Off and on for some years now, I've downloaded a 'language sharing site' where, ideally, people can come to learn a foreign language or become more fluent in that language, while sharing their own with a counterpart with the same desires. The trouble with the site is that most people join and then say nothing, or they might say 'Hi', and then that's the last you hear from them.
Once in awhile, though, you actually hook up with someone who wants to chat and learn. So it was that I happened to meet Manda just recently, a young woman who lives in central Kalimantan. She's a pleasant, forthcoming mother of two and is actually doing fairly well in English already. When she doesn't understand something, she asks a specific question. When I am incorrect, she politely corrects me. She is also quite bright, interested in politics and religion and social patterns. It's a good way for both of us to become more fluent and to enjoy doing so.
One thing one almost always learns in these connections is how very much the same we all are. Same concerns, same hopes and desires. As Mark Twain wrote, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
Once in awhile, though, you actually hook up with someone who wants to chat and learn. So it was that I happened to meet Manda just recently, a young woman who lives in central Kalimantan. She's a pleasant, forthcoming mother of two and is actually doing fairly well in English already. When she doesn't understand something, she asks a specific question. When I am incorrect, she politely corrects me. She is also quite bright, interested in politics and religion and social patterns. It's a good way for both of us to become more fluent and to enjoy doing so.
One thing one almost always learns in these connections is how very much the same we all are. Same concerns, same hopes and desires. As Mark Twain wrote, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
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