Homework: the right to interfere with the affairs of another country Subject: Individual countries do not have the right to interfere with the affairs of another country My first thought about this is that a country doesn't have the right to interfere in other's affairs, because every nation has different history, culture and traditions. For this reason things that are admitted in a society are seen as mistakes in other, and human rights are like blurred lines difficult to face against local traditions. For instance, in some African countries tribal power is essential for ruling their society, and that is important for their governments, in order to achieve stability for the whole country. However, it is quite common that conflicts among tribes escalate and end in civil wars, because the central government is weak compared to some of the tribes, and it seems impossible to stop their fights without external help. Additionally, sometimes is a tribe what controls the government and subdues the others, and the fight is between the allegedly righteous power and the rest of the population. In this case is necessary that other countries intervene to prevent abuses and protect human rights. In my opinion, no country has the right to decide that intervention, and it seems to me that the only correct way to decide it is by an agreement within an international forum like the United Nations. Nevertheless, is hard to know when is the right moment to intervene, and the real implementation of the action, because it could be seen as an invasion for the people whose protection is supposedly the aim of the action. PS: This is just a homework, I'm not trying to have a discussion about it :-)

Debates: mejor en español, ¿no creéis?

Hola a todos.

Veo que en este foro hace tiempo que se ha establecido una tendencia: cada vez más la gente, incluso los hispanoparlantes, publica sus mensajes en inglés. No tengo muy claro si me gusta. 

Soy estudiante de inglés, y participo en Italki desde hace casi tres años. Creo que mi nivel me permite participar en conversaciones en inglés con una cierta soltura, aunque no libre de errores. Al menos, creo que me puedo hacer entender. Y como estudiante, cualquier cosa que esté escrita en ese idioma me viene bien y me ayuda a aprender. 

Cuando participo en un debate del foro de aprendizaje de inglés no se me ocurre escribir en otro idioma. Sin embargo, en este foro, dedicado a aprender español, cada vez son más escasos los mensajes escritos en español. 

Probablemente hay personas cuyo nivel no es suficiente para hacerse entender, o eso piensan ellos. Y como ellos escriben en inglés, el resto de los participantes (entre los cuales me incluyo) contestamos en inglés.

Por eso, me gustaría animar a los estudiantes de español, sea cual sea su nivel, a que publiquen sus mensajes en la lengua del foro. Si quienes lo leemos no entendemos algo, lo preguntaremos. Incluso sería una solución escribir el mensaje en ambos idiomas para asegurarse de ser entendidos.

Me permito dejar claro que no es algo que me moleste, ni mucho menos. Es que creo que con la tendencia actual estamos haciendo un flaco favor a quienes vienen a Italki a aprender español, y finalmente acaban escribiendo y leyendo en inglés.

¿Qué opináis al respecto?

Looking for American partners

Reading Learning a new language is hard. You need lots of work in any aspect you can think of. Reading is the thing you can do more easily. Nowadays, with ebooks, it's easy to get English books for any level you need. Internet is full of them. Personally, I am an avid reader and when I have the time, I can read a whole book in a single afternoon. But doing it in English is not easy. I try to avoid the use of the dictionary: only when a word is used many times, or when it makes the sentence not understandable, I search for it in the dictionary. Otherwise, if I am able to catch the main sense of the phrase, I try to keep reading instead interrupt the flow of the story. Usually I read simple books, for example whose that are intended for teenagers. I have read Narnia, A series of unfortunated events and Harry Potter, which is my favourite. Right now I am reading American Goods, and it's been more difficult, but I am enjoying it.

Let's go on a trip I like travel by plane, and the airports don't stress me at all. The only thing that bothers me is the security check, with his absurd rules. Also, I realized that in the last years the space for my legs has decreased because the operators tried to put more people in their planes. It's one of the prices we have to pay for the late low-cost tendencies. I remember when, years ago, I knew the Heathrow airport, in a scale I did during a long travel to another country. I feel impressed and a bit scary, because in these days, I did not talk more than a hundred words in English, and the passport control made me sweat. Nowadays, my older's son girlfriend works as a flight attendant, and I enjoy listening to her telling anecdotes all around the world in hundred of flights a year. Stories about the crew, the passengers or the planes, it helps me to dream with trips to distant countries.

New class Our new English teacher insisted us to write more than we usually do. Because we have a writing exam at the end of the course, we need practice. My resolution is writing at least a notebook a week, and do it without consulting any dictionary or translation tool. I'm pretty sure I will have more spelling and grammar mistakes. But during the exam I won't have that type of help, so I'd better try to do this way. My class is more crowded than the previous year, but people is less participative, probably we aren't as confident with the others as we are. I suppose we will with time and work, and finally some of us will become friends. Also, I realized my classmates' level is not as uniform as I expected, in fact is lower. I probably need to revise my own competences and be more confident about it. We made a mock exam last week and I passed the reading and the listening part without problems. We don't have the marks for the writing part, but keeping in mind the difficulty of the whole exam, I hope I will pass it too. I hope the final exam has the same level, I am very optimistic!

365 días con Duolingo Yes, a whole year practicing English with Duolingo, without missing a day. Well, really I missed five or six, and used the streak freeze in order to not lose it. Anyway, I think it shows my engagement with my learning, and shows how constant I can be. Of course, I am the first surprised. Looking to other numbers that can reflect my work, Duolingo says I have more than one thousand Lingots (Duolingo's virtual currency), I am at level 22 out of 25 and I have a 74 percent of fluency. How real is all that? How much I have improved my English listening, or my grammar with Duolingo? It's really difficult to say, because during this year I used a lot of sources to study. Time ago, I meet a guy here in Italki that told me he had a 500 days streak. I asked him about how repetitive and boring it could be beyond some point, but he told me you constantly find new sentences and vocabulary, and the goal is to do it in an instinctive way. Talking about fluency, I have to say that Duolingo doesn't seems to be a good tool to measure it. I think the only way to prove our fluency is demonstrate it in a real context, like an exchange with a native. And I am much more fluent than I was a year ago, but I'm pretty sure it's thanks to my partners and exchanges. I think Duolingo is probably the best app I found for learning with my smartphone, but I recommend use it some days in his web version: although the sentences and vocabulary are the same, it allows different types of exercices and helps to not to be bored. And finally, another personal hit: I reached 10000 points in Italki. Keeping in mind that my number of notebooks or own discussions is low, it means lots of corrections, comments and answers. I hope sometimes I was helpful for the community. -