Not too long ago, learning a language cost time and money. Now, Australians are teaming up with strangers around the world to teach each other the skills quickly, via their phones.
The rest of italki’s Australian users are learning 104 other languages, with a few even choosing rarer languages Sanskrit and Ancient Greek.
“We believe people can get to real fluency much more quickly with a human teacher – and of course, make the genuine human connections that we also believe are so important.”Umberto Ansaldo heads the School of Literature, Arts and Media at the University of Sydney. While many people around the world are now starting to engage in language exchanges as a hobby, Professor Ansaldo thinks Australians could take it one step further.
Linguistics professor Umberto Ansaldo says it's time to reinvent the way we teach languages from a young age.“Even when they are offered, there are a very limited number of hours, a very limited number of resources, and don’t necessarily have native or very fluent speakers teaching, so I think quite a bit could be done if there was the desire to do so.
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