Category: Communication

We’ve all seen television shows or read books where the hero has no trouble talking with the aliens. No matter how they speak, or what language they use, his “Universal Translator” handles it with ease. But is this science fiction writer’s stock-in-trade something that could be real? After all, at one time the airplane, the […]

Do you get piles of junk mail in your mailbox every day? Do you wonder how you get all of that junk mail? You have never heard of most of those places that send you advertisements, so how did they find you? You don’t even have to order anything through the mail to get on […]

Sign Language, or technically,”American Sign Langauge”, or “ASL”, is a universally-used language all its own. It is most commonly thought to be used as an effective way to communicate with deaf people. While that is probably its primary use and purpose, think about the other ways that Sign Language is used to communicate in everyday […]

Few would argue that the most ideal way to learn a foreign language would be equal parts of total immersion and formal classroom instruction. Being forced to handle everyday tasks in the new language reinforces the classroom drills in a way that manufactured language tapes cannot. But spending a few years in China to grasp […]

Even if you thought that your poetry would never make it out of the box in the closet, chances are you may have at least one chance to read your poetry in public. Poetry contest winners are often asked to read their winning works at conventions or special readings. Coffeeshops and cultural art centers may […]

Thank you; two simple words and yet they can hold so much feeling when someone has offered us help, comfort or love. Sometimes we struggle for a special way to show someone just how grateful we are. Thank you notes are nice but what do you do when the occasion seems to call for something […]

Have you ever been out and about and been stopped abruptly by someone needing driving directions? How about not knowing the whereabouts enough yourself to give adequate direction? Giving driving directions doesn’t really require you to be articulate and totally knowledgable all of the time about the towns that you may be traveling in. There […]

When looking for penpals you may want to look in non-traditional as well as traditional ways. We’ll talk about some of each. Good penpals are also folks who like to write. You can find people who would love to write to you and hear from you most anywhere you find writers. Check your local library […]

The semicolon is a simple piece of punctuation, much easier to work with than the comma because it follows fairly clear rules. If you learn the two simple rules explained here, you’ll rarely go wrong. It has two main uses, which are both easy to identify. You use it to connect two independent clauses together […]

Whether we realize it or not, we human beings communicate in two separate ways. One way is by verbal means, and the other is by body talk or body language as it is usually known as. In order to completely understand what someone is saying to you, you must not only listen to verbal speech, […]