Conversation Exchange

Do you really want to learn a language? Start using it!

By Federico Martínez

Last class we talked about some acronyms like lol, lmao, and others and Lucila suggested that I should talk about it. I thought that better than that would be talking about how it is that I’m learning them. So, I’m going to talk about something I consider could be interesting for all of us, as we are all here trying to learn English. I’m going to talk about conversation exchange.

Six months ago, more or less, I was thinking about how my English was going and I was worried because I hadn't improved as much as I expected. I didn't have problems with grammar in general or reading, but my oral and listening skills were just disappointing for me. I realized the main problem was that I was only practicing at class. And not only that, I was practicing with people that spoke like me, with the same kind of mistakes. While thinking about that , I thought it would be great if there were a chance to talk with English people that are learning Spanish. Quickly I went to the computer, because if there wasn't a site like it, developing one could be a gold mine.

A Canadian postcard

Sadly my idea was not so original and there were actually lots of sites for what I wanted to do. On the other hand, although I wouldn't become rich, I could at least use them and practice English. I've been doing it since that moment I have gotten very neat results not only because of my English but also by meeting a bunch of interesting people. And you learn a lot, not only useful phrases and slang but also that sometimes what is grammatically correct is not the usual way and what's most important, you become more comfortable with your English.

As I said, there are many sites for this. I chose one called conversationExchange.com, basically because it is very simple and focused on the subjects. Other sites are more complex and are more like social network and I was not interested in those features.

In this site you have to sign up and create your profile: your name, age, which languages you speak, which ones you want to learn, where you live, and a brief description of yourself and your interests. Once your profile is approved, you can start your search for conversation partners and begin sending messages to them. The site allows you to search for people who are in your country for face to face conversation or just people to chat or exchange email.

A gift from the UK

I started with email, because I wasn't comfortable with my English and email lets you think and check what you write. After a while I decided to move to chat, it is more dynamic and gives you less time to think. Lastly I started with Skype and I even met up with some people. In my opinion all of this has been helping me a lot as it allows me to use English in my daily life. For instance, it is thanks to this site that I read my first “real world” novel in English as an exchange with an American girl (That was you Taneal!): She recommended me a novel that she had read and I chose one in Spanish for her and then we discussed the plot, characters and so on.

Sweets a friend from France sent me. Yummy!

You have to take account of some advice when you are on this: There are spammers and scammers lurking over there. They do not disguise themselves very well and you can easily detect them because they ask for your email in their very first message and write very short and generic messages. Besides that you also have to pay attention to the other person’s English level, for example people from Africa (and I’m not being racist, it is just a fact that I've faced) tend to write very bad in English and even people from the French part of Canada do the same. So you’d better watch out.

Another interesting thing about these sites is that they allow you to “travel” without moving from your city. Meeting foreign people is a wonderful way to discover how people live in other cultures and countries. It’s amazing how you can realize that the world is huge and not only your everyday places, how things that are usual for you are very exotic abroad and vice versa. You can even discover yourself looking at your city with tourist eyes: I’m exchanging pictures from my area with other people who send me from theirs and by doing that, I have noticed that many of the corners I pass through every day are actually very interesting and picturesque.

I don’t want to extend myself rambling, my advice is that if you are really interested in improving your English skills this kind of site together with these lessons are a good way to achieve that. For further information you can check conversationexchange.com, duolingo.com/, interpals.net, or just mail me.

If any of you have questions I’d be glad to answer them.

Buenos Aires city, the nature beneath

For many of you, topography may be an unfamiliar concept. It refers to the configuration of the natural physical features of an area. Someone could say that it is “the shape of the terrain” but it involves deep complex relations and interactions between a large number of natural factors. This is why learning about the topography where a city is settled on can tell the citizens so much about its present reality and the challenges to come. Ignoring topography can lead to serious consequences, as it is the case of Buenos Aires.



Since the beginning, topography has played a determinant role in the creation and development of the city. When the first settlers arrived in these latitudes, they searched for the best location to establish their camp: it had to be near the shore, in a high spot in the terrain to provide shelter and safety from rain and floods, and to be on guard against possible attacks from the continent and from the river. That place is thought to be where ‘Plaza de Mayo’ is today.

