Weird things natives are unaware of

チャレンジ - 日本語 - My Language Challenge - Japanese みんなさんこんにちは！ 今 もう一度 勉強を始めました。 名前は、トムです。三十二歳。アメリカで住んでいます 学生じゃないです。でも、 専攻は 化工 でした。今、経済学者です。会社員です。働いていますね。 今十一時半です。三十分の後で英語をおしえます。教師です。 ありがとうございます！

Why did you pick me?

I just finished a pretty good Spanish lesson on Italki with a professional teacher that had some structure. During the lesson he asked me point blank “What made you choose me as your teacher?” It made me a little uncomfortable because I didn’t want to say I picked 5 teachers at random and did a lesson with each but that’s the frank truth.

During one trial lesson as a teacher I was teaching, the student volunteered that she picked me because of my personality in the intro video. I thought this was kind of a funny reason.

What about you all? As teachers do you ask this question as part of a retention strategy? How has it worked? What kind of answers do you get and how do you use the information?

As students what stands out most about a teachers profile that makes you pick them for the first lesson?

English Pronunciation Difficulties Are you a fluent english non-native who ever wondered why some words sound a little odd when you try to say them and compare to a native speaker?

I have a suggestion if you are intermediate or advanced and are not sure of what to study next: learn the IPA symbols of some of those words and compare to other words you pronounce well.

One example my students always have a problem with is the word "Said" such as "I said that I was hungry"

Student pronunciation: sounds like "Aid" which is not consistent with American or British pronunciation.

I taught these students the IPA symbol ɛ and that its the same sound in "Bed" and "led" written in IPA as sɛd. Now these students never make this mistake and know how to use the IPA symbol to validate how to pronounce "dead" "lead" etc and how not to pronounce "extremely" (no ɛ) or "pretty" (no ɛ).

Any other such experiences?

Reignite the passion I had a very rough life event disrupt my study routine and continue to "drain my motivation" (make me less interested) especially as I keep reminding myself that I am "losing ground" (forgetting or getting behind) on all of my languages.

I would love to hear everyone's ideas for "reigniting their passion" (making themselves interested again) in learning!

How do you use Italki? -Conversation only?

-Learn Grammar?

-Networking?

How do you all use Italki? What do you think are the most effective methods of using Italki to learn a language?

English Advanced Focus

Hello everyone,

For the intermediate and advanced learners of English here, I am curious as to what is seen as one of the most difficult but interesting aspects of the English language?

In German there is a podcast course I listen to that focuses solely on prefix verbs, since they are a difficult but interesting and important part of that language.

If some italki teacher were to perhaps develop an "Advanced Focus" course for italki students, what would you like to see it on? Phrasal verbs? The different conditional sentence types (real vs hypothetical vs impossible)? Colloquial expressions that aren't just clichés but integral parts of daily speech? 

A new blog - Venti minuti piu tardi Ciao e benvenuti al mio nuovo blog italiano. Mi chiamo Tomasso, sono americano, e sto svillupando questo blog innanzitutto per esplorare le cose particolari nelle lingue ma anche per esercitarmi in italiano. Pur essendo la mia sesta lingua, nel’ordine in cui ho cominciato ad impararle, italano rimane la lingua in cui mi sento il più comodo oltra al'inglese e voglio mantenerla ad un alto livelo per sempre. Quattro settimane fa, ho fatto una vacanza con Joy of Languages che si chiama Italian Immersion Holiday (Chiedetemi sull’esperienza se vuolete!) con altre studenti d’italiano, e durante la vacanza, loro hanno notato che mi piacciono le spiegazioni profondi per le cose (sopratutto la lingua, espressioni, e via dicendo.) Un giorno mentre ritornavamo in barca da Locarno a Stresa, ci insegnava un napolitano Matteo un gioco a carte. Gli altri si hanno annoiato quando le regole sembravano ad essere troppo complicati ma il mio cervello di ingenieria non mi permetteva di smettere finche io non capissi tutto. Mi ha fatto una video e un foto Riina, un’amica sul viaggio e ci ha inviato per whats app, dicendo “Venti minuti piu’ tardi…”. Quindi, venti giorni piu’ tardi ho deciso di comminciare questo blog sulle cose che mi attraversa la mente sulle lingue e che hanno una storia o spiegazione molto profondo. Spero che sara’ utile per chi parla italiano e si interessa alle lingue, etymologia, espressioni, e cosi’ via. Un pizzico di avertimento: non sono madralingua quindi il scritto se stesso di questo blog di sicuro contienera’ dei errori non-nativi e quindi vi prego di non usarlo per imparare l’italiano in contesto, ma solo per imparare le esspressioni o storie. Il blog parlera’ delle esspressioni e storie d’Italiano, Inglese, Tedesco e altri linge che mi interessano e di cui sono sicuro. Apprezo il feedback dai madralingua italiani (o di qualsiasi linga di cui parlo se capisca italiano!) Grazie!

What Language Are these Videos Hello, I am trying to find some native listening material for Serbian. I am having a hard time determining whether people are indeed speaking in serbian or one of the other southern slavic languages (like Croatian) . I am wanting to learn to speak serbian in a very serbian way so I am trying to avoid things labled as "Serbo croatian" Can anyone help confirm that these two videos are in Serbian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okOO54L8VZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HESiAO-SK74&t=79s