Hi Marina!

Thanks for the welcome!

I've put further comments on the subject in the thread you've pointed... So if you want to see a more complete brazillian perspective on the subject take a look there and drop some comments too!

[]'s

Paulo

Although we may not need this for translators' encounters, you never know...

From http://www.netimperative.com/2006/05/31/WhiteSmoke/view:

Interactive technology firm WhiteSmoke has launched an online language tool designed to help people improve their English language skills.

The online ‘date profiling’ program will initially be used to help single people promote themselves in a more articulate and powerful manner on dating and community sites.

The program, which can be downloaded from www.whitesmoke.com and appears as an icon at the bottom of the computer screen, helps people using internet dating programs to express themselves more eloquently and to support them with spelling, grammar and text enrichment suggestions.

LONDON (Reuters) - Was your father a thief? Because he stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-07-11T102808Z_01_L11670575_RTRUKOC_0_UK-LIFE-LOVE.xml

FlightStats.com  provides an agglomeration of real-time information on the status of just about every airline flight in the world.

Dear TC family members,

I'm going to the country of my dreams for the first time i.e. France on a month's official training program arranged by my company.

I'll reach France on night of 27th August. I'll stay at Paris for two weeks and for the last two weeks, I'll move to Brest. I'll be free in the evenings and in the week-ends i.e. Saturdays and Sundays. I would like to meet you guys. Please let me know if We could have a small get together at some place of your choice as I'm not familiar with the surroundings.

It's my first ever trip abroad. I'm quite excited about it.

Hope to hear hear from you soon.

Naveen Dhiman

Hi Naveen,

Sounds great, congratulations on your trip! I'm sure you'll love it, Paris and France are very beautiful! Why don't you launch a meeting in a separate thread, so people will see it immediately?

All the best,

Matilde

This is not for translators only. (I was once a member of an organization which functioned in a similar way: http://joomla.servas.org/)

....CouchSurfing, a private accomodation exchange network. "Financial transactions between host and guest are forbidden. Money-based transactions are replaced by the exchange of assistance... My first guest was an Erasmus student from Latvia who spoke English with a heavy Russian accent and thanked me warmly for the use of my sofa... To be honest, I was a little disappointed that it was so little. It was only when I stayed as a guest with others that I realised I had actually received a lot more... I often remember something my mother used to say: 'Never open your door to strangers'. This sentence belongs in a society that is afraid of the unknown. But if you want to see the world in all its complexity you should let strangers in and keep a spare mattress handy." Dilema veche (Romania) http://europe.courrierinternational.com/eurotopics/article.asp?langue=uk&publication=05/07/2007&cat=CULTURE&pi=2#2

Not much activity here, so I thought I would entertain y'all in the meantime.

From http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/fashion/27dating.html?em&ex=1191124800&en=ff4faeec0b785923&ei=5070:

The idea of a dating coach sounded ridiculous: Why should I entrust my romantic success to another person? What could a coach possibly tell me that I did not already know? But my dating life was not getting better, so I called Nancy Slotnick, a “love life manager” in New York City. Ms. Slotnick, a Harvard graduate, takes a no-nonsense approach to love.

“I treat it like a job hunt, but a fun one,” said Ms. Slotnick, 40, who has been coaching for five years and married for six. Ideally, she wants clients, most of whom are women in their 20s and 30s, to devote 15 hours a week to their search (surfing the Web counts for three hours, max). She also instructs women to turn on their “cab light.” “You know how you know when a cab is free because the light is on?” she asked. “That’s what you need to do with dating. You have to be in the game.”

I signed up for weekly one-hour phone sessions, for which I paid $500 a month, or $125 a session. ...