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Introduction
My intention with this essay is, by giving a historical view of my English studies, to try to show what my strenghs and weeknesses in the language have been in the past and what they are now.
My first years of English studies
It probably sounds exagerated, but from the moment I started studying English, I liked it and knew that I wouldn't find it too hard to cope with. It was easy for me to follow the lessons, pick up the words that we had for homework and learn the basic grammar. I also found English easy to pronounce. I have to say, though, that I didn't learn many words apart from the school vocabulary. Because of my visual imparement, I didn't watch TV very much, even though I had a little sight,

From my fourth year of English studies and onwards it got boring. The words were more advanced, but the grammar was so repetative.
My English studies in higher secondary school
In higher secondary school, I mostly found the English course boring. It was perhaps because I started studying two new languages which I found more "exotic" at the time, but it was mostly because we did so much studying on our own that I felt I never really got into the language. Almost everytime I was going to make a construction that was a bit difficult or use a rare word, I had to think for a long time. I was still good at spelling and pronounciation, but I found it difficult to express myself in the essays. Because we had fewer and fewer teacher-lead lessons the further we moved on in the course, I didn't pick up many new words during these three years.
Going to England
After higher secondary, I went to England for a year without dictionary. That was, to begin with, a huge challenge, but after a while, I started learning hundreds of new words and constructions. I listened carefully to how people constructed sentences and what intonation they used in different situations, and so I learned a lot. Something that also helped me develop my English skills was that I started going out with an English boy.

Conclusion
After my year in England, I think that my weeknesses are:
*I haven't always learned the Swedish equivalents to some words; only what their contextual meaning.
*I can only hear if a sentence is grammatically incorrect but I can't explain why. If I hear a variation of a sentence that I haven't heard anyone use, I assume that it's wrong.
My strenghs, however are:
*My pronounciation is very good.
*I have now got the fluency in the language that I missed in higher secondary. I can communicate all of my ideas, thoughts, feelings and conclusions.
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