Why italki Why I signed up on italki? Well, my main reason was very practical - I just wanted to practice my speaking english, so I wanted to meet as many language partners as it’s possible. I thought that all italki members are here to practice speaking (especially among language partners), but as I already learned, many people here want to know other cultures and countries and have more idealistic approaches (which is nice) than just practicing language. So why not just go for some english school and work in groups with teacher? First of all I admire every goodness related to the Internet. I took some online programming courses (on coursera), most of my shopping I make on websites, but I never meet anyone new (and speak with him/her) through the Internet. So I thought that could be exciting and it’s worth to try. Another reason (important for me personally) is connected with my job. I’m working as a remote programmer, so sometimes I have job interview on Skype or google hangouts, which is more stressful for me, because I’m not used to meet new people via Internet. That why italki is an ideal place for me - I can practice my speaking skills and became more self-confident in the same time! But here occur my little problem: I’m not sure how language partners works and at this point, I’m too afraid to ask (no, not really). I thought that I invite someone, give a Skype contact and call to this person. I know, that’s a jump into the deep end (i Poland we would say “jump into the deep water”), maybe I’m too serious because I read Beeny Lewis blog, where he preach "learning language in a hard way”. Anyway I’m still looking for language partner to speak on Skype.