As time went by the marginal colony grew bigger. Roads were opened into the territory following higher lands to secure trade and supply traffic despite climate hazards. That particular strategy can be pictured as a hand: the palm is the city from which the fingers -roads- are born, pointing into the continent to reach its wealth.

As a result, the growing population started settling their residences down near those roads, avoiding lower ground, meadows, water streams, etc. This is how real estate market was born. Wealthy people owned the best lands and the rest of the people had to find less favourable places to live in. That behaviour has persisted until today: property value is higher in the north-central area of the city (higher lands, well connected, good infrastructure) and it decreases towards the south, a historically avoided area due to its lower terrain and periodical floods from the Riachuelo.

Long years passed, the colony became a city and the city became a metropolis. Roads and railways kept growing, followed by population, and little by little the spaces between the ‘fingers’ were filled by the city. Streams and rivers were put into underground pipes; lands were covered with buildings; roads were asphalted, trees and vegetation shrank. Even the coast was altered: meadows were filled in to reclaim land from the De la Plata river. The progress irreversibly changed the topography to fulfil the desires of the people: progress.

Nowadays, as we were saying, the city has taken over the landscape, has covered it, ‘filled’ it; natural features pass unnoticed for most of us, the city shape and trace are thought as a result of planners' design. The truth is that city planning is a recent complex concept, deeply attached to the economic influence and benefit of real estate business. From the many city design decisions made by planners which are originated in natural topographic conditions, only a few are carried out by politicians and too many ignored by private investors. It has proved to have catastrophic consequences: many unfavourable areas have been urbanised leaving the resident population vulnerable to floods, unprovided of correct water supply, without enough sewer infrastructure, lacking of mobility access, etc.

As for the future of the city and us, the citizens, we had better learn where our city is settled and take action in its future development, or we can let real estate decide for us, as we are used to. We must demand our representatives and the public control body the compliance of laws which involves planning matters. Remember that the Urban Planning Code contemplates the shared participation in public assemblies of neighbours and government to decide on planning issues.

Visual Memory of Buenos Aires

 

 Translated text coming soon.

Free Reflections on the discursive arena

Control Society

The other night I woke up at two am. I could not sleep. I sat down on my couch and had started thinking when I wanted to turn on the TV. It was as if a survival instinct was telling me that meditation was not the best idea for that hour. The rush hour had gone but the programming was repeated for sleepwalkers. Today I still ask myself why I turned on the TV that night. The first thing I saw was a beautiful brunette who asked the audience to call her for five hundred pesos to guess the word “bacteria” in the anagram.  I changed the channel and I came across a TV show about vigilance cameras. Well, what can I say about that? – “Crime always pays the bills”- a teacher said to me once at the University. He was referring to the string of jobs that can “produce” crime: specialists in criminology, judges, lawyers, writers, television programs dedicated to crime integers. Today I think he was a wise, but above all a good man.

Buenos Aires, the art city, is dominated by the eye of the camera. The big brother trend has collapsed the streets. Furthermore, they have militarized Buenos Aires with border gendarmes in all the towns. -Control -they said, but the “insecurity sensation” is the same. The watching does not cure  the suffering. We are witnesses of a social paradox: reasons are discovered but plans are still missing.

However, the fact is the fact. Nowadays we are living with six pesos per day, said the National Institute of Statistics in Argentina. According to it, today eight millions of people live below the poverty line. Abel Albino, president of CONIN, an institution that fights against malnutrition, said that in Argentina twenty out of a thousand babies are born dead because of that disease. The kids who have suffered that disorder and live today have great difficulty learning. In words of Abel Albino in medical circles they are called “work brains”. The expression means that these guys have lost the ability from birth to be inserted in a labor market increasingly competitive because of that disease. They could never be work force, they have lost the opportunity from the beginning.  

Nevertheless, money breaks controls. We control citizens but not our resources; I said the wrong thing, our land, wrong too, what we owe to our children. Someone said that what is free has no value. Nobody controls and the planes fly high from the North carrying drugs thanks to the absence of radar in traffic areas. Am I asking for control? The drugs are introduced every day. The market grows up and the corruption condemns thousands of children to silence and anonymity. You can see it from the tourist bus every morning. The government has admitted these things even to equilibrate the trade balance. We need another kind of reserve, generational, to begin with.

