Today we updated our social translation system to make it easier for members to help translate italki into other languages. The new system handles translation on a page-by-page basis. This way, if you see a bad translation, you can click the “Translate this page” button, and immediately submit a correction.
The “Translate this page” link is located in the upper right-hand corner. When you click on it, it will open a new window or tab. By opening the translate page side-by-side with the original site, you can refer back to the original page to get better understanding of the context.
The translate page is broken into three sections.
1. Phrases that haven’t been translated yet
2. Phrases that have translations submitted
3. Phrases that have been locked.
If you start at the top, you can start translating by just typing in the box and hitting enter or by clicking “Submit”. Don’t worry if you see phrases that don’t seem to be on the page — those are phrases that might be useful for other users.
All the phrases that have at least one translation are listed in the second section. If you see a translation that could be improved, you can click on “vote / fix”. You should be able to see a list of submitted translations. You can vote on the submitted translations or submit a translation of your own.
One thing about crowdsourcing changes to a website is that there is a time delay before having a fully translated site. This is particularly true as we’ve made a lot of changes to the site in the past few months. As new features come online, more and more translations need to be updated. We realize that it is inconvenient to deal with a site that isn’t fully translated (or translated well), and we hope you’ll help us get the site ready in your language. We will periodically merge the changes to the main site.
Finally, since we are using English as the base language for the website, if you run into bad English on the site, please let us know through our feedback or through email (feedback at italki). We want to avoid having errors translated throughout the site.
Thanks again! We really believe that italki is a product of our community, so we want to thank you in advance for all of your help.
The italki team
translation
cashU from Maktoob
We’re excited to announce that we’ve now started accepting payments through cashU. cashU is a popular payment service that is used in many countries where credit card payments are not accepted. In the Middle East, for example, credit cards are not often used online due to fraud and security concerns. However, cashU has payment options such as prepaid scratch cards that are a secure method for handling online payments.
Roughly 15% of italki users come from the Middle East, and we hope that by expanding their payment options that more users will be able to participate in the language marketplace.
Prepaid Cards
We believe that the potential market is all of these regions is immense, especially when compared with offline learning options. For example, we believe being able to
learn English with online courses for $16 USD / year, and with professional online teachers, could radically change the language education market.
cashU is part of the Maktoob Group, which operates one of the Arabic region’s leading portals (Maktoob.com). cashU is offered in 28 countries around the world, including the Middle East, China and some European countries.
We’re planning to add more payment options in the near future, and we’ll let you know about those here on the blog.
Arabic Press Release (PDF)
The italki team
cashU, maktoob, middle east, payment
italki was named Startup of the Day as part of the Microsoft Bizspark program. We’re excited to get the exposure, as we’re still trying to tell the world about italki and the potential for online language learning. You can read a short interview about us on the Startup of the Day page.
Being part of Microsoft Bizspark has helped us a lot. Through Bizspark, we’ve gotten access to the entire range of Microsoft development tools, from products like Visual Studio to licenses for SQL Server databases. Database licenses, in particular, can be a heavy cost for startups (Bizspark licenses can be used for production servers), and this has certainly helped us keep our burn rate low. Unfortunately, some companies in China do not pay for software licenses, and this reflects a larger problem with intellectual property here, including movies, TV shows, music, books, and more.
Getting ourselves on Bizspark was easy, and for that, we also have to thank our hosting provider, Rackspace. We’ve been really impressed the service they provide. Running a development center far away from the servers themselves can be tough, and having a strong partner for managed hosting has made our lives much easier.
The italki Team
bizspark, microsoft, rackspace, startup
Alipay
Learning English is the primary goal of most users on italki, which is natural given that the majority of users are not native speakers of English. Our largest group of users come from China (20% of total users). We’ve just started a marketing partnership with Alipay to make it easier for Chinese users to purchase italki credits.
Alipay is a payment platform owned by the global e-commerce company Alibaba. Alipay works similarly to Paypal, and is very popular in China. For the month of August, we are offering a 10% bonus to purchases of italki credits over $30 USD through Alipay.
