How to italki - A beginner's guide
This is a post for new users who don't know how to navigate italki and what it has to offer.
1. What is italki?
It's first and foremost an online teacher marketplace where students can book one-on-one classes with professional teachers and tutors. Teachers have teaching certificates, tutors don't, so some of them only offer conversational classes, while others prepare classes like professional teachers.
2. How to become a teacher/tutor in italki?
3. Is italki an app or website?
Both. Currently there is an app for smart phones but it doesn't offer all features and information that the website does. The website looks different on computers and on phones. Also, currently (April 2019) there are two websites: the "classic" site (<a href="
https://www.italki.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(51, 122, 183);">
https://www.italki.com/</a>) and the beta site (<a href="
https://beta.italki.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 122, 183);">
https://beta.italki.com/</a>), which will replace the classic site in the future.
4. How can I learn languages on italki for free?
There are several features you can use for free: discussion, answers, notebook and language partner search. Please note that this is a community where people help each other. Don't only expect help but also offer help.
Discussions: This is the place where you can engage with other users in language and culture related discussions. Please note: teachers shouldn't use this section for promotion. If you post interesting language related discussions, then this will be a much better way of attracting new students then just an advertisement. Students shouldn't flood the discussion section with language partner requests. Otherwise all real discussions will be hard to find. <a href="
https://www.italki.com/discussions" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 122, 183);">
https://www.italki.com/discussions</a>
Notebook: Here you can upload texts you wrote and receive corrections by native speakers. Also, it would be nice if you helped out other learners by correcting notebook entries in your mother tongue. This way you can also find potential language partners.
Language partner search: Here you can look for potential language partners. Before contacting a user, read their profile first and check if they're interested in language exchange and in your mother tongue and if they have been active lately. There are many accounts that haven't been used for months or years. Those users will probably not reply to your message. <a href="
https://www.italki.com/partners" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 122, 183);">
https://www.italki.com/partners</a>
5. Nobody contacts me or replies to me! What am I doing wrong?
Check your profile:
- Provide a little introduction about yourself in your profile. Some users don't reply to empty profiles.
- Check if you set your contact permissions in your privacy settings to "anyone". If not, only friends can contact you. Since non-premium users can only send out two friend requests per day, you'll have less language partner requests when people can't send you private messages right away.
- Check if your language settings are correct. Do you display your native tongue and the levels in your target languages correctly?
- Check if your account has been deactivated: The italki spam filter might automatically block you when your messages appear to be spam or other users might report you, if they feel that your comments are inappropriate. To check if you're blocked, log out of italki and then visit your profile while being logged out. If your profile and/or your posts are inaccessible, contact the italki support to ask to reinstate you: <a href="
https://support.italki.com/hc/en-us/requests/new" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(51, 122, 183);">
https://support.italki.com/hc/en-us/requests/new</a>
Check the profiles/posts of potential partners:
- Do they indicate that they're interested in language exchange? Not everyone here wants to do language exchange but only wants to use the other features italki has to offer.
- Are they learners of your native tongue or interested in communicating with fellow learners of the same target language? If not, they might not reply.
- Do they have specific ideas on what kind of language partner they are looking for? If you don't fit the preferred profile (native speaker, gender, age, nationality ...), they might not reply.
Check your messages:
- Do you only write "hello" or "hi" when contacting other users? Many users won't reply to such messages. Tell them something about yourself in the first message, why you want to do language exchange with them and how you're planning to do it.