.g. different interests).

Once the automatic selection process is completed, there is still the possibility of manually increasing the number of suggested combinations (e.g. by considering the second language preference), so as to offer more applicants the opportunity to benefit from this language experience.

In the cases in which all the criteria have been met, the selected tandem partners are informed via email and the learning exchange can start.

Usually, the first tandem pairs are formed one week after the start of the registration period (i.e. as soon as the number of applications in the database enables enough combinations). Afterwards, the process continues until the end of the registration period.


Why is the application no guarantee that you will be assigned a tandem partner?

The number of applications for the tandem program - partly thanks to the promotion on the WU homepage - has increased dramatically over the last few semesters. While we are very pleased with the increasing popularity of this service, we are also aware of the drawbacks that a growing number of applications entail.

On the positive side, this development has been particularly beneficial for languages that are not taught at WU (e.g. Norwegian, Finnish, Dutch, etc.), as the increased publicity has made it possible to reach students who were interested in learning these languages.

A small drawback is that this has also raised the number of applications for the most popular languages. The number of tandem combinations depends on the exchange students and on their willingness to participate in the tandem program, and the pool of “native speakers” is not unlimited.

Unfortunately, not all exchange students want or need to learn German for their stay in Vienna.

Just to give you an idea:

In the WS 2011/12 we received approx. 610 applications for the tandem program. Of the 450 exchange students at WU last semester, 230 applied for the tandem language learning program. Not all applying exchange students could be successfully matched, either because they wanted to learn languages other than German (mainly English), or because we could not find WU students who wanted to learn their native language. In total, 440 students participated in the program. This amounts to a successful match rate of 72.1%.