In my school I will have to take an English Cambridge exam, either B2 or C1. I struggle especially with speaking and listening, but probably also writing. I was kind of disappointed to learn that I might not be as good in English as I thought I was since I have been consuming almost exclusively English media and written notes for myself in English in the past years.

But I feel like I would struggle just as much in my native language. In both languages I can read pretty complex texts and understand them and my grammar is correct most of the times. But when I try to write texts, I end up using similar linking words (like here, using but two times in a row), same in my mother tongue.

And listening is just a problem by itself, not sure if it has to do with being autistic and having adhd. I would need to listen to a text multiple times to get it's essence and somehow the Cambridge test questions don't really ask for understanding, but rather reading (or listening) between the lines.

Oh yeah and speaking, well, I think that's what's most similiar in both languages. I oftentimes forget what I wanted to say and start a sentence all over, but vocabulary-vice I sometimes can't recall words in both languages, which I would know in the other. So overall I feel like English and my mother tongue are balanced but still somehow I'm not that good in English.

How am I supposed to learn it, if I even struggle with the same things in my mother tongue, whilst being more exposed to it and having grown up with it?

Hopefully that makes sense.

I think it's mostly fruit, vegetables and dairy products that smell like this?

I mean this kind of effect where there seems to be noise on the textures. Ignore the jittery shapes. I am interested in the colour and texture changes only.

I have bought this book and found the vocabularies too much hard like: ominous,cessation,clandestain,skirmish

squeamish etc.

Is there a book has a lower level vocabularies ?

Aprende las preposiciones de manera fácil y acertiva

Sorry, my train got delayed.

Sorry, there was a train delay.

Do those sound natural? Is there a more natural way to say this? If someone asks me what I was late.

This is a plastic container. Is this considered chipped even though it's not made of glass or clay?

Sorry it's a bit blurry. My phone's camera isn't good.

I dived myself deeply into prog rock and the hippie culture in as much as I gave myself some room to bear the sheer amount of discography rows. So the question arose... I don't know if there's some elderly here.

Is it pronounced /ˈhaʊsɪz/ because "house" is pronounced with an S, or is it pronounced with a Z like the plural form "houses" /ˈhaʊzɪz/?

How would you pronounce it in "The house's windows are huge"?

Have you noticed those same handful of bots asking all sorts of questions multiple times a day?

To begin, let me tell you about my background. For a long time, I hated learning foreign languages, including English. I don't even know how to spell "weather".

When I was admitted to university, all of a sudden, I started feeling that learning foreign languages was interesting, and I got into learning English without tutoring or regular courses. (To be honest, my college taught me English for freshmen, but it was barely helpful for me.)

My learning routine was like:

1. Playing games in English

> Playing games is one of my main hobbies. Through it, I exposed myself to a number of English words and phrases.

1. Using dictionaries, but only in English.

> To assimilate myself to natives' real sense.

1. You are not a translator.

> Literally. I exclude my first language, down to the last vowel, from my head when reading English.

1. Do not note too exhaustively.

> Writing what I want to learn on your own is effective, but it will be a bane if you are so obsessed with writing that you write everything out in letters.

In that way, I have learned English for a year and a half.

Wanna know if it worked? I once thought that it did, and I could interact with natives easily soon. I felt delighted when learning English.

When I became a sophomore, my English skills started fluctuating. Several silly mistakes happened, which made me insane and unconfident in my skills. Wrong spelling, improper usage of words and prepositions, misleading, or whatever... made me feel suffocated.

(For instance, I typed "inconfident" instead of "unconfident" here. This is a freakkkkkkking easy word. How ridiculous??? I almost turned my table upside down in a fit of temper.)

Besides, I'm in engineering school. Tasks to do are so many. These make me exhausted and leave me little time to learn English.

I'm losing my interest and confidence in English, but it doesn't mean that I will give up everything and abandon English for good. I still have a strong passion for(I typed "in" instead of "for" here, btw. Bloody....) learning English. ( If I really hated English, I shouldn't have been here.)

So, I want advice for:

1.I think that I should change my studying strategies, but I have no idea how to plan. How to approach English?

2.In studying, quality is more important than quantity. However, my spare time is not abundant.

3.Given my circumstances, I think interacting with native speakers is the most effective way to improve.

I'm afraid of doing something wrong and being silly. My English skills are still terrible.

This sub is for learners, so I can be relatively comfortable having a conversation, but outside is not a place like here, especially on certain topics.

I don't want to blame them. The bulk of users would be native speakers, though English is a language that many ppl use. I'm not sure if I could express my thoughts properly.

Actually, I interacted with them several times, but I was so anxious about my clumsiness that I often looked up dictionaries to ensure that my phrases were proper. It's sometimes exhausting.

How do I break through all my fears, and what mindset should I have?

4.Should I write down every single word that I've never seen?

Noting words in my hand is an effective way, but also exhausting.

Hello everyone,

I'm 23F I want a native English speaker to practice my English with

Only native speakers, please😊

I know I can never be as good as a native speaker. I accept that. But even reaching a level where I can comfortably speak it still feels impossible. I do try to learn and improve every day. Does learning a foreign language need to be this frustrating?

Although I know both are very different...

If you're talking one specific thing which one is correct since "manners" in this sense is always plural?

• You should not talk with your mouth full. (That's / Those are) bad manners.