official italki blog

Our second Chatfest here in Shanghai was a success with people from at least 5 different countries joining us to practice languages and meet new people.  This time with a smaller group of people, there was more opportunity to get to know each other better and ample opportunities to speak foreign languages!  While Chinese and English were still the most popular, we also had people speaking or practicing Korean, Japanese, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.

If you’re an italki member, and you think you’d like to organize a meetup in your city, please contact Toffler (at) italki (dot) com or visit the italki Member Events Group.  As always, let us know what you think — and keep on sharing languages and cultures!

The italki.com team

To all italki Shanghai members, we’re organizing Chatfest 2 for everyone to come out and meet each other face-to-face. This is our second language exchange meetup in Shanghai.  This will be another great opportunity to:

Meet some of the people you chat with
Find new language partners
Meet the italki team
Learn about different cultures, and
Indulge yourself with a Dunkin’ Donut!

We’ll have activities to help you mix and mingle and meet new people. Speakers and students of all language welcome!

We look forward to meeting all of you at Dunkin’ Donuts!

Date: Wednesday, November 18th
Time: 7- 9 pm
Location: Dunkin’ Donuts – ShiMen Yi Lu 239, near Weihai Lu 石门一路239，近威海路
Metro Line 2: Nanjing Xi Lu

(If you’re interested in holding a similar event in your city, please leave a comment below or contact us!)

About 2 weeks ago we announced a sweepstakes in which we’d give away 20 1-month SpeakENG packages to italki members.  We had a lot of great entries to the contest, you can check them out here: Chinese speakers, speakers of other languages.  After receiving so many amusing and interesting entries, we had a difficult time narrowing down the list, but we did manage to choose 20 winners.

Congratulations to these members who’ve won a 1-month subscription to the SpeakENG course.

Eucilene     Brazil
Amanda     Brazil
Yingshine     China
Lucinda     China
Tony Feng     China
Lucky     China
Ahmed Elrazki     Egypt
Hery     Indonesia
Joy     China/Japan
Hamahamacchi     Japan
Queen Bees     Lebanon
CINTHYA     Peru
Ugly     Russia
Firuz     Tajikistan
Nao     Japan/USA
Sharanya India
Ozan Turkey
Sarah Iraq
Hasan Bangladesh

Winners should claim their prize by the 28th of September and then will have one month to use it.  Good luck to all the winners!  We have high hopes for your improved English ability and we look forward to hearing from you after you use this package.

For those of you who didn’t win, you can still buy the SpeakENG Online Course for either 1 year or 1 month.  Don’t forget the special introductory price of $16 for the 1-year course will be ending September 30.  So make sure you take advantage of the reduced rate and buy before the end of the month!

John Warnken

It is amazing the things that can happen when people get connected online. John Warnken (italki profile, facebook profile) was teaching US senior citizens in Arkansas how to use the internet, when he found italki. He found that connecting people through italki and Skype was a popular activity for the seniors he was working with. However, one person John met on italki was Endang Palupi, a school teacher from Pekalongan, Indonesia. She asked John if he would be interested in volunteering to teach some basic English to high school students.

John began teaching classes through Skype, and since then, John has become a celebrity in Pekalongan. He’s been featured in the local newspaper, and he’s been introduced to the mayor of Pekalongan. He even gave a graduation address (through Skype) to the high school.

He’s written up his own story on the Oprah Angels Network.  He’s also posted his story in this italki group.

John had a chance to be on a Central Java radio station, and he invited me to join him on the show. During the show, the mayor phoned in, as well as the local school superintendent. A number of students also went to the studio to talk on the air with John.

Unfortunately, at the moment when I was supposed to introduce myself, and talk about how the internet could be used to help people learn languages — I ran into some technical difficulties with Skype. The irony was not lost on me.

You can listen this segment of the radio interview here:

(I believe I said a number of things, but…)

Nevertheless, it was inspiring to hear how much this town appreciated John’s help in teaching English through Skype. John also let me know that the station has been receiving hundreds of texts and phone calls since the radio show aired. The station may make a talk with John a weekly program.

Here are pictures of the radio show in Pekalongan.

If you know of other stories about how you have used italki to help people (or have been helped), please let us know at feedback at italki dot com. If you’re interested in helping John with teaching English classes through Skype in other countries, you can contact him through italki (John Warnken) or post on his group discussion. We’re excited to see how projects like this develop.

Kevin and the italki team

Last night was our very first italki Language Exchange Meetup!  More than 45 people, from at least 5 different countries, came out on Wednesday night to chat with each other.  Being based in Shanghai, Chinese and English were the most popular languages, but we also had people who spoke Korean, Italian, Spanish, French, German, and Japanese.  We also ran some activities to help people get to know each other and get comfortable with participating in language exchanges.

Everyone seemed to have a good time — check out the pictures:

It always makes an impression on us when we meet people who tell us that this was their first time speaking to a foreigner.  Many of the attendees told us about the friends they had made through italki, in addition to the help they received on learning a language.  Hearing stories like this make us feel that italki really has a role to play in bringing people together.  Based on everyone’s encouragement, we’ll definitely be holding more language exchange meetups in the future.

If you’re an italki member, and you think you’d like to organize a meetup in your city, please contact Toffler (at) italki (dot) com.  We’re thinking about Bangkok, Thailand and Seoul, Korea in the near future, but we don’t want to discourage other cities that have vibrant communities.  As always, let us know what you think — and keep on sharing languages and cultures!

The italki.com team