You've got mail…and it's a postcard 

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.________11___________

"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________12 ” 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.  

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. 13____________Running the website has almost turned into a full-time job.

 Language is certainly a harrier 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.___________14 So a common language is required and in postcrossing that's English since it's widely spoken.  

"Many people in China have limited exposure to English._________15 .That said, we know of many postcrossing members, including Chinese, who have actually improved their English skills through their use of postcrossing," Paulo says.