Un voyage Le prochain mois de juillet je vais aller en France et je veux parler aux gens, donc je dois practiquer et parler tant comme si peux. Je parle espagnol alors le français n'est pas completement different, et je peux lire des choses simples mais parler c'est plus difficile. Je n'ai pas problem de faire beaucup d'erreurs parce que est meilleur de les faire qui attendre à parler perfectament e ne le faire jamais.

What is your approach to learning grammar?

I think there are no right or wrong answers, and it depends on what is your goal when you learn a new language. My main goal is to be able to communicate with native speakers, so my approach to learning grammar is very relaxed and I'm not worried at all if I make mistakes. If I'm in France and I want to tell someone that I'm not vegetarian I will say "je ne suis pas végétarien", but if I say "je ne suis végétarien" (without "pas") any native speaker should understand me. I am with Steve Kaufmann (lingQ) here, and I think that, when it comes to communication, acquiring new vocabulary in context is more important than anything else.

Another thing that I consider very important is learning the body language of the country you visit. Not only it will help you to clarify what you want to say, but there are certain gestures that you should avoid, as they can be taken as an insult. This should not be a problem in big cities, and with people who understand you belong to a different culture, but in small communities without a lot of contact with foreigners, they may not be so indulgent. 

Besides French and Italian, which I learn for communication, I'm also studying Swedish just for hobby, and my approach is quite different. My main goal is to understand what I read in Swedish, and for that, knowing proper grammar is important, so I pay more attention to it. Of course I'd like to be able to communicate with Swedish people in their own language, but considering that most of them speak English at a very high level, if you are a tourist in Sweden there is no point to spend hours and hours of study just to move around the country. 

So, what is your approach? Are you a shameless speaker (like me) who just starts speaking "as is", or you wait until you are sure that your grammar is flawless?

Profile information How does someone change the information that appears on the language partner section? I tried through "edit profile" with no success. I can't even change my profile information at all, any change I make, when I refresh the page it looks exactly the same (yes, I clicked on SAVE). So annoying!

I think "Language partners" section is flawed

I'm actively studying consistently 3 languages: Swedish, French and Italian. I also dabble in Greek, Romanian and Russian. The thing is that I contacted tons of people to be language partners and got very few responses. I also receive all the time messages asking me for an exchange English - Portuguese, which is not something I'm looking for. One day I realized that my profile was among the people looking for a Portuguese speaking partner, so I took care of that unchecking the box that says I'm studying Portuguese.  I guess that the recipients of the messages I'm sending are not interested in exchanging their language for the ones I offer, so they just don't answer. 

How many of you have experienced this? I think that italki shouldn't add people to the partners section without them knowing, as they get unwanted messages all the time, and people who write them just waste their time doing it. 

On a different note, some people who responded, are only willing to exchange written messages. It seems that people is scared of videochats, and the answer might be that there is a lot of fake profiles who are just looking for a hookup, and the ones who are interested in having a language exchange have to pay for this. Personally, I think that nowadays communicating only via written messages is obsolete and too slow,  and you can get the same information with a quick google search. 

Looking for French or Italian speakers

In exchange I offer English or Spanish. 

Casual conversations, 30 minutes or so. If you are reluctant to start a spoken conversation we can exchange written messages in real time (not email messages that take 2 days to answer) and then see if it is OK to speak. 

I want to practice Swedish (with natives speakers or just students)

I'm learning Swedish, and one of the hardest parts is finding videochat partners. I'm not interested in just exchanging written messages; if I want to know the Swedish word for "cloud" I just go to google translate. I need to have a conversation, where I feel challenged to say this or that right on the spot. 

Are you a Swedish native speaker? I can offer you a language exchange for Spanish (English too, but most Swedes speak English already). 

Are you studying Swedish? Let's help each other. We can still have conversations, where one can ask and the other respond, one can study some subject and explain it to the other and then test them in Swedish, etc. Any practice, no matter how simple it is, is better than nothing, and we don't even need to have common interests other than learning the language. 

Whare are all the Greek speakers? I'm looking for Greek language partners, but it doesn't seem to be a lot on italki. If you are one of them, and you are interested in talking in Spanish or English, just let me know :)

Where are all the Swedish speakers? I'm looking for Swedish language partners, but it doesn't seem to be a lot on italki. If you are one of them, and you are interested in talking in Spanish or English, just let me know :)

I morse I morse dagen var mycket fin med mycket sol, och jag gick på poolen som ligger i byggnade. Jag stannade dar för ett tid men senare solen var mycket stark och jag kommt tillbaka hem.