A pen pal (also spelt penpal) or a penfriend is someone with whom you correspond on a friendly basis either via snail mail (traditional mail) or the Internet. People who correspond with each other only via the internet are termed ‘epals’. There are several different types of pen pals, including snail mail pen pals (postal mail), e-pals (e-mail), postcard pen pals (people who correspond via postcards) and sms buddies (those who correspond via sms).
Penpalling is a hobby for millions of people around the world of all different ages. In fact, everyday penpalling is breaking down barriers and uniting people from a myriad of cultures, ethnicities, languages, countries and religions. Many teachers around the world are engaging in collaborative classroom exchanges with other classes worldwide not only to help in the teaching of foreign languages, civics and other humanities, but to encourage their students to learn more about other countries and cultures. Additionally, there are some people who correspond with prisoners and military personnel.
A pen friendship normally tends to be just like a normal friendship, with the only difference being that you communicate via e-mail or snail mail instead of face to face. However, as technology advances, penpals have found ways to make penpalling much more interactive, such as via instant messengers, chatrooms, webcams, voice chatting and SMS. Some even eventually meet each other in person. Another thing that many penpallers like to do is swapping. Favourite things for swapping include stamps, FBs, decos, stickers, stationery, postcards, coins, among other things.
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Besides the obvious advantage of helping you to build friendships with people who may live thousands of miles away from you, penpalling brings several other perks. By penpalling not only can you sharpen your language skills, but you will also learn how to better appreciate and embrace cultures which may be far different from your own. My experience was that it really helped in geography because I learnt about countries that I had never heard of before. As an added bonus, you have the satisfaction of knowing that if you were to visit that person’s country, you will already know someone living there.
Nowadays penpal sites are probably the most common way of finding pen pals. Nevertheless, there are other ways in which you can find people with whom you could correspond. For instance, you can find penpals via online and offline penpal clubs and organisations, in chatrooms, in FBs (Friendship books), on social networking sites and via penpal ads placed in newspaper and magazine columns, penpal magazines, among other places.
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