Everybody who tried to expand his own view for the world, strive to learn a foreign language. Since a very young age we are conditioned to search for a “course” or school, which will do the job. The mainstream educational system tends to avoid the usual, natural way of learning a foreign language.

For everybody is clear, that the kids are the best language learners and the parents are trying in every possible way to make the kids learn foreign languages, while they are still very young. And if you remember the time, when you were a kid, you will understand how difficult is to study a foreign language in class, and immediate after the lesson you are back to your native language, until the next day/week lesson. But if you have a friend, who speaks foreign language and you want to play with him – you pick up the language very fast. My understanding is that this is the natural way of learning language – by having a friend, with who you can talk, exchange ideas, discus things that are of common interest. There are no artificial topics, created by the book writer, or suggested by the teacher. It is just you and your friend – and your common universe, full with the things you have in common, or the things you always wanted to do. And not to forget – your “teacher” is a native speaker – this mean you can actually learn the real language in use, not some artificial outdated book version.

Lang-8 is just that – an opportunity to learn a language in the most natural way – by your friends. Some people probably will say that is not so easy to find a friend, and that is true. But you do not have to focus on finding a friendship, which will last forever. We all know, that this kind of friendship is difficult to find and very rare. The thing you can try is to find a buddy with the same interest like you. Like someone who shares your taste in music for example. Then if you are exhausting your mutual interest in the topic, you may search for another friend, who share your test for books and continue in this manner. And because we are living in a global society, there is no chance that you will be running out of new people, who are interesting and it is nice to meet.

At the moment the service is free – you do not have to spend money, paying for the best language course, or for the best audio lessons. All you have to do is to register and start looking for friends. Even without a friend you still can be able to have your journal entries checked, but then most of the fun is missed. It is all dependent of the time, you want to spent learning new language. Everybody can justify for himself – should he pay for a courses or audio classes, or find a friend-native speaker in the target language, with whom he will be able to talk, write or just have fun. And you don’t have to use your free time, or weekends, while trying to learn new language – you will always have your friends there, ready, when you are ready. The future language education will be heavily influenced by language exchange and probably for first time we will have a really effective way of learning foreign language.