I am part of a generation called NI-NI. We are a generation of Youngsters that neither work nor study. The social liability grows too and that it is the generational future we are leaving to our children.

No, our sources have not lied to us. We are not at war but we declare enemies every day. The society of control is divided. I ask myself when the discrimination became a culture. You and I are different persons. In the city of art some platitudes must be explained.  

The facts are the facts, but they always have their symbolic side. The media has built a dichotomy society. They portray and draw negative images of us. - The crime always pays- my teacher said to me and the camera repeats criminal acts on the news every morning. We must stop the morbidity instinctive. I do not care about the red blood on the screen. Roses have to come back to their places. So, the news plays. No, they build editorializing information programs. Discrimination flourishes. Therefore there is nothing like a camera and a suspicious behavior detector. The suspicious attitudes become thugs’ faces. The State speaks but they do not prevent murder. The feeling of insecurity prevails.

The camera repeats ... repeats, repeats. Today more than ever, sight prevails over the other senses. Our identity relies on our appearance. This is said from the market. We copy model movies and TV series in films and the camera repeats, repeats, repeats.

Do we convince ourselves that we are –bacteria- that needs to be monitored in the microscope of our leaders? Yes, the word was Bacteria in the anagram. All of us have or had mums. They should be more respectful of what they think about us. Someone must stop the clock for once to think what kind of future we want for our children. Repeating the same mistakes should not be an option. I want an explanation but above all I want some examples. The examples are always important.

How do we convince ourselves that technology is freedom? I feel a heavy world on my shoulders. We have to stop the clock, we cannot think clearly. Stop the rotary press, we cannot live clearly. Did the teacher have nothing to teach? We are lukewarm because we refuse division. They said to us. But they are wrong.

We live in an addictive society: addictive money, addictive narcotics, addictive fears, addictive to the media, addictive secrets. I want the truth. What has happened to trust? When did the actions of men cease to be human? The metaphor of social control has achieved, more than any other trope, the illusion of a State that will protect us, but the control days must end. I cannot have a home, but I will not be an orphan.

Focusing on easy way-out; Helmet Laws for Cyclists

Should we discuss mandatory helmets laws instead of discussing how to improve our cities for the safety of pedestrians and cyclists

By Lucila Spotorno

@lucilaspotorno

This particular issue has been discussed for many years by a wide range of experts. As you can imagine, there are two opposite strands, those who are in favor of mandatory helmets laws, and in the flip side of the coin, those who are against. To be honest, I am not trying to do research about the effectiveness of these laws, first because I consider that there are many reasonable documents which explain both documents very well and secondly because I consider that it should not be the central discussion.

So, what I would like to show you is that the debate about mandatory helmet laws does not have any sense. Furthermore it is a waste of time that makes us not to think in long-term solutions. If governments want to reduce injuries, I am pretty convinced that the main solution is improving and planning cities for the safety of pedestrian and cyclists, we need to increase the number of cyclists. If we are becoming more and more, the debate about wearing helmets is secondary.

If we consider the case of Australia and New Zealand, two vehement countries that have introduced compulsory helmets laws to reduce head injuries, we realize that since the implementation of these laws, the number of cycling casualties has decreased, but it has also been accompanied by a significant reduction of cyclists.

I wonder what would happen if we had compulsory laws concerning the use of helmets and meanwhile government does not pay any attention to the safe accessibility and mobility of cyclists.

On the other hand, well recognized experts in traffic, mobility and cycling recommend not voting for bicycle helmets. Indeed, many European countries have already rejected bicycle helmet law proposals. Among them are the UK, France, Italy, Poland, Switzerland and Norway. 

A clear example illustrates this is the case of Denmark, along with the Netherlands, the world's safest bicycle nations. The number of head injuries keeps falling in Denmark and has been so since the 1960s. This is due to better infrastructure, traffic safety initiatives, the "safety in numbers" principle and people paying better attention. However, few people wear helmet. In fact, when I was in Copenhage I only saw children with helmet, and almost no adult. 

The emphasis is not on the use of helmet, but on the safety and on habitual cycling, and also on speed limits, borderlines, exclusive lines, education for cyclists, pedestrian and cars for their better cohabitation.

