Making gaffes (mistakes) when you are learning a foreign language is natural --- they can also be painfully embarrassing or hysterically funny.  Here are some videos of language errors:

French:  “How not to pick up a French girl”

Spanish:  “I love Spanish Chicken boobies” 

Chinese:   “Clueless Brit in China”

English:  “Things not to say to English footballers”
 
You can view the explanations of the mistakes on our new italki knowledge pages.

If you find these videos funny, please share them with your friends who are also studying these languages.

Also, if you have funny language videos of your own, upload them to a video service like youtube.com, and embed them on an italki Knowledge page.  We hope this shows that learning from your mistakes can actually be pretty fun. 

Enjoy these videos, and let us know what you think at feedback@italki.com.

The italki team

Hello italki members!

We wanted to announce a new feature called italki Knowledge and a new version of the website. 

Here are the highlights:

italki Knowledge (visit it here)

•    Italki Knowledge is like a free online textbook.  You can start learning a language by reading the italki knowledge pages (example: learn Chinese).
•    Italki Knowledge has two parts: Wiki and Contributions
  •       Wiki pages can be edited by anyone (like Wikipedia)
  •       Contribution pages are created and edited by one or more users
•    You can create italki Knowledge pages using text, video, sound, and pictures
  

Italki Knowledge will really depend on the community creating and editing new content.  So we encourage you to upload notes and handouts for languages that you’re studying.  We also hope you’ll edit pages about learning your native language.

Website Improvements
Based on your feedback, we have also implemented many improvements to the website.

•    The personalized homepage and the navigation bar have been streamlined
•    Shared Files: You can now view files on the website (example: Learning French PDF Textbook) without having to download them. 
•    italki is now available in two more languages: Polish and Bahasa Indonesian

We hope you are enjoying the site and finding it useful.  If you have suggestions for the website, please feel free to send to them to us at feedback@italki.com or leave a message on our feedback page.  italki is only as good as its community, and we're hoping that you'll help us make us the best website for learning languages! 

And keep checking our blog for announcements of new features.  We’ve got even bigger ideas coming up soon!

The italki team

We are creating video tutorials on how to use italki, and our first one is now ready:  
How to Find a Language Partner


Our first video shows you, step-by-step, how to connect with a native speaker of another language.  It covers two ways to find a language partner:

  1) Using the tab Find a Language Partner and how to browse using criteria such as language spoken and language learning.

  2) Using the Language wall in the Language Index tab, where you can post a message, and view potential language partners.  
 
The tutorial also covers how to add friends, chat with other members, and highlights the importance of completing your profile.  If your profile information is incomplete, it will be harder for other members to find you, and they'll be less likely to add you as a friend.
 
We'll be releasing more tutorial videos introducing other aspects of italki soon.  Keep checking back on the blog for more useful tips and hints on how to get the most out of italki.  And please keep on sending us feedback!  

The italki team

 

One of the best things about working in the language learning internet space is the opportunity to meet really creative people who are coming up with unconventional solutions to problems.  

We were lucky to get in touch with the founder of Cucumis.org.  His site harnesses a community for social language translations.  Members can submit texts to be translated by the cucumis community.  Members earn points and give back to the community when they help others with translations.  

It's an great case of crowdsourcing, and the cucumis translation community is really vibrant.  We've added cucumis to our menu under translation.  If you're looking for a translation, we recommend checking out their site!

The italki team

It's been a long time since we've posted on our blog.  We wanted to let you know that we've been busy making improvements, and that there is much more coming at italki. 

In terms of improvements, many of you may have noticed changes from interface tweaks, a new inbox, layout shifts, and our initial version of groups.  Our facebook application has also changed a lot.  There is now a language wall, that mirrors our language index.  Please keep on sending us feedback -- your suggestions help us prioritize what to do next.

 

We've also been working on new features and we hope to release these soon.  In the coming days, we will also be explaining more about how to use the site, and how to get the most out of italki. 

No matter what some marketing department says, learning a language isn't easy.  But if you're learning with other students, it can actually be a lot of fun.  Knowing that there's a world of people who you'll soon be able to communicate with, is what makes learning a new language so exciting. 

It is still early days for italki, so we hope you'll keep on telling us what you'd like to see.  We'll do our best to make italki your ideal language learning community and website.


Thanks,

The italki team

Welcome back!  We're happy to finally announce a new version of italki.com.  It's been a long time in the making, and we hope you'll agree with us that it was worth the wait.  Here is a short summary of what's new:

* Answers:  Do you have a question about a foreign language that you are studying?  Ask a question to the community and get an answer from a native speaker or someone else studying that language.  (http://www.italki.com/answers)

* Shared Files:  Download and upload documents for learning languages.  Find a free textbook and start learning now.  You can also upload documents that you think other students would find useful.  (http://www.italki.com/files)

* Resources:  Search a directory for language learning resources on the internet.  You can get recommendations on useful sites, podcasts, and also submit great sites that you have found.  (http://www.italki.com/resources)

* Facebook application:  You can now access italki from facebook!  Install the application, and start asking questions and finding language partners from there.  (http://apps.facebook.com/italkiapp/)

* More Languages:  italki will support multiple languages.  We'll be finishing translations and adding more languages soon!

* Improved privacy controls:  You now have more control over your profile and how you receive invitations.

* New Interface and Design:  We've made many changes to the interface and layout to make the site easier to use.  

And of course, you can still use italki to find language partners for language exchange or tutoring.  

The best part is that there is more to come!  

We've got a lot of ideas, and we're still building new features.  You can always check our blog (http://blog.italki.com/) to read more about us and the coming changes on the site.

Finally, please, PLEASE send us feedback (http://www.italki.com/feedback/feedback.htm).  We're always looking for new ideas to make italki better.  italki is only as good as its community and we're hoping that you'll help us make this the best website for learning languages!


The italki team

One of the reasons that we started the italki blog was to let our users to follow the company's story from the inside.  This is a hard thing to do, because we have a lot of competitors, many of which are (suspiciously) similar.  We're also busy trying to get the next version of the site ready... Nevertheless, we think it's worth trying to be as open as possible.  We hope this will keep us on the right track for building the site that's best for you, our users. 

Unfortunately, in addition to telling you about the good things coming up -- we also have to be honest with our mistakes.  Recently we've run into a bunch of problems.  Our mail server has been acting up for weeks, and this has been causing many problems with the email confirmations.  A few of our Macintosh users noted that our statistics software was registering as spyware.  And to top it off, today our main database server went dead for a few hours.  This necessitated a trip to our data center to fix the server manually.

This did not make us happy internet people today.

But thankfully, this afternoon the site is up and running again.  More importantly, we're back to working on the next version of italki, which We think will be much better.  Expect the new version in about a week...

Once again, sorry about the disruptions, and please be patient while we get the next version ready.  As always, if you see any problems on the site,  please send an email to info at italki.com, or fill in a form on our contact us link.  We'll try our best to respond to you quickly!

Thanks,

The italki.com team

Welcome to the italki.com blog!  We created this blog to stay better in touch with you, our users.  You can always come to this blog to read about new features on the site, and to learn more about the company itself.  We're a young startup with a lot of ideas and energy.  Our goal is to be the best language learning website on the internet, and we'll need your comments and suggestions to make it happen!

Even though italki.com has been live since January 2007, we've only recently become independent.  We think this will give us the flexibility to expand, quickly improve the site and come up with innovative new services.  Come back to the site again soon, because we'll be releasing a new version shortly. 

Once again, thanks for reading and please send us your comments.  We're very open to any ideas that will make the site better for the community!

The italki.com team