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I started to study English at school when I was nine years old, in third grade. I thought it was great fun. Our teacher wrote the names of the things in the classroom on big sheets of paper and put them on those things, like chair, curtain, desk etc. Since English was the first second language I came in contact with I was rather fascinated by the differencies that there are between English and Swedish. English can have two or even more words when Swedish only have one, English has many more words. Translating can not be done word by word. I still remember discovering that, it was a great experience, which, i think, gave me a new view of the world.
The rythm in English is also different, very different from the rythm in Swedish (if there is one). I think that is why I find listening to English easy. I find it easy to follow and to understand. Not only the rythm but also the fact that we ar being exposed to English daily does a lot to it. When you are litening the speakers tone and voice helps you to understand the meaning of the words you do not know, that makes it easier than reading. On the other hand you don't have the time to look unfamilliar words up as you listen, but when reading you do. The need to look words up is bigger when you read, more words seem unfamilliar then. 

When it comes to reading a novel I had to look some words up, often I did have a clue what the word ment but to be sure of the exact meaning I looked them up in a dictionary. That is how you learn new words, by looking them up, so even if it takes some time it is worth it. Your language becomes richer and the next time you see the word you know what it means, so you do not have to look it up. I think reading is not hard but it is the best way of learning words, and it is harder to read than to listen to someone speaking. I expected it to be harder than it was to read a novel, since I have studied German and remembered the difficulties I had reading the first novel on my first term of that course. But I guess English and German could not be compared, we have English all around us and very little German.

If reading is the best way of learning words, speaking is the best way of making them your own. That is when you learn how to, and when to use the words you have learned by your reading. To pronounce and use the words with other people is maybe the hardest part of learning a language. I don't know why I feel incomfortable speaking English. Therefore I consider speaking as my weakness in English as in all languages i try to learn. Though I feel much more confident speaking English than German even though I, as I said, studied German at the University for some time. I think that there is some kind of limit that we need to get over, the more we use the language the more confident we will be. And of course the fact that everyone who takes the course speaks Swedish does not make it easier, it feels silly to use English as we speak to each other. When I am in a country where I need English I don't feel silly at all, though. 

Maybe it is bad to be confident when you study a language at this level, because you don't see your errors. I think it could be for me, anyway. I might consider some of my errors as my own personal touch in the essay, and then it is harder to discover them. But I believe that when someone points them out to me i will be aware of them the next time. I think writing is a weakness, since that is what I am least used to do. Maybe writing is harder for me than speaking, I am not sure.
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