Communication and keeping in contact

 Nowadays communication is very important, not just between us and our friends, family, etc., but between companies, cities and even countries. If there would not be the Internet, the telephone or the letter, there could not be the big variety of food, clothing, household appliances and other things in the shops, because the companies are keeping in contact with each other, that’s why we can eat bananas, oranges and food like these in Hungary.

 To help these great systems going, there are a lot of interpreters, translators and language courses available for everyone, not just the kids in the schools.

 These days almost everything we write to somebody else, raging from a single thank you note through a letter for an old friend to official documents are typed in the computers. It is much easier, because others can get our messages almost in a minute, and don’t have to wait a week or so, for a traditional letter to arrive. Some people say that it is not a good thing, since it is less personal and alienates us from each other. But still, if there would not be the Internet to send our messages, there definitely would be less successful companies, as the responses to important questions may arrive later, or if there would something bad happen, it would take at least one week to send a message asking for help from the directorate for the subsidiary, which would need some more money, but if it arrives later, it might be too late and that part of the company may bankrupt.

 An other important thing about the Internet is the fact that it is absolutely multilingual, so everyone can use it, even if they don’t speak any other language except from their mother tongue. And also, it gives excellent opportunities to learn other languages, because there are many free software, programs and courses that are running on the worldwide web which are available for everybody, who have internet access. Of course, you can even practice your language’s dialects and similar old languages which are spoken in other parts of your country, or may be in use somewhere else. In addition, you can still find languages which are on the edge of extinction, or are already extinct, but are still in use somehow, like Latin, which I was learning for three years. In my opinion, it really is a great thing, because I can speak on more languages with my international friends with the help of the internet, since there are specific translator programs, where you can type something, and the computer translates it in no time. Unfortunately, these resolutions are not always good, but there can be found very nice programs on the Internet.

  Even if your language is not as well-known as like English or Chinese, you can still find your favorite websites and pages on languages that you know. Just to mention an interesting thing: English is currently the most widely used language on the Internet, but some people say that as the number of Chinese people is constantly increasing, in a few years Chinese language, more precisely the mandarin dialect will take  control over the web. This is how the cultures spread here. Personally, I love everything that is in connect with Asia, mostly with Japan and Korea. Through the Interned I have found my favorite music styles, the Kpop and the Jpop, short forms of Korean pop and Japanese pop. Also thanks to the Internet, I can find billions of information about these cultures, their traditions, current events, and I can keep in touch with my Asian friends.

 The e-mails are really easy to type and send, not only because the correction of one’s mistakes, but because if someone’s handwriting is not the prettiest, everyone can read it, because it’s clear, I don’t use any paper and ink, this is good for the environment, I don’t produce any garbage this way, and even after 80 or 100 years later they can still read my letters. A big advantage that if once you finished your e-mail, the addressee will get it approximately in 10 minutes, independently from where he or she lives, while if you write a traditional letter, or on its other name, a snail mail, it takes two days to arrive, even if the person you’ve sent the letter to lives only 10 kilometers away.

 Also, there is an other solution, the fax. This is kind of like when you take a picture of what you would like to show or send to someone and send the photo itself. There are special kinds of printers which can be used for scanning and faxing. You put your paper inside of the machine, with its surface turned down, then you send the fax message to a phone number, which is in connection with a printer, and that printer prints your fax out. This way both of you, the sender and the receiver will get a copy from the paper. In Hungary the fax had no long lifetime, because the fax and the internet appeared at almost the same time, and people chose the easier way to communicate with the others. Sending messages and documents with the help of the Internet is definitely much faster than in the traditional way, but I can tell from personal experiences that it is much more less personal and kind. Last summer I got a scholarship from an American foundation, called LAJF, so I could spend two months there in an international girls camp, and we got only twenty minutes every Sunday to talk with our parents, but we could send as many snail mails as we have written, because the postman came every day and took our letters. Even tough it took 11 days for each letter to arrive to my parents, it still was the best way to tell them everything that happened to us there, and they are still preserving my letters.