Learning English in China
Alipay - italki page
We hope that by making it easier for Chinese users to pay online, this will lead to more transactions on the italki marketplace. There is certainly an immense demand for learning English in China. Chinese students start learning English at an early age (depends regionally, but average age of 10-13). However, after studying English for five years or more, many students graduate with “哑巴英文” (mute English). They often have not had any opportunity to use their English, and the vast majority are taught by Chinese teachers with varying levels of proficiency.
Given the demand for English, English training centers in China are a huge industry. These centers often are very expensive (10,000 – 20,000 RMB or ~$1500-$3000 USD). This amount of money also needs to be viewed in an economic context where the average monthly salary is roughly between $200 – $600 USD (depends on the city and region).
Anecdotally, we’ve been told that many Chinese find their experiences at these teaching centers to be disappointing. The centers are strong at marketing, but weak at delivering real improvement for students. Students have very limited access to teachers and are stuck listening in large classes.
Naturally, we believe that online learning can change this equation radically. italki partners, like Eleutian, can deliver an online product (SpeakENG), direct to students at an incredibly low costs. Students can get Eleutian’s certified teachers or find independent teachers which they can schedule according to their own time needs. In addition, student tuition doesn’t go into supporting building rents in expensive city districts, massive marketing campaigns, or large school administrations. Given the natural benefits of online learning, we think this will become a major alternative to offline learning in the near future.
View the English press release (PDF)
View the Chinese press release (PDF)
The italki Team
alibaba, alipay, china, eleutian, learning english, SpeakENG
We’re always trying to improve italki to make it easier for you to use. As the number of features on italki have grown, we’ve noticed it has gotten harder to find language-specific resources. That’s why we’ve reorganized the site around languages.
- Language-related features are on the left-side menu.
- Personal functions are now on the top menu.
Changing Languages
If you want to change the language, simply click on the title of the language or the icon, and you will be able to select another language.
This is an experimental layout, and we’ll be listening to your feedback. If you have suggestions or encounter a problem, please let us know through feedback or by sending us an email at feedback at italki dot com.
Special Request: Translation
Finally, since this is a new version of the website, many areas of the site have not been translated yet. If you see a bad translation or an area which is still using English, please use the feedback button, and write us a short note with both the wrong words and the corrected version. We really appreciate the help, and every correction helps make italki more accessible for everyone!
The italki team
organization, site
One important aspect of learning a language is getting connected into a community of students and teachers. That’s why we revised our Groups function on italki. We wanted to make it easier to have discussions about every aspect of learning a language.
What we’ve done is create official italki Groups for every language. Each language now has five official groups called:
- Learning the language
- Teachers and Schools
- Tests and Exams
- Culture and Society
- Travel, Living Abroad and Study Abroad
We made this change in order to consolidate discussions in each language. All of the previous user-created groups still exist, and you can still create your own group. As with before, each group is basically a forum where members of the group can create a topic and start a discussions with other group members.
We also wanted to highlight a few interesting ways you could use groups.
Many teachers have asked us how they can reach students who are interested in paid tutoring sessions. Teachers can now post information about themselves in the Teachers and Schools Group (example: Teachers and Schools for learning English). We think this could be a great place for teachers to market to students, and for students to learn more about a teacher’s background and teaching style.
Another interesting use of groups could be for sharing test knowledge (example: Tests and Exams for learning English. Now if you are taking a language test such as the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foriegn Language), the HSK (the main test for Chinese proficiency), or the AP Spanish test (US College Board’s test of Spanish competency) — you should be able to find discussions about how to prepare for them in the Tests and Exams group for that language.
In general, we just wanted to make it easier for the italki community to connect and communicate with each other. If you have any questions about how to use groups or want to send us any feedback on the site changes, please click on our feedback link or send us an email (feedback at italki dot com). Your opinions really help us understand where we need to improve the site. And keep reading our blog – we’ll be letting you know about our future updates here.
groups
