So this is my first (and hopefully not the last one) post in English here and I think this kind of topic is a good start to tell you my story with this wonderful language!

When I was at school I didn't have any particular passion for this language or for any language in general. I took some lessons by a tutor from time to time and it helped me, my grades became a lot better after that but every time after the improvement I stopped to frequent them and situation at school got worse. After the fifth grade I finally stopped to take lessons and just tried to study on my own (I didn't have much success). But I remember one time I opened YouTube and started to watch some random, and at that time, popular music videos (It was 2012 or 2013 I think). They really cought me and I started to watch them all the evenings with my little brother, he liked them too. But after some time it wasn't enough for me and I wanted to sing along because all I did was seemed to be a mumbling. I opened lyrics of a song and just tried to read it. At first it was hard and challenging but with time it became also intresting especially to sing those songs where you need to speak fast. I watched not only the lyrics but also translations so I could understand what I was reading and memorize words. My vocabulary got better, pronunciation but I didn't study any grammar rules because I was doing what I liked and it was enough for me at that moment. Year by year my interest in the language was growing and I even took part in a competiton but I really made an effort to finish it because it wasn't my level. It happened already in college (colleges are a bit different in Kazakhstan so it was 10th grade if I was at school more or less). Year after I joined more serious courses of English at the English center in my city. They assessed my skills at B1 level, but there weren't enough people to start teaching so eventually I went to A2 group which I don't regret at all! I really liked our group, we had so much fun together and even now I have some sort of a nostalgia for those times and I could consolidate all of my knowledge that I had got. After that year our group fell apart and I studied with another teachers and peers. So in general I attended English courses for three years and the last one was only about individual lessons for preparation to IELTS because I aimed to enroll in a foreign university. In June of the 2020 I did that test and my score was 6. I was really glad with my result because I was waiting for the worst.

So my story with English I can divide in two ways: the first one is before my leaving for another country and the second one is after, respectevly. In Italy I has started to study in English, of course my skills has got better but they are still far from perfect. I had many difficulties especially at the beginning like to write my first essays or taking first oral exams. It was so embarassing but to my fortune it was only at the beginning. Now I can speak more or less freely with people, I spend less time to write an essay but still do all of it with mistakes (sometimes really stupid). Now I guess I reached the plateau because sometimes I feel like I am loosing some skills or forgetting some rules. But all I need now is to practice and polish different aspects of the language.

In this way I hope I will pay more attention to theory and practice and approach to the study more consciously.