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My fascination with the English language has been going on for sixteen years and though I have studied several other languages English has always been my favourite.'
Though I have not experienced any frustration, that is to say up until recently, when I began studying English at the university...
My first encounter with English was of course when I first heard it spoken. When I try to think back on my first English teacher I cannot recall that I had any difficulties understanding what he said. However I have noticed that I have sometimes more difficulties understanding Americans than Englishmen, especially when they are speaking fast. Therefore I sometimes have slight problems with understanding my American teachers as opposed to their British colleagues. The funny thing is that I prefer to watch an English film without subtitles but I like a Swedish film best with subtitles. The reason for this might be that I am more attentive when I see an English film.
I have greatly enhanced my listening skills since becoming a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints due to the many the many conferences were English is the dominant language. The many American missionaries have also played an important role.
When it comes to speaking English, I feel more confident when I speak to foreigners who don't have English as their native tongue than when I converse with native English speakers. The reason why I feel this way is because when I talk to someone who doesn't quite master the English language to the same extent that I do, I do not feel that I have to worry as much about the way I sound and whether I express myself grammatically correct or not. When I went to Utah last spring I constantly worried about how I sounded and if my sentence structure was correct. Another thing that I actually didn't worry about before was my accent, but my attention was continuously drawn to the fact that I didn't speak American English, but rather British English. This was something I was aware of, but it really didn't bother me. They kept asking me were I had learned English, since I didn't have the same accent as my roommate, but she had lived in the States for quite some time in addition to the fact that her mother was an American. To make matters worse my American friends here in Sweden are constantly mocking my English. "You can't say "dance" (Br.E) you gotta say dance(Am.E). 
Perhaps you now have gotten the impression that I don't like to speak English, but that is absolutely not the case. I love to read English aloud both by myself as well as to other people.
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