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I always thought of myself as a quick learner when it came to English in school. Because of the fact that I almost never had to study very hard and still got a high grade I never cared about grammar and such, I just felt what was the right thing to say or write. This was of course very stupid but at the time I did not realize the importance of knowing why you say or write the thing you do. But now I know I wont get very far without studying the language properly.
	 It was six years ago I last studied English and now allready after one week at the university I have realized how hard it is going to be. My English really needs to be freshened up and improved in every aspect. But this is something I look forward to, and in spite of the hard work I hope I will make it.
	 The first contact I ever made with the English language was thru listening. And during my break in studying english listening has been the major channel for my contact with the language. And maybe thats why I feel that this is something that I dont have such a big problem with. That is of course as long as I am not listening to two scientists speaking to eachother. One thing that I feel difficulty with is that I can not grasp the words I do not understand and look them up afterwords.
	 When it comes to reading there is one thing that bothers me and that is that I feel I read fluently but in a fake way because I skip the words I do not understand as long as I get the message. I do want to look up all the words I do not understand but then it would take me ages to get thru a book. Some words that I do recognize, I read more than once and often after two or three times I remember what they mean. Since I left school I have not read very much in english, maybe five or six novels. And I have not read anything out loud so that I really need to practise.
	 I find it more difficult to read out loud than to speak because when I read I have to deal with words that I might not recognize and when I speak I choose words I know. And I do that because I feel insecure when I have to speak. I feel that I tend to use a very simple language even though I know that I often can do better if I just let myself take the time to think. It is not unusual for me to skip saying what I intended to say just because I feel stressed about finding the words. Speaking is my second least used skill after writing and something I hope to develop here in Uppsala. I do have a brother-in-law who is Ameican who I could practise my English on, but the "sad" thing is that he knows swedish. And it is not hard to guess in what language our conversations are in.
	 Writing is what I feel I have most problems with, this is the first time I have written something in English since I left school and it has not been easy to put this essay together. Grammar is a whole different language of its own to me and I do have to put in some effort if I want to make this course. It is hard to separate the spoken language from the written and I find that things can look so strange on paper even though it is correctly written. When I write in swedish the range of my vocabulary is so much wider than my English and therefore it is so much harder to express what you want to in English, which is natural since I am a swede. But what I mean is that it is not just the grammar that makes it hard for me but also finding the right words which is so important when you write if you want the reciever to get the correct message.
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