I used italki and secretly loved it

If you’re anything like us and you’ve had a browse history of looking at language learning stuff on YouTube, you’ve probably been hit with a few (hundred) ads from italki with Dinela, shouting at you from behind a flower she’s holding, or maybe the French teacher that has a slightly Eastern European accent when speaking English. We’ve know several people to use and champion italki as a tool for improve ones language skills.

And then we were approached by italki for a YouTube sponsored video, which lead to me actually trying it. As I took my first lesson with the intention of just feeling it out to understand it so that I could genuinely comment on it in the integrated ad spot on a recent video, I found myself having a blast.

Kalie stay across the table from me laughing to herself as I chatted away. I probably annoyed her with how much fund I was having. The first teacher that I had was based in the Azores but didn’t have a particularly strong Azorean accent or any at all really, which is something else because when Kalie and I went to the Azores for the first time, we were blow away at how different people can sound there compared to mainland Portugal. Sure people in Porto sound different to Lisbon and certainly use some different words, and people in Alantejo speak a little slower, which I’m totally cool with being from Southwest Virginia.

The teacher was able to quickly and gently correct my pronunciation mistakes and vocabulary deficiencies as I tried to speak about things outside of my box of things I know how to say. As a former ESL teacher (English as a Second Language), I totally get this approach and understand it. It was just the kind of support that you can’t get from using an app like Memrise or DuoLingo, which are also tools for learning a language but not to be relied on wholly.

The conversation was casual and although she’s a professional teacher, which subtly came through for sure.

My second trial call was equally cool and different. This teacher was from Lisbon but was living in Madrid. Since we had that in common, we actually started to talk about living in Madrid. Kalie and I used to live in Madrid years ago and I was curious to know from this teacher if she had heard of any of the places that I liked to go.

Since I was talking about the past, this showed me very quickly an area for growth that I need to work on as a 2nd language learner. I’ve just been learning the past tense with Portuguese with Carla and a lot of stuff is clicking and sticking but now being able to practice it with a live person allowed me to see this area for improvement. I was happy to have it pointed out like that in a very low-stakes environment where I didn’t feel like a complete idiot in front of a total stranger.

So I guess the secret is out, I loved using italki and I’ll continue to do conversation sessions from time to time. It would defintely be benefical for me to set a schedule for that, but you and I both know that I won’t be scheduling a standing call every Thursday at 1 PM. I’m too busy traveling at random times to set a schedule like that. If I want to go to Lisbon to see my beloved Arsenal taken on Sporting Lisboa on a Thursday, I’m going to do it (and take my wife and daughter) or if we need to head back to Luxembourg to film something cool for you to see, we’ll do that too.