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<title> English, My English! </title>
What can I tell you about my relationship to the English language? It is a warm and friendly one but also, in some aspects, filled with anxiety. I know that I'll never be fully educated on the subject and this fact sometimes hold me back when I'm really eager to learn more. But now I'm ahead of myself and need to start from the beginning.

My learning English started, I'd say, when I read the book "Bernard and Bianca" on my own for the first time. I turned to my mother to find out what "nev-yårrk" was and she told me about this big city and how to pronounce "New York". I must have been seven or eight years old and had allready made my first journey to England, on a holliday with my family.

Since then I have tried to learn more, to practice talking and memorize new words. I remember a visit to the U.S. when I was fifteen and I realized for the first time that I did have enough courage to open my mouth and talk to someone whose mother tongue was English. It was a nice feeling. To me, a lot of things in life are about having the courage to do them, and that is also the case when it comes to speaking this language which wasn't mine to start with. Now, at the age of 27, I'm actually proud of my ability to speak English. Of course spending one semester at the University of London did help me to improve it considerably.

Writing English is to me a whole different aspect of this issue. I've allways enjoyed both reading and writing in Swedish but I am much more insecure when it comes to English. I tend to get confused all the time. Is this the right word? Is this the correct way of expressing what I want to say? Writing gives me so much more time to think about these things than I do when I'm talking and this tends to make me feel restricted, even when I'm writing letters to English-speaking friends. I have to admit that another problem of mine when it comes to writing English is my reluctance to look up words whose spelling I'm not certain of. I guess the truth is that I'm simply too lazy and I know that this is something that has to change and it wont change on its own. I need to put some effort into this. 

Ever since I was a little girl I've enjoyed reading. I've read novels, short stories and poetry but mostly in my own language, Swedish. The number of fictice books I read every year has decreased enormously since I started studying at university and the fact that I am now part of a family with a child also influences the choices I make about my spare time. Reading is not my first choice any longer. Still, I have tried to pick books in English ever since my stay in London. I have had a wish not to loose touch of the English I got used to during that period. I have found also that reading is a very efficient way of keeping in touch with the language while living in my own Swedish context. It is not the same thing to be able to speak and use a forreign language when you live in the country where you are surrounded by it all the time, and to keep this skill alive when you're back in your own home country. Another reason for chosing to read in English is that I enjoy very much reading English mystery novels, especially those written by Elizabeth George. For the last seven years or so she has published a new novel every year and if you don't demand a Swedish translation your longing for a new mystery will be shortened by allmost a year!

I hope by now that you've understood that I do really like English. I like the sound of it, the words, the many ways of expressing things that this language offers. I realize that I've only started on my journey of learning to comprehend it and maybe I will never fully be able to use its hints and possibilities but I am certainly willing to try!
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