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The first time English was at the schedule in school was in the fourth grade, I remember the first lesson when our teacher made us say all the English words we knew and then she wrote them on the blackboard. I like to think that I since then has become quite alot better in the skills of understanding, speaking, reading and writing the language. 
The first oppurtunity I had to speak to an English speaking person took place a few years after that lesson in the fourth grade. Me and my family had two exchange students from Israel living with us for about a month. I must admit that I didn't get into any really complicated discussions with them, but I think it was a valuable experience. Since then I have been exposed to English on a daily basis. Mostly because I have had alot to do with computers when growing up. 
Through the years I have read quite a few English books. Therefore if I had to choose one aspect in the English language that I am best at, I must say that reading is the one. 
To listen to and understand English have never really been a problem for me. Except sometimes when I try to understand a very extreme accent, or when I see a movie where the dialogue is in a very old fashioned language, then I have a few problems. I remember when I saw the newest movie based on Shakespeare's novel Romeo and Juliet. In the movie they spoke in the way that Shakespeare wrote it many years ago. In other words very old fasioned, and also on rime. I had a really hard time figuring out what they were saying there. I never studied abroad during my high school years. That is one of the things I regret most in my life right now. I have in fact never been to an English speaking country for a longer time at all, only for shorter holidays. Because of that I have not spoken very much to people that only speak English. When I finally get to speak to English speaking people, I startle myself with making the most silly mistakes. Though I think that has alot to do with lack of confidence. But the confidence often grows as I get more used to speaking. For example when I am on a holiday and have to use alot of English, I often struggle alot for the first few days and then I begin to get into it and starts to speak more fluidly. Then I also begin to use more uncommon and hard words that even I didn't know I knew. I like to think that I have a pretty large vocabulary, but anyhow sometimes when I am writing or speaking English there are some words that are very common in Swedish that I don't know the English equivalent of. I guess studying abroad would have helped there. 
Writing English is probably what I am worst at. I had a rather easy time doing it in my early years, and that I have had to pay for during my high school years and probably will in the future too. Because of my easy time in my youth I never took time to learn the rules and exceptions that often occur in the English language. I usually just wrote what felt right and most of the times it was correct. One thing worth mentioning that I have extreme difficulties with is the " ' " sign after words. When I am supposed to put it after the word or when I am supposed to write the word " ' " and then an " s ". Perhaps one reason for my problem with this is that I don't have to worry about it when I am speaking the language. Another thing that bothers me is that sometimes when I write texts and essays I have trouble spelling even very common and simple words. As a conclusion I can say that I hope and believe that most of my problems has to do with confidence, and once I get used to speaking and writing English I don't think that the problems I have will be so hard to overcome.
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