<doc.id=1004.a1>
Introduction
When I was six years old, I asked my father if all the Swedish artists that sing in English really know the language, or if they faked it and sang what sounded all right. Being the enlightened man that my father is, he explained how English is the most important language in the world and that I was going to be able to speak it myself one day.
This essay is about me and my English.

Listening
Came the day when it was time for my first English lesson. I had already began to explore the language at home, mainly by asking my parents to explain Johnny Hart's BC in UNT every day and not giving up until I understood the puns myself.
My teacher put me and a classmate of Canadian origin in the library and had us talking to each other when the rest of the class was learning their hellos and goodbyes. How well my classmate coped with my clumsy sentences and lousy pronunciation I don't know, but I think that I founded my fascination for English during these chats. I also believe that this is when I learned to listen to real English outside the TV room, and best of all; I could take part in the conversation myself, although with lesser perfection than my friend.

Listening is the aspect of my English that I feel most confident about, something I was even more assured of when I attended lectures at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England were I studied politics last year.

Reading
Of Course the other components that make up the ability to use English was sharpened as well. I had to read course books ranging from Japanese politics to Plato's Republic, and this obviously made my reading more fluent and I learned how to grasp the content without having to think about the language barrier any more. Even though I still get stuck sometimes, I enjoy reading English texts and hope to reach the level where I don't have to look up words every now and then. I think the only way to get there is to read more and continue to take in bits of useful input wherever it may be found.

Writing
I have always been a writing person. As a child I would sit with the family typewriter and write little stories with my right index finger. As soon as I knew English well enough, I began filling pages with random words and pretend it was a really smashing story. 
Then came music. I started playing guitar and the urge to write my own songs soon became omnipotent and since writing a good rock song in Swedish is next to impossible, English was the obvious choice. In the beginning my songs were mainly "Oh yeah baby" and such, but eventually I figured out how to actually make sense in the lyrics. Although most of these songs are quite mediocre, they still helped me to gain more confidence in my written English. 
Unfortunately I suffer from chronically bad spelling, but with a modern word processor and a good dictionary I think I manage to get by pretty well all the same. My grammar could need some brushing up as well and I intend to take care of that during this semester.

Speaking
When people in Newcastle asked me about my English dialect I usually answered that it is a combination of Fawlty Towers and Emmerdale. This, of course, is not entirely true but it is close enough to be a convenient answer. 
I have always been more interested in British culture rather than North American. Most of the music, fashion etc I like is of British origin, so it has been natural for me to adopt a British accent. The fact that I'm skilled in picking up dialects have helped me, but it has also made things difficult sometimes.
When I first arrived to Newcastle my flatmates thought that I was from Liverpool. But, just before I left, I met a man who was convinced that I was from Durham in the outskirts of Newcastle.
When I speak nowadays I notice that I change dialect from one time to another, which is quite sad because I think dialects is one of the most interesting aspects of spoken English and I lose credibility towards myself when I can't be consequent in my speech. 

Conclusion
Having lived with English for more than 15 years I still can't assess all the various aspects of my use of it. I think that this is something positive, if you simply state that you are proficient and master a language you will not evolve and the ability to express yourself is wasted.
</doc>