Can Audio messages enrich Penpal exchange ?
Some of us think so
Letters are serious forms of writing, for the people who enjoy them.
Specially when writing to someone with similar interests, or who is a writer and reader and provides encouragement and feedback.
Liz, who I wrote about in a Slowly Stories feature, is one of those. I mention in the story that she's my future editor – and advises me to write, produce and, someday, publish a book of my own. Which I would entrust to her hands for editing.
The screenshot below is part of an ongoing conversation. With her, an all together close friend from afar.
Original conversation in Portuguese, shown translated to English, below.
Many Ways to say Elizabeth.
Elizabete, Liza, Līze, Betija, Alžbeta, Beta, Betsija, Eba, Elizabeta, Elīzabeta, Elīzabete, Elizaveta, Elizavete, Elizbete, Elzabeta, Elžbeta, Jelizabeta, Jelizaveta, Jelizavete, Jeļizabeta, Jeļizaveta, Jeļizavete, Lisa, Lisija, Līza, Lize, Līziņa
I thought you would like it, kk kk kk... to put in your Slowly profile?
“Oohohoh, I am legion. 😈
lol...”
Audio, we do that too.
And we enjoy occasional audio messages, which are free form recordings, longer and approaching one of our letters in tone, length. Mini-podcasts, but completely spontaneous, un-rehearsed and unedited.
I think this use of Audio recordings complements the pen pal experience well – I would not do it with most people, not even the short 30 seconds maximum audio recordings which Slowly allows in the free service version. (the limit goes up to 5 minutes maximum for Slowly PLUS service members).
But for very close friends, it works very well. We also enjoy the sound of each other's voices.
Time limits, bypass limits
In the sequence to the screen captured above, which is from the WhatsApp Web service, we exchanged some of those. A quick shot — shows not having a time limit is really beneficial. 😉
“It appeared today in my email, I don't even know why — but I wanted to copy and send it to you. Isn't it cool? 🙂”
<incoming audio, 3:54 min duration>
<outgoing response audio, 6:04 min duration>
“And an update I just posted in a Private forum.”
(quoted in the message, not shown here.)
...and more chat and audio followed.
Ah, we do Cat Pictures too, of course.
Like Cats too? Maybe visit my personal photo gallery at CatGram.jp?
Famous Last Words
Banner image, photo by Mohammad Metri on Unsplash
Special thank you to all the folks behind the SLOWLY app.
Letters we share, with pen pals all over the world. A modern day take in the traditional penpal experience. Come and join us, using SLOWLY.
Follow Blog via your Fediverse/Mastodon account :
@friends-near-and-afar-letters-we-share@wordsmith.social
This page created in MarkDown language. Thank you for reading, feel free to comment, via a direct message to my Twitter account – or the Reddit one.
You can also post a public comment in the Reddit thread for it here.
yann2@bsky.social