Learning English Essay

As an international student, learning English was a big challenge. For one thing, I grew up speaking my native language most of the time, and I only speak English when just necessary, such as talking to American or English strangers. This is why I found it hard to learn English, and there is still room for many improvements. At first I thought that once I studied English, I would learn quickly. But I found out it was hard because my tongue got used to speaking my native language. The hardest part was mastering the subject-verb agreement. Every time I speak, I struggle with evaluating whether the subject and the verb match. Sometimes I use verb with s when I refer to plural subjects. I also had difficulty understanding sentences that have very long subjects. For instance, A mountain range that sits between two larger mountains overlooking the valley is/are very beautiful. When my friend or anyone I talk to use this kind of sentence, I easily get lost from what he means to say. Thus, sometimes I misinterpret what he says. I guess the learning process took longer for me. But I am thankful that my experiences were training ground for the changes that took place. Also, the formalized learning from the classroom helped me a lot to learn another language (Smith). Little by little, I learned the right pronunciations of words. My teacher and my classmates and friends correct me when I wrongly pronounce a word or my sentence is grammatically incorrect. Reading has also helped greatly. I tried to understand what I read, and apply what I learned. I have also read short stories and I studied the way sentences are constructed. Learning from reading is advantageous. Aside from learning grammar, spelling, and understanding meaning from the books I read, reading has also opened my eyes to the many things that remained undiscovered to me. I can say that until the present time, I’m still learning. It has helped me greatly in dealing with day to day issues in the United States. Work Cited Smith, Mark K. 2003. â€Å"Learning Theory. † 26 February 2009 .