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<title> English, My English! </title>
My interest in the English language (or all languages actually) started when I was about six or seven. My older brother had started fourth grade, and that's - as everybody knows - the year when you start learning English in school. I was so jealous, but he was nice enough to sit down with me and try to teach me some of it. I was in heaven.

I've never had troubles with English in school. I never had to work very hard to learn the words and the grammar came naturally. After my graduation from school I wanted to go abroad and make use of my knowledge in the English language. After I'd thought long and hard about my options, I realised that the easiest and cheapest way to get away was to go as au pair. So off to America I went!

As soon as I sat my foot on American ground I realised my English wasn't as good as I thought. From reading books in English and watching movies without Swedish subtitles, I was pretty sure I knew what I was doing. It started at the airport in New York... A man in uniform asked me and my fellow au pair friends why we were there and I could hardly say a word! I stuttered and finally told him about the nanny-business. Of course he was polite (or perhaps just questioning me) and asked about the children we were going to take care of. And that's when I made my first big mistake. I told him about my "large" kids... Of course I ment to tell him that they were old, I doubt that he cared about their size. After that I was more careful and tried to think through everything before I opened my mouth.

After my first two weeks in San Francisco I didn't have to think that much anymore. I made improvements every day. I learned new words and started using more from my passive vocabulary. My pronunciation improved too. Soon I could fool people to think I was American. The first time I was told I spoke without an accent I was surprised and very proud. I finally got the result I wanted. Unfortunately you loose the accent and flow when you speak as soon as you get back home.

Another thing I noticed about my speaking abilities was that it's so easy to cheat. I think that's how some people took me for being American. I developed a scill to talk fast, lower my voice or to mumble at the end of a sentence or a word. Of course I only did that if I for instance wasn't sure of the correct grammar. People thought I said the right thing, but perhaps it was just the way they interpreted it. And it's also easy to choose words or grammar. If I don't feel confident using one special grammar form, then I won't. Then I'll choose something I know I'm good at. I can explain exactly what I want without knowing all the words too. I simply approach the subject from another angle, and the problem is solved. So I find it more difficult if I have a text that I have to translate than to speak in general.

I think I'm pretty good at reading, but I have more or less just read stuff that interested me. Usually I don't find it hard to understand the meaning of a text even though I might not understand every single word. It's the same thing with listening. You learn expressions and slang that make you sound more American. The trouble is writing. You say you're "gonna" do something, but is it really okey to write that? And you loose endings of some words when you speak and sometimes it's hard to know the correct spelling. Is it slang or not? 

Of course there's no way out when it comes to grammar. Try to mumble in your writing and you're sure to fail the test. The grammar is defenetly my greatest weakness, and my spelling isn't always that good.

I guess it all means I can fool people to think I speak the language fluently, but I actually found the easier way out - cheating. This course will bring me down to earth with a big bang and I have to learn it the hard way. There's no easy way out of grammar. 

But I still feel pretty confident about my knowledges...
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