You’ve got mail…and it’s a postcard.

你收到了一封邮件，而且是张明信片。

Paulo Magalhaes, a 34-year-old Portuguese computer engineer, loves to open his mailbox and find a brightly colored picture of Rome’s Colosseum. Or Africa’s Victoria Falls. Or China’s Great Wall. In short, he loves postcards, and the excitement of getting a hand-written note from someone far away.

34岁的葡萄牙电脑工程师保罗·马格尔海斯喜欢打开他的邮箱，然后发现是一张罗马斗牛场的色彩鲜艳的照片。或者非洲的维多利亚瀑布。或者是中国的长城。简言之，他喜欢明信片，喜欢收到远方某人亲手写的信札时的那种兴奋。

“I often send postcards to family and friends,” he says to China Daily, “but you can imagine that after a while, you never receive as many as you send, and you realize that not everyone is into it. And that’s totally fine.” Seeking other like-minded souls, however, Paulo started looking in a somewhat unlikely place: online. Many would say the Internet is a place for people who have given up on the traditional postal service, but Paulo’s hunch (直觉) paid off.

“我经常给家人和朋友寄明信片，”他对《中国日报》这样表示，“但你可以想象，过一段时间，你收到的明信片就不会像你寄的那么多，你会意识到并不是每个人都喜欢这样。但这完全不是问题。”然而，为了寻找其他志同道合的人，保罗开始在一个不太可能的地方寻找: 网上。许多人会说，互联网是那些放弃传统邮政服务的人的地方，但保罗的直觉得到了回报。

Today his hobby has developed into the website postcrossing.com, a social network that has grown to 575, 217 registered users in 214 countries and regions since he started it 10 years ago. On August 5, the number of postcards exchanged by members topped 31 million. Running the website has almost turned into a full-time job.

如今，他的这个爱好已经发展成建立了postcrossing.com网站。自他10年前创办以来，这个社交网站已在214个国家和地区拥有575,217名注册用户。8月5日，会员互赠的明信片数量高达3100万张。运营网站几乎变成了一份全职工作。

Language is certainly a barrier for many people. For postcrossing to work worldwide, a common communication language is needed so that everyone can understand each other. As cool as it may be to receive a postcard written in Chinese, the concept doesn’t work if one doesn’t understand it. Similarly, if you speak only Chinese, receiving a card in Swedish takes part of the fun away. So a common language is required and in postcrossing that’s English since it’s widely spoken.

语言无疑是许多人的障碍。让邮件交换在世界范围内进行，就需要一种共同的交际语言，以便每个人都能相互理解。收到一张用中文写的明信片尽管可能很爽，但如果你看不懂，这个概念就行不通。同样，如果你只会说中文，那么收到一张瑞典语的明信片就会失去对它的部分乐趣。所以一种共同的语言是必需的，在邮件交换中，那就是英语，因为它被广泛使用。

“Many people in China have limited exposure to English. That makes it extra hard to learn and practice it. That said, we know of many postcrossing members, including Chinese, who have actually improved their English skills through their use of postcrossing,” Paulo says.

保罗说道：“很多中国人对英语的接触有限。这使得学习和练习英语变得格外困难。尽管如此，我们知道许多参加邮件交换的成员，包括中国人，他们通过使用邮件交换提高了他们的英语技能。”