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Hey dude, what's up! That's what it can sound like when I get an email from one of my friends nowadays, but it hasn't always been like that. Nope, this essay is neither going to be about the revolution of computers nor the relations to my friends, it's all going to be about my knowledge of a second language and that language is as you already might have figured out English. Listening is what came first, speaking second, reading after that and last but not least writing. I'll try to touch base on all of those skills in this essay.
	Fourth grade was when English first appeared on my schedule and when I after the first lesson was able to tell people my name and to ask other people about theirs, I thought I knew everything I needed to know about English. I was a bit out of line, which I soon realized as I struggled to get all of the new sounds right, or at least somewhat similar to the sounds I had heard on TV before. My attempts to speak English limited itself, for a couple of years, to the lessons at school where we talked about the dog Spot back and forth and back again until everybody knew everything there was to know about Spot and his family. Then in junior high school my Brother-in-law to be came along and at that point he didn't know much Swedish being a native English speaker and all, so what was I to do? Going on a vacation in Europe for two weeks with my sister and her boyfriend didn't leave me much choice, I simply had to talk the language known by all of us, less by me at that point I would say. My English skills improved though, as things are bound to if you practice.
	I practiced and practiced, and after having learned British English for nine years at school I spelled and more or less sounded like the British. So when I came to the U.S. right after high school people first thought I was from London, but after thirteen months there things changed and soon the thing was settled, I was going to get the American accent for sure. 
	When it comes to listening I don't have that much of a problem anymore, or at least not when it comes to the American English I'm now used to, and with friends from several different states I pretty much cover the whole country. During my year in the U.S. I worked as an au-pair and the three school age children I took care of were the best teachers one could wish for. Not only did I learn to listen carefully, they also corrected me whenever I pronounced something the wrong way or used a word in the wrong context. 
	Thanks to the children I also got to read a whole lot, in fact two books a day at bedtime. We're not talking thick novels here, but children's books, which can be as good as anything. The fact that I had to read them out loud strengthened my speaking skills even more. The school of life taught me more about English than I think an ordinary school would have had at that time. 
	One thing I didn't improve as much as I would have liked to were my writing skills. I only wrote short notes and grocery lists for quite some time. I noticed though, that after a few months more and more of the contents in my diary was in English without me even thinking about it. I began to write emails in English after I made friends at the U.S. Naval Academy, because that was the best way to keep in contact with them, but I don't think that improved my written English that much. On the contrary some would say, they wrote me, and still do, in spoken English - much of it slang, and very soon I started to do the same thing. Everything I ever knew about grammar somehow disappeared and I'm now eager to learn again. My spelling is still mostly British, so when it all comes to an end my conclusion is; I sound like the Americans and spell like the British. Oh well, at least I'm kickin' it!
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