Whenever we talk about something warm, we all agree that there are not any barriers between different peoples and different cultures. For example, Mother Teresa, the mother of the whole world, is the one who really prove that statement. When we go abroad, however, we are likely to face many "definitely existing" screens, especially language screens, and be frustraed by them. As for me who learned a real lesson form my father, even I once thought that screens are insuperable, now I have realized that yes there are screens that many can be easily overcome.
Last winter, in 2006, my family took a vacation in Austrailia for several days. I and my younger brother can speak English pretty well, but my parents' speaking was no that very fluent. They only knew simple, routine sentences, such as "How much is it?" As you may think, I also worried and even felt burdensome about my parents because I was in the charge of guiding them in a strange country. But the surprise was that: my father did communicate with foreigners, and much better than me! When I met foreigners, I felt afraid and faltered becuase of shame. On the contrary, my father just approached people and asked them whatever he wanted to know and even joked with them. In the course of watching in amazement, the barriers in my own preconception collapsed, little by little.
Many people have difficulty in communicationg with people, especially when speaking in an other language and to do well, they learn foreign languages. However, I'd like to recommend that if your purpose of learning languages were just to share feelings or communicate, just as the original meanings of the language allows, and not having anything to do with great deals; then, you can pull down the screens well enough, even if you do not learn the language paricularly well. As you can clearly see through my fahters' experience, the important factor in experiencing a language is the willingess to konw what "the others" is feeling and to express our own emotions not depending on only syllables and words.