I've often read that having a native pen pal is a great way to learn everyday Japanese and have fun. I totally agree with this and I'd like to try it. I've subscribed to a few sites (like http://www.japan-guide.com/local/ and http://mylanguageexchange.com/ ), offering help in the Italian language (my native one) and the little I can manage in English in change for help in Japanese. But I have a few doubts about how the actual exchange should work out...

Given that I'm not yet able to communicate exclusively in Japanese, what kind of person should I look for?

I'd say someone who can speak a fairly good English, because we could use that as a basis to explain the two languages in detail to each other (how am I supposed to tell them how the Italian pluperfect subjunctives work to someone who doesn't know English when I have no idea of how to say even "subjunctive" in Japanese?).
In fact, I think I can say this from experience: through one of those sites I was contacted by a Japanese girl who wanted to be friends. Great! I thought. But it took me only a couple of mails to see that she couldn't get a word of what I was saying! I barely managed to get her name in kanji, but not where she lives in Japan. The same would probably apply if she tried to explain something to me in Japanese.
I have absolutely nothing against someone who doesn't speak English (it'd be plain stupid if I did), but I really wouldn't know how to "exchange languages" with her that way!

I'd rather avoid trying to write in Japanese unless I have someone who can correct my every mistake, for the reasons given by AJATT and by me here

What I'd like to know is whether someone has overcome these problems, and how they did it. Should I try to speak Japanese anyway, or maybe wait till I'm capable of understanding a bit more, or look for someone really proficient in English?
I'm open to suggestions

[kana]arigatou[/kana]!

You could try mixi. Looking through the communities you could probably find some Japanese people who are studying italian. English isn't the only second language people learn in Japan - I knew a lot of French and Spanish majors, as well as some Italian majors at my university.

That said, if you are really just beginning to learn Japanese (can't ask どこに住んでいますか？）you might be better off focusing on individual learning for the time being instead of getting frustrated trying to communicate. Although if you can find a Japanese person competent in Italian or English, that would be quite beneficial I think. Just make sure you don't fall into the pattern of communicating entirely or mostly in non-Japanese.

Thanks for the advice, Jarvik7, I'll check Mixi out.
I guess I'm more or less a beginner. I did finish RTK1 and my vocabulary is on the JLPT3 level (I think). I can understand どこに住んでいますか no problem, but the reason I still don't want to write in Japanese is that I'm not sure whether a sentence I create is the correct and usual way to say that thing in Japan.

For example, if I was learning English instead of Japanese, I could manage to create a correct sentence like "Where does your residence lie?" but it would sound weird. If there's nobody who can tell me that, I'd learn this sentence instead of the usual "where are you from?".
So I guess I'm on a level advanced enough to make short sentences but not enough to distinguish between "OK" and "weird" ones.

My idea for a nice way to do Language Exchange is:
-I communicate mostly in my language (to give some exercise to the Japanese friend) and English (to explain complicated stuff) and a little Japanese (which will be mercilessly corrected for me)
-The other communicates mostly in Japanese and English and a little in my language for the same reasons.

I guess this isn't a very common way to do this since it's a trilingual exchange, but I know there are tons of people who speak "native language + English + studying Japanese" on this forum, so perhaps one of you can tell me how you do this. Is my template feasible or disastrous?

The only way to get proficient is to speak/write and not worry about being wrong. When you are wrong hopefully people will correct you, laugh, make a strange face, or just not understand what you said so you know you've gone wrong. You should make it clear that they shouldn't hold back/be polite and actually tell you when you're wrong. When I was first learning Japanese I lacked the confidence to speak, so my reading and speaking abilities were way out of balance. A year of living in a Japanese-only household fixed that.

An extra benefit is if you screw up in an especially embarrassing way (for example 脱肛 vs 抱っこ), you'll be sure to remember it.

nac_est... I am writing to a Japanese speaker in English, with a little Japanese. And she writes to me in Japanese with a little English. Adding a third language into the mix would definitely make things more complicated. Is it necessary? It seems to me that unless your pen pal understands English much better than Italian, I think it might be best not to use it. I would assume that your pen pal wants to learn Italian. You want to learn Japanese. Keep things simple.

gibosi Wrote:nac_est... I am writing to a Japanese speaker in English, with a little Japanese. And she writes to me in Japanese with a little English. Adding a third language into the mix would definitely make things more complicated. Is it necessary? It seems to me that unless your pen pal understands English much better than Italian, I think it might be best not to use it. I would assume that your pen pal wants to learn Italian. You want to learn Japanese. Keep things simple.

I see your point, and that will probably be the best course of action if I can find someone who is already proficient enough in my language. I just planned to use English as a "common base" in the other cases (probably more frequent).

@Jarvik7
lol that certainly is a shock approach! I thought that Japanese people, with their discreet ways, would most of the time act as if nothing happened even when you make big mistakes. But if I'm wrong I'll have to rethink my learning strategy!

Bringing this topic back up for an update.
I now have a pen pal who can understand English quite well, and it's really fun! I only have a couple of questions:

1- It seems like she can't read the pieces of Japanese that I write in the emails. I know it's an "encoding" problem, but I haven't figured out which encoding I should use for her to be able to read. Shift-JIS, EUC-JP, uncode? Anyone know?

2- Since she's trying to learn Italian and I want to help her, I'd like to suggest to her trying with an SRS software of some kind. I've looked a little for a thorough explanation of spaced repetition in Japanese, but haven't been able to find anything, not even on wikipedia. Sure, I could explain it myself in English, but I'm afraid that if the explanation is not perfectly clear she may not see the usefulness of the system and may not bother trying.
So, could anyone suggest a place to look for such a guide in Japanese?

Thank you