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In this essay I will be dealing with my skills in English, more specifically my strengths and weaknesses in speaking, writing, reading and listening. I will try to sum up my experience in each skill by pointing out what I believe I'm good, less good or really bad at. Furthermore I will share some other thoughts on the subject by trying to show some different aspects in my developing in the usage of these four skills. I hope that this approach will roughly evaluate how competent I feel about my English.
	 Speaking has always been the most troublesome part of the English language to me. Actually, I have no problems with pronunciation or knowing what to say. I also tend to remember phrases from television that can be useful in conversation. What, you may ask, is the problem then? Well, it is the fact that I have a constant fear of making mistakes and therefore I usually don't speak more than I have to. My silence has often made people to believe that I'm shy.
I would like to point out that I have no difficulties in reading aloud, it is the fluent and natural conversation that makes me nervous. Considering this fact, I've realised that I'm actually afraid of not having enough time to analyse the grammatical correctness of what I'm about to say and therefore I don't say it. I guess that I should try to ignore this and speak anyway- and I'm sure one day I will, but I'm still aware of that I have a problem with conversating fluently that is yet to be overcome.

	 The problems I have with writing are minor in comparison to my speaking problems. I've always thought of myself as quite a good producer of well-written texts, especially when it comes to sentence structure and my difficulties here are few, but they still exist. I believe I have a broad vocabulary for a Swede but sometimes I distrust my spelling or knowledge of words. Therefore, I tend to use the dictionary perhaps more than I really need to. Maybe I should be more self-confident and try not to look for errors all the time- "Who dares wins!" I strongly believe that my knowledge in writing comes from reading a lot, which brings us to the next subject.

	 Reading has always been an interest of mine, and I really started reading books in English in the compulsory school. Attempting to read such "heavy" authors like H.P Lovecraft didn't discourage me and I came to realise that I understood what the author wants to say, even though I didn't know all the strange words he was using. Since then I have been reading books from time to time and I've come to believe that enjoying a written text is not about understanding every word rather than getting the main picture.
	 Reading with a dictionary is, of course a good way to expand your vocabulary, but it tends to take the joy out of the enjoyment of reading. I'm convinced that reading is one of my stronger skills in English, which automatically leads us to the final skill to be mentioned- listening.

	 Understanding what people are saying in English is probably the easiest skill to acquire- I mean you actually don't have to be all that active. Just turn on the TV-set and sit back and relax. All I had to do during my 22 years of life was to listen to English-speaking programs and read the Swedish translation. I believe this is the most underestimated way of learning ever. I've noticed, however, that when there is no translation, I have to concentrate more.
	 I'm strongly convinced that one of the main reasons Swedes are good English speakers is that we do have sub-titles on TV and not dubbing like in France or Germany. With no disrespect, I would like to compare these countries- which one has the better English-speaking population?
	 Another interesting thing is that when I use the TV for purposes of ambience only, I don't often remember what they have been saying in English- but I do when they speak Swedish. I guess this is one of the main differences between a native and a non-native listener.
	 As a final comment, I would like to point out that all of these skills interact- and that I believe that mastering one of them is impossible without being skilled in the other three.
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