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What are my strengths and weaknesses in the using of the English language? What have I learned during the nine years that I've studied English? Do I have enough vocabulary knowledge? Is my pronunciation qualified? These are things that I haven't given much thought of, until know. I have always fancied the english language, not only because it is the idiom used in most of the movies and TV series, but also because I like the language itself and I enjoy listening to it. If not, I would never have applied for this course.
	
I'm not a shy person, infact I'm very talkative. This is something, I persume, that has been to my benefit when it comes to language learning. I find it facinating to speak to foreign people, and I've realised that you can learn a great deal from that. Although I do not always use the correct vocabulary when I speak, I know that from every conversation I pick up a few new words or expressions. Something that can be both to my advantage and disadvantage, is that I easily change my manner of speaking, depending to whom I'm speaking to. If I have a discussion with a person that speak excellent English it is favourable. But if the person I speak to doesn't have a good linguistic ability and maybe isn't from an English speaking country and therefore has a very strong foreign accent, that may have a bad affect on my english language. 
			I've rarely had any problems to understand different accents or dialects. Listening to English has never been difficult for me. After all, it's easier to understand than to be understood. And even if there might be some words that I don't understand, I can always get the point from the whole sentances. But I've realised lately that my vocabulary certainly could need some progressing. 
			I haven't used the language in all the ways that I've had the possibilities to do it. For example, I have a lot of pen-pals, but unfortunately I never take the time to write to them. I like to write, at school I used to love to write short stories and I usually had the capability of doing it well. There are so many lovely new words to discover. But if my strength is to find the correct words, my weakness is to spell them. I appear to have a big problem with that. When I haven't written in English for a long time, I seem to spell the easiest words wrong. I'm awere of that, and I know that it's something that I'll have to work on. 
			Reading is another thing that I like to do, but never do. I really don't know why I never do it. But that's the case, and when you know that, it isn't difficult to understand why I'm such a slow reader. Persumably that will change during this course. One positive thing about my reading though, is that I remember very well what I read. If it is interesting reading, that is. 
	
I love to travell, and when I do so I get to speak a lot of English. When I spent some time in Spain I thought that my English was quite decent, at least compared to the English the Spaniards speak. But when I came to the university here in Uppsala, I started to think the other way around. I thought that my English knowledge wouldn't be enough and that I wouldn't qyalify. But pretty soon I came to the conclusion that it was a bit of both. I may speak better English than the Spaniards, but not as well as an Englishman. I guess I speak like a Swede. I know that I have the capacity to manage this level of English, even if I'm awere of that I will have to study hard. And I also know that I'm not suppose to know everything already, after all, that's why I'm here -to learn English!
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