What happened to the italki website? For me italki used to be about writing these notebook entries and helping others with their texts. I see that this is still possible here in the app but I have to say that I really miss the website. After all writing on the phone is not the same as writing on a real keyboard. I also notice that texts are a lot shorter and not so in-depth like they used to be in the old italki. It seems more like a messenger app now. What do you think? Have you been using the app all along and I am just oldschool? Or do I just have to get used to the app?

Who is behind italki? For me italki has always been this cozy little language learning site where all those language enthusiasts hang out. And I have to say I really love this site because people are very friendly and helpful. But I realized that I actually don't have a clue who is behind this site. Is it a little start-up from Berlin? Or is it a product of some app company? Has it been bought out by some major tech company? Surprisingly italki's roots are actually in Asia. According to Wikipedia it was founded in Hongkong by the student Kevin Chen. He was learning French and Chinese at the time and started building this platform when he realized that his learning progress was much faster when he learned with native speakers. When italki raised fundings in 2016, it raised 3 million dollars from Hujiang, a company backed by the Chinese tech company Baidu. Hujiang is China`s largest e-learning platform. So it is safe to say that by now italki is mostly a Chinese company. And if we go to the About section of italki, we see that most of the jobs are offered in Shanghai. Who would have thought that? :)

Suggestion for a new feature for italki

Ecosia.org – ¿un buscador que planta arboles ? Es difícil creerlo: ¿Es posible que se puede plantar arboles solo buscando por Internet? Suena como una publicidad fraudulenta y cuando lo escuché, yo también no pensaba que sea verdad. Sin embargo después haber hecho un poco de investigación me dí cuenta que es absolutamente posible. Motores de búsqueda son un negocio muy lucrativo y generan ingresos altos porque te pueden presentar publicidades en cada búsqueda que haces. Mientras buscadores convencionales como Google son interesados en hacer beneficios para sí mismos, Ecosia usa esos ingresos para hacer solo una cosa: plantar arboles y proteger el medio ambiente. Es el único buscador que tiene una huella de carbono negativa: Cada busqueda que haces saca un kilogramo de CO2 del aire. Ecosia colabora con organizaciones medioambientales de todo el mundo y son completamente transparente. Publican informes financieros mensuales en los que puedes ver cómo está invertido cada euro de los ingresos. A mí me fascina mucho ese proyecto. Escuché una entrevista con el fundador y dijo que ya millones de personas usan su buscador. Ya podría haber sido millonario vendiendo Ecosia, pero en su lugar firmó un contrato que impide que la empresa sea vendida a inversores con fines de lucro. Espero que cada vez más personas usan este buscador en vez de Google que, en fin, ¡solo viende nuestros datos personales!

My take on flying in the 21st century I just read an article in the German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT, in which one of its authors defends his frequent-flying-lifestyle. First he acknowledges the fact that said behavior absolutely ruins his CO2 footprint. But then he goes on and says that there is no point in blaming aviation for the global warming issue: it only makes up about 2 percent of global CO2 emissions. So there are other sectors like the coal industry or even cement production (4% share of global emissions) that need to be regulated first. Even if flying would be stopped overnight, it would have close to no effect on the global problem. In short: Flying is peanuts on a global scale, there is no need to feel bad when boarding a plane. I can't even describe how wrong I find this kind of argumentation. Because at the end of the day it's just a calculation that doesn't change the smallest bit of the fact that his traveling lifestyle consumes the sutainable ressources of multiple planets and is at the expense of the rest of world's population. In fact everyone who wants to evade their personal responsibilty can do that kind of arithmetics: If you have an Opel that you drive a hundred thousand kilometers per year you can make the argument that the overall share of emissions of the world's Opels only amounts to 0.0005 percent, so they can't be the problem... My point is that everybody is responsible for ones personal emissions (no matter what specious math tricks they can pull off) and should at least be aware of what an incredible privilege it is to emit high amounts of greenhouse gases. In this context there is even something presumptuous about the author's argument. The only reason why the global emissions of avation are so low is that only a small elite of three percent of the world's population enjoys the luxuries of air travel. So he's basically saying that it is ok for him to fly that much, because so many people refrain from it. Thanks for correcting my little rant ;) https://www.zeit.de/zeit-wissen/2019/03/flugreisen-klimaschutz-gewissen-co2-emissionen-treibhausgase

Los incendios de la Amazonia En las semanas recientes un tema prevalente en las noticias han sido los fuegos en la Amazonia y los riesgos y daños que significan al clima global. Por lo menos en Alemania hablamos mucho sobre el cambio climático, de hecho es el tema número uno incluso en las campañas electorales. Creo que se debe en particular a la extrema sequía que sufrimos el año pasado. Esa es la razón por la que vemos los acontecimientos del Amazonas en terminos cambio climático. Sin embargo he leído que de hecho la temporada seca (que ocurre naturalmente cada año en esta región) no fue tan extrema en este año. Significa que esta vez el cambio climático no es el responsable de la tragedia. Más bien son las desregulaciones de la tala y la deforestación bajo el nuevo gobierno en Brasil lo que formenta un aumento de incendios.

Formal Letter Dear Mr Smith, thank you for letting us stay in your appartment next week. We are looking forward to our trip. However, I'd like to ask some questions regarding the accomodation. First, do you provide sheets or do we need to bring our own? Second, since will not have a car, how far is the next supermarket? Is there a bus station nearby? Other than that we are thinking about bringing our dog, would that be allowed? Best regards, DD.

El café Me gusta mucho el café. Y convenientemente el café es una cosa muy espanola, considerando que un gran numero de paises latinoamericanos producen café. No obstante, para mi sorpresa, los orígines de esta bebida rica no se encuentran en estas paises hispanohablantes, sino en África. Hoy en día una gran parte de la producción mundial también se realiza en Asia. Así que se puedo decir que el café es una bebida verdaderamente internacional. Un rumor de lo qual no sé si es cierto es que los latinoamericanos prefieren tomar el café instantáneo, mientras justo a sus lados crece el café más sabroso de todo el mundo. Demuestra, según mi opinion, que el café está muy relacionado con la cultura.

Rental prices in Germany Thanks for correcting! Im always curious to see how a native would have put it, so feel free to correct even larger chunks :) I want to combine writing this note with doing some research about the German rental price situation and about how the situation looks like in other countries of Europe in this regard. In Germany, more and more people want to live in cities, which, as a consequence, leads to a more and more competed rental market, especially in the bigger cities like Munich, Berlin, Hamburg and so on. On the one side it's certainly a problem for the individual that wants to live in a city and is forced to spend a great share of the income for renting an apartment. On the other side, though, it's a societal problem, given that people and families with lower income are gradually forced out of popular districts. The website statista.com affirms what is already common knowledge in Germany: Munich is by far the most expensive city in Germany, with its average rental prices going up to 17.56 euro per square meter in 2018. It is followed by Frankfurt with a price of 13.96 euro and other cities, mainly from the south of Germany with similar rental prices. As far as Munich is concerned, prices are really skyrocketing. Handelsblatt.com reports a 9.7 percent increase of purchase prices in 2017. But how does the situation compare to other European cities? Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a statistic which would provide a clean overview of the rental price growth. As far as the actually prices are concerned though, Munich is definitely not the most expensive city in Europe. The undisputed leader is London, with an unbelievable 28 euros spent per square meter. The prices of other cities are more or less in the range of the ones of Munich, namely the Cities of Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris and Barcelona.