Hi there. My name is Sergey, I am from Russia. It's my first post, so I would like to tell you how I started to learn English about six years ago.

I had been working as a database administrator for many years, so I had deep skills in oracle database. That's why I was invited to English speaking conference about Oracle products to show the presentation about my experience. From time to time I had to discuss different issues with english-speaking support, I read documentation in English, so I had medium skills in reading and writing. However, I couldn't say anything in English! The venue of this event was in Mongolia (such an exotic place!). Fortunately, I was interested in nomadic culture, so it was a dream to visit Mongolia.

I decided not to give up. I took some speaking lessons on online education platforms. I started to listen to various podcasts in English. I downloaded a lot of mobile apps to improve my vocabulary.

Unexpectedly, my business trip was cancelled... A small outbreak of plague was registered in Mongolia, that's why it was recommended to avoid crossing the mongolian border.

However, I didn't give up my new habit. I still have online speaking lessons and listen to various english materials. I am glad to feel that my skills improve constantly. It's a great result of that cancelled business trip.