Sites like Omegle for talking in your own language
Omegle let you meet a native speaker of almost anything in a minute. Here are the sites and apps that do it now, for Persian, Armenian and language practice.
If you are looking for sites like Omegle because you want to talk to people in your own language, or practice a language you are learning, the roulette sites are the wrong place to start. On OmeTV or Chatroulette you can sometimes filter by country, usually behind a paywall, and even then the person who appears may not speak what you need. The better options are the ones built around who is in the room, not around randomness: Discord servers for a language, Reddit communities for a diaspora, language exchange apps like Tandem and HelloTalk, and room apps where rooms have names. Hashti, which I built, has rooms for Persian and Armenian speakers and a live translation feature for when you are talking across languages. Below I explain which to use and when each one fails.
I should say where I am coming from. I am Armenian-Iranian, I live in Los Angeles, and most of my family and friends are spread across three countries and two alphabets. The thing I miss most about Omegle is not the roulette. It is that for a few years it was the fastest way on the internet to hear your own language from a stranger.
Why Omegle worked for languages, and why its copies do not
Omegle had two things going for it. It was enormous, so at any hour there was probably someone online who spoke Farsi or Armenian or Tagalog. And the interest tags let you type a language name and get matched, roughly, with someone who had typed the same thing.
The sites that copied Omegle kept the camera and the next button and lost both of those things. They are smaller, so the odds of hitting your language by chance are lower. And the country filter, where it exists, is usually a paid feature and still only tells you where someone is, not what they speak. An Iranian in Toronto does not show up under Iran.
So if language is the point, randomness is the enemy. You want a place where the people who speak your language gather on purpose.
For Persian speakers
The honest state of things, in my opinion from years of looking: Persian-language chat online is scattered. There are Telegram groups, some huge, some dead. There are Discord servers for Iranians, mostly for gaming and students. There are old-style web chat rooms that still exist and still look like 2008. And there is a lot of talk in the comments of Instagram and YouTube, which is not really talk.
What I wanted, and did not find, was a public room where Persian speakers could just sit and talk by voice, with the door open, where everyone was a real adult. That is a big part of why I built Hashti. The app has public rooms with names and topics, and some of those rooms are Persian. You tap in, listen, and speak when you want. Rooms can be voice or text.
Two limits I want to be clear about. First, the app's own interface is in English today. A Farsi interface is being built, but it is not done. If you cannot read English menus, that is a real barrier right now. Second, Hashti is new and smaller than Telegram. Some rooms are busy and some are quiet, and the time of day in Los Angeles versus Tehran matters a lot.
For Armenian speakers
Armenian is a smaller language with a very large diaspora, which makes it both easier and harder. Easier because Armenians look for each other. Harder because Eastern and Western Armenian are different enough that a room full of Yerevan speakers can be hard work for someone from Beirut or Glendale.
The places I know people actually use: Facebook groups for specific communities, Telegram for news and family, and Discord for the younger crowd. On Hashti there are Armenian rooms, and because the rooms have names, you can see whether a room is Eastern, Western, or mixed before you walk in. I wrote more about this in an earlier piece on where Armenians talk online, and the short version is that no single app has everyone, and a room app works best as the place you go to hear voices rather than the place your whole family lives.
For practicing a language you are learning
This is the other reason people type "sites like Omegle" into a search bar. You are learning Spanish or Japanese or English and you want a real person, not an app that says "great job."
Tandem and HelloTalk are the well-known language exchange apps. The idea is you teach yours and learn theirs, one-on-one, usually by text with voice available. They are good at what they do. The common complaint, which is opinion but a widely shared one, is that the exchange is uneven and that a lot of conversations die after two messages. Still, if you want a committed partner, they are the right tool.
Discord servers for language learning are free and lively, and the better ones have voice channels where you can practice speaking. The tradeoff is that nobody checks who anyone is.
Room apps sit between the two. On Hashti you can join an English practice room or a Spanish room, listen to how people actually talk, and jump in when you have something to say. There is no pressure to carry a one-on-one conversation. I think that is the single best thing about rooms for learners: you can be quiet and still be in the room.
Talking across languages, not just in one
Here is the thing I am proudest of and the one I want to describe most carefully, because it is the one paid feature in the app.
Hashti has live translation across 29 languages. In a chat, you can read what someone wrote in their language and reply in yours. This is part of Hashti Plus, which is $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. Everything else in the app, rooms, chats, calls, the walkie-talkie, is free.
What it is good for: a conversation with someone where neither of you speaks the other's language well. My own test case is talking with relatives whose Farsi is much better than my written Farsi. It gets the meaning across.
What it is not: a substitute for learning. If you are practicing, turn it off. A translation layer will happily let you never improve. And it is a machine translation, so idioms, jokes, and anything poetic will arrive flattened. I would rather you know that than pay for it expecting magic.
The verification part, for people who find their language in a room
One thing that matters more in language rooms than people expect: who is in the room.
Public language rooms attract two kinds of trouble. People who are not who they say they are, and people who come back after being thrown out. Hashti checks every account once against a government document. The photo is deleted, a fingerprint of the document is kept, and that document cannot open a second account. Unverified accounts cannot host rooms, speak in voice rooms or message strangers. Twelve verified reports close an account permanently.
For a Persian or Armenian room specifically, this changes the tone. You are not talking to a bot farm or a banned person on their fifth account. It is also why the app is 18+ and why I will not pretend it is for everyone. If you want to be anonymous, this is not your app, and the roulette sites or a throwaway Discord account will serve you better. The safety page spells out exactly what the check does and does not cover.
What I would do, in your position
If you want to hear your own language right now, today: try a room app and look for a room with your language in the name. If the room is quiet, come back at an hour when your home country is awake.
If you want your whole family or community in one place: Telegram or WhatsApp, because that is where they already are. A new app cannot compete with the group chat your aunt runs.
If you are learning and want a partner: Tandem or HelloTalk, and be the person who sends the third message.
If you are learning and want to listen before you speak: a Discord voice channel or a Hashti room. Both are free.
If you need to talk to one specific person across a language gap: that is what the translation feature is for, and it is the one thing I would pay for in my own app.
The short answer
Sites like Omegle were good for languages by accident, because Omegle was big. The sites that copied it are not big, so they are not good for languages. What replaced Omegle for this purpose is anything built around who is in the room: a Discord server, a diaspora group, an exchange app, or a room app with the language in the room's name. Hashti is my answer to that for Persian and Armenian speakers, with honest limits: English menus for now, a smaller crowd, and translation that costs money. Start in a room, listen, and say something when it feels right.
Hashti is free, and it is 18+. Hashti Plus — live translation, writing help and catch-ups — is $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year, and nothing else costs anything. How rooms work is on the rooms page, and how reports and the ID check work is on the safety page.