If you are referring to talkpal you get 10 minutes of chat per day for free. That’s enough for me but, yes, you can pay for more.
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It would be enough for me too but when I download the app you have to subscribe and put bank details before even getting a free trial period.
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Try doing it on a computer. I did, and signed up for the free version, which is right at the bottom of the page, fairly well hidden (funny that, eh?).
It’s not for me, though I could see it might work for some.
That’s unfortunately not always what we have found. When we asked about a “femme sage” nobody seemed to realise we meant a sage-femme. My wife thinks if she doesn’t say exactly what she means the French won’t understand her.
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I’ve experienced that, in France and Spain. It’s frustrating, but the answer - for me - was just to power through regardless 
I am nubee. I learned French in school 50 years ago. We arrived with our official visas in May. I’m using grammar books, tv news and reading. It’s harder when you are older !!
Gaining confidence with phone calls takes practice and a sense of humor !!! I will look into your recommendations. Thank you.
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Of course they wouldn’t, most people aren’t very imaginative when it comes to language. Lots of them have trouble understanding other native speakers. If I stood by the river and said I was looking for a houseboat you wouldn’t imagine I was really looking for a boathouse.
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Must confess, I tend to “go round the houses” a bit. so if I was asking about a mid-wife I would mention “the lady who looks after women having babies” as an explanation of “femme-sage” and they’d eventually realise I’d got the word back to front and meant “sage-femme”
that sort of conversation usually works for me 
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I can’t find it now but Gyles Brandreth in The Oldie magazine repeated a letter he had received shortly before his death from an old friend. It appeared to be gobbledegook but I managed to read and understand it straight away without a pause. The point being made was that spelling was unimportant and, as long as every word used the correct first and last letters, and contained all the correct letters in between, but not necessarily in the right order (shades of Eric Morecambe) it would be perfectly understandable.
I funeod it to be ture, not srue if that says smtoehnig auobt me or not. 
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You’ve got an unnecessary E in funeod
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Yes but I’m disinclynd*, and anyway I think Es are so common don’t you? 
*Tnhak you Mrs. Marpalop.
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This shows precisely why I struggle with learning any language. David defines the rule, then immediately breaks the rule with an exception yet it is perfectly clear what he meant.
I think we should chuck grammar out of the window and concentrate on communication. :smiley face emoji in case anyone thinks I am being too serious:
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We suffer from a condition identified in the last century.
“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.”
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Have you met my wife? She gets corrected all the time by her French friends and, in turn, feels the need to correct me. The difference between us, however, is that she is anxious to be thought to speak good French and I am interested only in communicating. I have no problem people thinking my French is poor and usually they say it is good anyway, or those that don’t speak English anyway.
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I have seen a huge range of this sort of thing during In Service Training sessions. It is amazing what our brains can cope with.
fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Cna yuo raed tihs? OLNY 55% of pliope can…
I cdnuolt bleveiee taht I cloud aulacity uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervy lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
It helps to explain why a KS1 child might write, ‘I was a cat and a dog’, but not recognise their mistake.
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I could understand everything, but the last sentence stumped me.
Iimportant because when we all agree how words are spelled, we can understand and communicate. It is a contract between us.
Spelling that is unique and not recognised by all is fun but open to so much misunderstanding.
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Not in the context of that exercise.
There’s a wonderful post-holocaust book - Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban - where he envisions the changes and corruptions to our language. It’s odd for the first few pages and then seems completely normal.