This does not mean I think that no one should wear helmets; I believe the choice of whether to wear a helmet or not or what kind of helmet to wear should be up to the cyclist. From my own experience in some circumstances I put on the helmet when I feel a bit unsafe on the streets, generally when I am not riding on an exclusive lane. On the contrary, when I feel confident and safe I do not feel the need o wear it and I ride without it. 

What we should do?

When we are dealing with something as important as public health and sustainable transport forms, the documentation has to be watertight. We need to increase number of cyclists and we can't do it with helmet legislation, but by creating better and safer conditions for the nation's cyclists.

We should, instead, discuss what kind of cities we wish to live in. If we wish to do something positive for safety, health and the environment we should arrange our cities so that they are safe for pedestrians and cyclists and we should give these groups priority in our planning.

Changing the model in the urban mobility

CITIES PLANNED FOR PEOPLE

by Lucila Sptorno

@lucilaspotorno

The phrase “Copenhagenize” is frequently used by the Danish urban planner Jan Gehl to describe his vision of how urban centres can embrace bicycle culture and urban cycling. Little by little, several cities around the world are recovering their public spaces and implementing plans to improve the movement of pedestrians and cyclists. Some cities are more concerned about this new vision of the model that promotes non motorized means of transportation and the accessibility to all the opportunities that the cities offers. By contrast, other cities are still addressing their traffic problems by increasing the capacity of road network in order to facilitate traffic flow instead of looking for mobility solutions. This article analyzes the change from the traditional model of urban planning, which places emphasis on cars, to the new concept in urban mobility that promotes non motorized transport like bicycles.

THE TRADITIONAL VISION OF THE CITY

The popular view, focused on the car, assumes that cities can expand and disregards the cost of the necessary infrastructure to support such pattern of mobility. The mobility pattern is based on the car without considering the negative costs of externalization like congestion, pollution, traffic jam, bad quality of life, health problems and accidents. Moreover, these negative effects are redistributed across all members of society, including those that do not have their own car.

By prioritizing this pattern of mobility based on motorized and private transportation, government and planners tend to implement measures concerning the traffic jam and the necessity of fluidity in the transit.

That is why some cities address their traffic problems by increasing the capacity of road network in order to expand traffic flow. However, this causes a vicious circle: more highways intensify the use of cars, thus increasing traffic jams and so on.

CREATING MORE LIVABLE CITIES FOR PEOPLE

On the contrary, cities planned for people are those who tend to recover public space for society.This model promotes non-motorized means of transportation, the construction of public paths, the incorporation of bicycles, and the accessibility to all the opportunities the city offers. This latter set of measures, already a reality in various cities around the world, greatly improves the conditions of urban life and brings about direct benefits to the quality of the local and global environment.

The new vision adopted consists of replacing private by public transportation, bikes, and pedestrian routes-all of them properly integrated. Non- motorized means of transportation improve the quality of urban life, reduce congestion, decrease local and global pollution, create small businesses, reduce traffic accidents and fuel consumption, and enhance public health. Among the gains more easily perceived, there are social benefits like the universal accessibility, the socialization and democratization of public space for every citizen.

A city planned for people emphasizes accessibility for everyone to move and to be connected with the city without class distinction; rich and poor alike have the opportunity of enjoying all the city has to offer. Moreover, it promotes equity and social inclusion. For instance, in rural areas the bicycle has given laborers the opportunity to extend their travel circuit and find jobs in towns and on farms farther away.

The bicycle has liberated women as well. There are no longer “men only" or "wealthy only" signs hanging on bicycles in the bike shops. Only a price tag with a number that is accessible to everyone.

Copenhagen pictures

A new model of city is possible and, by its nature, the bike is and should be the base of this revolution. There is clearly a growing problem of mobility in cities. It has been proved that the bicycle is the best, most sustainable alternative in cities with traffic congestion and also for short trips. A healthy conveyance that promotes a civic-mindedness, physical activity and, among many other benefits, does not produce pollution.

Non-motorized means of transportation imply more sustainable and livable cities where people can have access to equal opportunities. Moreover, it promotes democratization of public space and fosters accessibility for everyone, thus ensuring all citizens have the right to the city.