"Rip-off" is when a something is too expensive or something/someone is not legitimate (real). If you hear people saying that a person is a rip-off it means they are cheating you/someone else. If you hear people saying that a thing is a rip-off, it means the thing is fake. So, be careful!

Hi Heli, "What's up" is slang and is used very commonly by younger generations and amongst friends. It means "what is happening now/in your life?", "What are you doing?". Don't take it literally because if we analyze it, it will confuse you! This is why: What + is + up What = pronoun/determiner: asking for information is= conjugated verb "to be" up= adverb/prepostion/adjective --> opposite of down, a higher place. Next time someone asks you "what's up?" you can respond by saying, "nothing much" or "a lot!" depending on you of course :) Did that help?

Hola Héctor, La mejor manera de realizar algun intercambio lingüístico es contactando a cada profesor o estudiante por medio de mensaje privado o después de haber ensayado una sesión con un profesor. En su mensaje asegúrese de presentarse bien y expresar sus objetivos con la persona. Es decir, ¿quién es usted? y ¿cómo podría beneficiar el profesor de este intercambio? Espero haberle ayudado!

Hi Gabriel, In these situations, be as objective and kind as possible. I would say, "Hi, I ordered seven donuts and it seems that we're still missing two. Can you help me?" If you want to say "There are two donuts missing" that works too, just remember to say it nicely :) Hope that helped!

What is fluency anyway? :)

Many people claim this word easily without acknowledging the subtleties and finer shades that each language harbors amidst its peoples, culture, and ever-changing societies. 

Two years of living in France overrode an entire decade of textbook-rich studies; it decapitated my entire notion of the "fluency" I claimed to have by year 7. After so many years studying, I realized I knew nothing of what I claimed to know.

Another year traveling to and performing (I was once an opera singer) in Italy gave me the tools to debunk any formal "fluency" ideologies I had in my head about Italian, but it wasn't until I met a real Italian and became good friends with them that my eyes opened to the complicated nature of what mastery of a language is! How can one really be fluent in a language with a subset of hundreds of dialects? 

As an American, I'm automatically classified fluent/native in English, but are you, really, when you have social media shaking up the entire linguistic #system? Are you, really, when you have an entire continent-sized country with a history rich in immigration and a mosaic of cultures in one? Am I, really, when a New Yorker, who speaks completely different from a Georgian in the south, uses five different words for the same object?

As an American with a Colombian family (and some years studying in Colombia as a child), and a constant use of Spanish all around me around all types of friends and family members, am I really classified fluent when I know colloquial Spanish street words like the palm of my hand and the Academic Dictionary on every Colombian kid's desk like my own face, but am not living, breathing, eating the culture and the changing modisms every day? 

Tough to answer, really, since I'm always trying to ride the constant surge and dip of the eternally changing ways of "English", "Spanish", "Italian", and "French".

-Lorena :)