People often act like the only way to meet someone online is through a dating site. But in a lot of ways, the Internet is just like real life–if you do the things that interest you, you’re likely to meet people while doing them.

I bring this up not only because Valentine’s Day is just a few days away, but because we just learned that another international couple met on English, baby! and is going to be married. Last year around this time we brought you the story of a Turkish man and Ukranian woman who met while learning English on our site and decided to get married. They welcomed me at their wedding to make a video. I checked in with them on their first anniversary and I’m happy to say things are going quite well.

But now I’d like to introduce you to Doni (real name: Donato), an economics teacher who lives in Switzerland and Nelly (real name: Lamia), a travel agent who lives in Algeria. They first met while practicing their language skills in the English, baby! chat rooms in 2007 and plan to be married this November.

They got together in person for the first time last summer. Nelly tells the story:

We first met in Serbia when I went to spend my holidays on Jun 2008. It was the last three days of my vacation that he came. I was waiting him with my uncle in Belgrade airport. My heart was beating quickly because I was so impatient to see him. When he arrived and I saw him. I was too too happy. We spend an unforgettable three days in Dolovo countryside. There he saw my parents and I introduced him my relatives…we spend all the moments we have together.

Since then, she has visited him in Switzerland and he her in Algeria. They actually hadn’t heard about our Turkrainian couple and didn’t think they’d ever fall in love online. “I have never imagined that something like that can happen via the net,” says Lamia.

Aren’t they so cute? They’re both 26 years old. The above photo was taken in Switzerland. Here’s one from Algeria:

And one from Serbia:

Our members are so smart. OK, they’re not smart all the time, like when we added the “report member” button to weed out spammers and everyone pressed it like crazy for no reason, but a lot of the forum posts are really intelligent.

Learning a language forces you to be creative. I remember when I got good enough at Spanish to speak fluidly but I didn’t have the vocab to be very straight forward. So I’d come up with interesting ways to get across what I was trying to say. I think that’s what’s going on in this comment on another soap opera episode about online dating in which Marni discovers her new boyfriend may not be as great as she thought.

Unless taxi-as-relationship is a common cliche in Viet Nam, that’s pretty original. Another member may have coined a clever phrase this week on our lesson about the phrase “ugly duckling”.

I can’t find that expression anywhere with Google and, although it may be an unintentional misspelling, I like “notty” for the double meaning of “not” and “naughty”.

For another member, “ugly duckling” is about more than looks.

Maybe she can meet up with this dejected countryman of hers, who doesn’t include a photo clear enough to determine if his sulking is justified.

As interesting as all that is, we’ll wrap things up with another common mistake on the site. A lot of times people mistake one of the English lessons for a member profile and comment on it like this:

So that wouldn’t be so strange…if it weren’t on our lesson about Alvin and the Chipmunks!

Until next time, stay beautiful like an animated rodent.

Online romance is always a popular topic on English, baby!, so when the latest episode of the soap found Marni with a new online boyfriend, a lot of people chimed in to share their computer-enabled love stories. But in one case, it doesn’t sound like it went very well.

Another member had an almost nursery rhyme tale of failed love.

Of course, everything in romance, from spying to searching for your mate on an ESL website usually works better if you have a sense of subtlety. I’d be surprised if this direct approach drew many responses.

And don’t forget to pay attention to detail. A spammer stopped by the site this week but forgot to fill in the blank her spammy comment.

That’s the kind of mistake that can cost you a job or a date. Of course, it’s no better to make promises you can’t possibly keep. Check out this boast from our lesson on fear of heights.

If you find a “7000 flour” building, I will challenge you to climb it with me, buddy. I wouldn’t start your search in this member’s town though:

But hey, at least she got on the tallest building.