Well, I've loved English language ever since we had to start learning it at school on 3rd grade (age 9-10), and maybe that's why, it never has been a problem for me to learn it. When I was still living in Finland, I didn't have a chance to speak it so much, but I kept my english alive by having lots of penpals from all oveer the world. Now that I live here in Belgium, english is my main language as that's what I use to communicate with my husband.
I have not needed a dictionary that many times here at PT, and when I have, it has been some of those medical words that have come up. I can't say myself whether my english is as "good" when I speak and write it, but at least my husband understands me (and his father is British so he has been talking english since the day he learnt how to speak). I feel that english is my mother tongue now, since I speak it all the time. I've seen a huge improve ever since I had to start talking it all day, I'm more confident and not afraid to use it anymore. I was horrified at first when I had to speak infront of Patrick's father, I thought he would keep correcting me all the time, but he just said if you make mistakes, you will, it's not the end of the world. And you can always learn from them. That's right. And I can only learn and improve my english if I keep using it.
Im my opinion, English is a pretty easy language to learn compared to some other languages, for example Finnish or Dutch (that's what I'm studying now), but of course it depends on the people too, some people just don't have the 'ear' for new languages...
My best friend here in Belgium is American, and she has said that some Americans don't bother to learn a new language because "everyone speaks english anyway". She herself is different though, she speaks great Dutch already and is learning French now. And when I had penpals from US, few of them spoke German, so it's just up to the people. I woulnd't say American's are different in this than others.
Phew, long enough answer
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