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The aim of this essay is to evaluate my English. How competent do I feel about my English at the present time? Doing this I will estimate the four skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing in order to find out my strengths and weaknesses. 
Listening 
Generally I do not find it difficult to understand spoken English. Living in Sweden you are getting used to hear English in different situations for example at television and in musictexts and it is not unusual meeting English-speaking people. So even if you are not practising English that often you are getting used to hear the language. However, there are situations when English is not so easy to understand. I find it rather difficult to understand if a person speaks very fast or has a strange dialect. Different types of English are more or less easy to understand, British English is, for example, easier compared to American English. There may also be a problem to catch what people are saying when many people are talking at the same time. 
Reading 
One thing you do not have to think about reading English is the dialect or whether you are reading British or American English. This is partly why reading is even easier than listening. I do read a lot, both Swedish and sometimes English novels. Every now and then there has also been some course-literature in English. When I am reading novels I do it for pleasure. I do not consider it a pleasure to look every unknown word up in a dictionary. Doing that the novel does not get a whole. This is, of course, as long as I get the context from all the words that I do understand. If an unknown word comes up time after time I get curious and look it up. Sometimes, even if a single word is not important for my understanding, I want to know the meaning of it. It can simply be a good word, interesting because it looks nice or is nice to say or by any other reason. Reading is very good because it helps you to get into the language and get a feeling of it. 
Speaking 
In a way speaking is the best part of the four skills probably because you interact on other people and there is an immediate response in what you are saying. On the other hand I feel that speaking puts me in an exposed position where my weaknesses become very obvious. Compared to reading English, which gives me a feeling of being competent, speaking English often makes me feel limited in ways of finding the right words (my vocabulary is not big enough), talking to slowly or getting unsure about the pronunciation. Another difficulty in speaking English is to get the proper word order and the correct prepositions. I am also considering my intonation a bit too Swedish (maby I speak like someone from the "Muppet- Show"). 
Writing 
	Except from letters I have not been writing in English since I went to upper secondary school (for more than twenty years ago!). I can not even remember anything that I have written in English. When it comes to writing my problems are very much the same as in speaking English. I have difficulties in finding the right words, getting the correct word order and the proper prepositions and other grammatical rules. However, there are some big differences between speaking and writing. Writing gives you more time for finding the right words, to check up the grammar rules and the rules of spelling. I also have the chance to read my text many times and to make revisions. 
Conclusion 
The aim of this essay was to find out how competent I feel about my English at this point. I would say that my skills in listening and reading are quite good compared to the skills in speaking and writing. I hope I can improve my English (all skills) by continuing to read and listen and by studying grammar and practise the active parts (speaking and writing) of the language.
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