Thursday, January 20, 2011

A new Friend

Hi everyone! I have been trying to brush up on my Spanish since I will be taking a trip to Ecuador in April. In order to help with that, I set up an account at busuu.com where you can practice speaking with native speakers of the language you are trying to learn. I have chatted online with someone from Venezuela, but we could not speak live because his microphone did not work. It was just as well, because I am not very good. Typing out the conversation gave me a chance to think out the language a little more slowly while conversing.

Last night while I was on the site, a young woman from China contacted me to help her with her English. Her name is Grace and she lives in Hunan Province. I think it was the city of Changsha (is that right, Grace?). I told her I would post in her honor today. We had a wonderful little chat over Skype. I enjoyed meeting her. She showed me a couple of pictures of the area in which she lives. Here they are.

I think it would be quite impressive to see these tall cliffs in person. This first picture reminds me a little of Chimney Bluffs here in New York State. Grace, here is a picture of Chimney Bluffs along the shore of Lake Ontario.
Here is the other picture she sent me.

It looks like a very peaceful place to be. If it were not for the snow, I could almost hear the gentle twittering of birds in the trees. Here is a comparable picture of the Japanese Garden at Sonnenberg Gardens here in Canandaigua, NY. It is very close to where I live, only a few blocks away.
While I know Grace is Chinese and not Japanese, I thought the pictures were pretty similar.
I hope I get another chance to talk with Grace again.
(photos: the Japanese Gardens-Jason Roberts, Chimney Bluffs-tooshy, China pictures-Grace)

6 comments:

Jenny said...

How wonderful to be able to learn a new language that way.
And a lovely way to meet new people.
I would love to visit China one day. The majority of the children I teach are from there (or I should say their parents are). We do a unit on China and read "Mao's Last Dancer". This week I went to see an exhibition of some terracotta warriors in Sydney, and plan one day to see them on location.

Katya said...

Wow, that sounds like fun, Priscilla! I have never had the "knack" for learning launguages. Bummer. I have a cousin who is fluent in many languages...Chinese, Russian, and Spanish amongst them. He was in the Air Force as (what else?) a code buster!

Your photos contrast very nicely with Grace's! Amazing!

AND, funny thing! I was AT Chimnet Bluffs today on a snowmobile!!!!!

Carolyn Johnson said...

Very amazing place! Love your pictures! Looks like fun!

bichonpawz said...

Love your pictures Priscilla!! I haven't been to Chimney Bluffs in ages...but I have been to Sonnenberg...I just love that place. How cool that you are learning to speak other languages...with real people! I took five years of French...many, many years ago. I could not carry on a conversation today...

bichonpawz said...

Oh! Forgot to mention...those live feeds are often incorrect!! If I am in my office..which is upstairs..it states that I am in Victor...in the living room....I'm in Farmington! Sometimes, it will say Canandaigua...but there is really no rhyme or reason to it!!

joeks said...

Sounds like a great program! I've bookmarked it, and hope to check it out more closely another day. Would love to get back the German vocabulary I used to know way back in high school. And it would be nice to actually know at least a little Spanish when I sub in that class!