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Linguaholic

Have you ever connected with someone you wouldn't have otherwise?


A0130

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I once met a man in Mexico who would continue to be my friend to this day. If I had not known Spanish, I don't think we would have become great friends. Has this happened to anyone else?

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Well I can say my whole online experience is all about this! I connected with people I would never coult otherwise. The fact that I am here in this forum ans speak with you is because I learnt English. I exchanged mail and packages with people from Romania, USA, England, France, Ireland, Portugal. The excitement of revieving a real letter from abroad is like nothing else, and seeing the handwriting of the person on the paper even more! I dare to call some of those people friends, even if I may never meet them.

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Well I can say my whole online experience is all about this! I connected with people I would never coult otherwise. The fact that I am here in this forum ans speak with you is because I learnt English. I exchanged mail and packages with people from Romania, USA, England, France, Ireland, Portugal. The excitement of revieving a real letter from abroad is like nothing else, and seeing the handwriting of the person on the paper even more! I dare to call some of those people friends, even if I may never meet them.

Quite honestly that is a great way of looking at it Topcho that I have never thought of.  Very interesting way to see things and it rather changes the way I look at "meeting" people.  I have never counted the internet connections until you put it in your words.  Now I think I will have to change my opinion.  :grin:

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I wouldn't have met a friend from Australia if I hadn't learnt this language. My English is still fragile, but hey, something is better than nothing. At least I can converse with you guys

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I would have to say my boyfriend. Sounds odd, I know, but really, coming from different cultures, religions, and countries, no one including myself would have thought we would be so good together. Who knew that a vacation-flirt would turn into something so good and loving. Especially since he seemed to only know 3 words in English when we met (I later learned that he did not only know 3 words, but he was too shy about his English to speak more).

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Several years ago I had a friend who was earning her master's degree in bilingual education -- Spanish-English -- and she had a circle friends who were native speakers from South America -- mainly Colombia  -- whom she had met in school. 

I used to hang out with all of them frequently and we spoke almost exclusively Spanish.  It was a great experience and helped me with my language skills. 

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In school we had pen pals but now my French is used to better connect with the occasional person who speaks French. Perhaps it will prove invaluable when I travel some more.

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Learning languages has brought me into contact with many people who I would never have known otherwise. I have friends who speak no English and I hope they never learn any English because it would change the entire context of the friendship.

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A little different but when I meet someone who speaks German, I can converse with them because I lived there a long time, speak a tad of German. It's nice to talk of mutual places, traditions, and the few German words I remember. Love the country, could live there but for the kids.

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Yes, I met an international student from France while in college.  She really enjoyed conversing with me in French because so few were as skilled as I was at that point in time.  Most college age kids are not fluent in two languages so I sort of made her feel a sense of "home" while she was in America.  We really didn't have much in common besides our common languages.  She taught me a lot of French expressions and idioms that I did not know. 

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  • 2 months later...

I haven't been able to travel out of my country yet, but who knows, maybe one day I will be friends with a foreigner living in here because we both speak the same language. Presently I do have "foreigner" friends, but they grew up here even if their parents were from another country.

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Being able to speak Spanish helped me make friends while living in Puerto Rico.

I also think that being bi-lingual in general opens up your mind to accept different cultures.

I have a neighbor now who just moved to the U.S. from Iran. Would I be as open to being friends with this individual if I hadn't traveled, learned another language and been exposed to other cultures?  I don't know.

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I have met someone oversea, which we started to talk and get to know each other. It was my mother who introduced this girl to me, otherwise, it was impossible to know this girl. Plus, this is the girl whom I married to, whom became my wife.

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I guess I'm not as lucky as you guys. Of course I've bumped into people here and there who ended up to be good friends but I'm yet to make friends with someone simply because I can speak their language. I previously thought I was no good at learning languages but maybe once I get to know enough Spanish [and my progress is quite good] I'll travel in Spain and try to make friends.

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I guess I'm not as lucky as you guys. Of course I've bumped into people here and there who ended up to be good friends but I'm yet to make friends with someone simply because I can speak their language. I previously thought I was no good at learning languages but maybe once I get to know enough Spanish [and my progress is quite good] I'll travel in Spain and try to make friends.

It depends on how many days will you stay in Spain. I stayed in China for almost two weeks. No luck. I didn't make any friend at all. I hope you will make new friends once you're in Spain. Cheers!

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I have made some cordial acquaintances in the Web using the English language, but nothing really remotely close to a "friend". I think the physical presence of a person, knowing that's he's "there" for you in case you need him, and not on the other side of the globe, counts a lot when forming a friendship.

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