Hello everyone, I would like to share my experience learning the English language. I hope it helps you learn something new

Since I was a child I was always a fan of video games, and I've had all kinds of consoles (those of my generation, most of all) and I've played hundreds of different games and... many of them were in English. As time went by, I adapted to the controls, the commands and the menus in the video games and I learnt to deduce their meanings. As a teenager, in 2012 I went to visit my uncle, who lives in Houston Texas, United States. It was an amazing experience and very different from what I was used to living in my country, since everything was very well ordered and organized, and the streets were clean, there were more modern cars and the laws were respected. I remember that once, we were in a festival and I really did not know how to speak English and understand it, and my uncle sent me for a soda; He told me to tell the girl in the shop these words: '' one coke please '' and that I went to do. When I said that, she answered me and I really do not remember what she said, but I know I did not understand her. I called my uncle and he picked up the soda and paid the girl.

I also remember a girl, the daughter of a friend of my uncle, who was native English and she liked me a lot, but we did not know how to communicate, since she did not know Spanish and I did not know how to talk to her, because my English was inefficient. We spent time together and we walked together but we did not talk, do you know how uncomfortable it must have been? Probably yes, or maybe not.

Back in Venezuela, I decided to learn English on my own, and I gave rein to the creativity I could possess. In the fourth year of high school, I already knew more than before, and in the English exams I did not study very much, because without knowing much, I dominated more than most of my classmates. Years after that, I studied grammar through the Internet for about six months, and spoke in public chats and web pages whose purpose was to practice the language with other people. I was able to acquire a lot of knowledge during that period of time, and then I started watching videos on YouTube, about grammar, vocabulary, expressions and everyday conversations in English.

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In those days, I decided to investigate and immerse myself as much as I could in the language, since I know that it is the only way to be able to master a language well. I liked learning new things, new words and interesting expressions and therefore I studied about five hours a day, every day, and sometimes more. Sometimes I spent all day studying and watching videos, immersing myself in knowledge and adapting to the way of writing, reading and listening to the language. It was quite useful that immersion that I did, since it helped me to advance in an exponential and fast way, but the taste to learn and interact with new things was the impulse that gave rise to have successful and solid fruits.

After graduating from high school, I enrolled in a face-to-face English course, what in my country is called CEVAZ, and I signed up with a friend from school and we started the course together. I remember we used to get up at 7:30 AM, I went to his house that was a few blocks away from the building where I live and we both went to the institute. The class started at 8:30 AM and ended at 10:15 AM. In the first level, everything was supposed to be easy and practical and understandable for beginners of the language, but the teacher we had was one of the most demanding of the institute and we were very lucky to start the course with a very good base of the language, since it facilitated us enough the understanding of the dynamics and the content of the class. Many left after the first level because they thought it was very complicated for them, but we were still standing and we advanced without difficulty to higher levels. The course consists of 19 levels, by the way.

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We went from Tuesday to Friday and had a good time with our classmates, since in class they were taught with dynamics, images and games, which made learning more fluid and less boring. After classes we went to a shopping center that was next to the institute, and all the time we talked in English. The face-to-face class was very useful to learn to master the spoken language, since, in my case, I knew a lot of grammar and expressions and I used to write and talk a lot in chats, but I did not have the opportunity to talk face to face with someone who also practices the language. That was also an advantage that helped me improve my fluency, my pronunciation and to acquire new vocabulary and improve skills. Everything is based on repetition, since the more you repeat the sentences and expressions, it will be much easier to say them or take them out of your mind the next time you want to use them again.

I was with my friend in the course for seven levels, until I started college and had to change my schedule to the Saturday courses, where I only went to the institute on Saturdays and, therefore, the levels took more time to be completed. My friend already graduated from the institute around six months ago or a little more, and I'm still in it. I'm at level 17, of 19 levels, and it seems like I've taken centuries to finish all of them. While I was in class, I interacted a lot and tried to talk as much as I could, so I made mistakes, to learn and have better speed and have my thoughts better organized.

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I'm still watching grammar, vocabulary and conversational videos, from native English teachers, on YouTube, and I still like the idea of ​​learning new things, because when you learn a language, you never stop learning it, because you keep doing it all your life. There will always be things that you have not heard, that you have not seen or that you have not had the opportunity to know, and there will always be a day where you will run into new things that you did not see before, and I like that to me, and my interest grows to dominate more and more the universal language of all. Learning English will be very useful, and you will not have to depend on anyone to make your own deductions or defend yourself when speaking or writing something.

Try to immerse yourself in the language, everything you can, in an intense way, and grab the interest for it, the taste, and try to learn about everything that you like and be sure that you will master it very quickly. Passion is the key, and the impulse to dominate what other people believe they can not. Never let them tell you that you can not dominate or do something, since it only depends on yourself and the effort and dedication that you put to what you are passionate about, so you've got two options: Conquer the world with your own hands, or let someone else take possession of it

Greetings to all :)