Love Letters for Pen Pals

People have been using letters to woo and win hearts since the beginning of time. After all, aside from a moonlit serenade, there is little more romantic than some heartfelt words scrawled in earnest hand, or at least typed in earnest hand in our age of ubiquitous technology. However, paper correspondence is not only a valuable weapon in love, but also in developing a love for a language. Having a pen or e-mail friend, works on two different levels. Firstly, it's fun and can be a very fulfilling exploit for both yourself and the recipient. Secondly, it allows for practising a second language, of writing to someone whose native tongue is the one you seek to learn.

Being able to interact in a natural way is essential for those who want to make the jump from basic understanding to fluency. This is especially important for those who live busy city lifestyles, who would be unable to travel for long periods of time to improve their language. Even in the most cosmopolitan of cities such as London for example, short of attending an international school London these kind of opportunities do not arise. Moreover, words are one thing, but culture is another. Learning from a text book can give you an understanding of grammar and syntax, but the relationship between a nation's culture and how language reflects this is incredibly important to understanding the language and nation as a whole. So for example, you will find in French a wealth of commonly used wine drinking idioms relating to their culture as a wine-producting nation. It's these kind of phrases that give a speaker fluency, and the more you interact with a native speaker, the more you will hear these important stylistic sentences.

Of course, there are exceptions - many cities have independent schools geared toward learning a language and internationalism as a whole, combining language courses with a number of other modules to give students a well-rounded approach to their education. You can find an independent school London based, Paris based and in a number of other locations. Yet even taking this route, one can benefit from a little extra practice from their distant pen-pal, not to mention a little extra joy. Gain a friend and gain a second language - some things really aren't too good to be true.

Read More: French courses in France