A NEW social networking site speaks your language - whatever that language happens to be.

VoxSwap, the work of an Uffington couple, brings language learners together with each other and native speakers.

Online for barely a month so far, it has already attracted more than 900 members who communicate in dozens of languages.

The site's owners and founders are Sean and Nicole Hargrave.

Sean, 38, is a freelance journalist focusing on national stories about the ongoing online technological revolution. Nicole, 36, put a career as a TV producer on hold to have children Freya, six, and two-year-old Daniel.

Sean said: "I was doing a lot of research for articles, and everybody was talking about Facebook.

"Most of the city money men and technology experts were saying that the next generation of social networks would be focused around interests.

"Facebook is great for finding friends and keeping in touch with them and it's quite good fun, but what we're about is having a purpose as well as having fun."

Another factor in the founding of the site was Sean's wish to brush up on his German, which he had studied at university.

The hundreds of people from all over the world who have so far signed up for free to VoxSwap are united by their enjoyment of learning languages and discovering something of the cultures behind them. The dozens of languages covered include Russian, Latvian, Polish, Japanese, Portuguese - and English.

On registering, newcomers are directed through a series of simple questions designed to match them with people of similar interests.

Sean said: "You need to register in order to set your level, so you're matched with the right kind of people."

As with other networking sites, there are options for everything from personalising a profile to communicating in video messages, but there are other, more specialised features, such as virtual keyboards for a variety of international alphabets.

There are also vocabulary guides, forums and a search facility that puts people in touch not merely with their social peers but with people learning the same languages, and - if desired - at the same level of proficiency.

With more and more people learning languages, whether to make travel more fulfilling or for business or professional reasons, Sean and Nicole expect the site to grow even more rapidly in the coming months.