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<title> English, My English! </title>
English, a language spoken by a lot of people all over the world. Some are borne with it, the first world they ever said was in English. While others, just like me, have to study hard to master it. For me English feels like the key to the world. If you know English you can open the door and make yourself understood almost no matter where in the world you are. 
In this essay I will try to explain more about what English have meant to me through the years and how I feel about my English skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing today. Thirteen years after my first meeting with this incredible, comprehensive, widespread language. 

Thirteen years ago my vocabulary for explaining a significant language as English, wood have stopped at "big". It was in those days when I had like 5 words for home assignment each week. But time flies, it came to writing essays, reading novels and today I hardly react to that it is a foreign language when I hear it on the TV or read a newspaper. 

When I told my mother about this assignment the first thing she said was that I always had had problems with the "theoretical" part when it comes to skills in language but as she put it: -"Luckily that never stopped you from trying to express yourself, spoken and written". 

And that is really true. I love to write and talk. Unfortunately I do still have problems with my spelling and grammar. When I sit down to write something I almost immediately have it clear in my mind what it is that I want to say. So I guess that I in my eager to get it down on the paper tend to forget how important, it yet is, that it comes out grammatical correct.

But as I said, I love to write and perhaps even more to speak. Between seventh and eight grades a friend and me went to England on a language course. The lessons in English we had together with a teacher really did not give me anything in particular that I recall but what I do remember is the feeling to be able to "try" something that I had been practising for so long whit out really knowing why- my English! It was amazing to talk to people and realise that they actually understood me! 

Unfortunately though I did not only on my trip to England discover that British people understood me. I also discovered that I actually did not understand what they were saying. When they were talking to me it was all right, when they talked slowly and clear using a simple vocabulary. But trying to follow a "everyday conversation" between to English people on the bus for example was almost impossibly. The listening exercises in school really had been fooling me, going in s l o m o t i o n. 
Well, there is no question about that the best way to learn to communicate in a foreign language is to be in an environment where it is naturally spoken.

Last summer I went to USA with a friend and that really helped me a lot on the communicative part. There we had a chance to meet people and catch the different dialects, tempos and slang that are used in everyday language. And even more did I "have to" practise speaking when I two years later went to work as a ski instructor in Austria. And naturally I at the same time got better at listening as well. Today I feel quite comfortable at the listening/talking part.

When it comes to reading I still have a lot of practise to do. I like to reed, when I do it, which unfortunately is not very often. The fact that I have not red that much make me to quite a slow reader. But when I do read I have always liked to analyse the book and to discuss it with others or to write about it. I am pretty good at catching the theme, characters settings etc. But now after reading some English Novels, Short stories In the English course that I am taking at the moment, I realise that I am going to have to work much harder even on that part. Because it is so much harder to catch what is "written" between the lines when you have to concentrate so much just to understand the words.

I said in the beginning that I see English as the key to the world. By being able to understand people you open the door to foreign countries. I feel, after thirteen years of studies and some travelling experience that my door is pretty open. I know how to make myself understood in English speaking countries and I am able to understand it spoken. As I mentioned I am going to study English at the University this term. And now, just after two weeks with more profound studies in the English language, I realise that I am although still far away from being totally skilled. I still have a lot to learn.
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