As you probably know, or have noticed, English isn't my mother tongue. However, in some sense, I could be counted in to the group of bilingual people. I can manage with English - I'm able to study in English, I'm able to interact in English and I'm pretty fluent with it (at least sometimes). Even though I make awful grammar mistakes way too often (especially when I'm speaking out loud) and have a really strong and stupid-sounding Finnish accent.

English has been part of my life for a long long time, if not always. I was something around six years, when I first decided that I want to learn to speak English and my mother taught me some simple words. Of course I've also seen lots of movies and heard many songs in English. But English really became a part of my life when I was nine, as in Finland children usually start studying English at that age.

For seven years I studied English in primary school and then decided to apply for the IB. And for now I've studied in English for a year and half. In another one and half a years I'm supposed to become so good with English, that I pass my final exams and am able and skilled enough to get a billinguality certificate. Then I don't have to prove to the foreign universities my ability to speak English, And that's great, really.

I've always liked English. And not only English, but languages in general. Nowadays English has a strong part in my every-day life. I use it in school, I listen to music mostly in English and approximately about half of the internet I browse is in English. And I think I'm learning all the time. I'd like to speak perfect (or at least as perfect as possible) English at some point of my life. The biggest problems are the limitations I've made by myself. I don't know about you, or anyone else, but for me it's a huge deal to open my mouth and start speaking. I'm not shy and I'm pretty loud, but still speaking a foreign language needs extra courage. I know, that no-one would say that I sound totally awful and every time I've tried to explain something I've got it clear, but still it really is hard. I could, but I can't.

It's kinda complicated to explain - I understand English, especially familiar topics really easily without any problems. Accents are not confusing me, I enjoy reading in both languages. Sometimes my thoughts are in English and I may not know how to explain something school-related in Finnish. My vocabulary is quite wide already and it's expanding all the time. But still, the speaking part. And it's not only with English. I know pieces of other languages too, with Swedish I could actually manage. But speaking is even more frightening for example in that language.

As I've noticed this problem of mine, I've tried actively get rid of that one. For example one day I volunteered to speak to the ninth graders who were getting to know our high-school. And it was terrifying and depressing as I felt like I can't speak at all.  But if I take a look to the positive side - I tried and I have one more experience. Probably next year I'm able to go and speak much more fluently and without having a breakdown..

And what comes to this blog, I've been blogging couple of years in Finnish, then I got bored and stopped. Then I decided to establish a new blog and this is the result. First I wrote both in Finnish and in English, but then I decided to choose only one language and you can see which one I decided to stick with. One main reason to write in English, is the fact that I'll be able to go back in time to see how my language skills have improved. Actually I can see the difference already compared to my oldest posts, but hopefully at some day I'll read this through and think "oh gosh how simple language I used and thought I was good!".

So, nothing else today. This was just a short, simplified post about my thoughts related into English at the moment. Hopefully you found it somehow interesting :) And hey, if some of you on the other side of the screen happens to know English well and spotted some awful grammar mistakes - let me know. The best way to learn is to make mistakes!