Hello again to all you learners and fans of the English language! I was thinking, maybe we could start some type of training course or workshop on how to learn English. I mean we all want to improve our English as it never can be good enough. Many of us are looking for a way to learn the language more quickly. So what we could do is exchange ideas. What are you doing in order to improve your English? How important is English to you? Those questions might have been discussed before but I think they are always very important. I study psychology and lots of texts I have to read are available in English only. We have quite a large number of professors and tutors from the US working at our university and I want to do an internship in the US. That’s why my English has to be impeccable.
OK, maybe everyone here can tell their story. Why are you learning English and most importantly: How are learning it? I look forward to reading your ideas!
A
Hello Andreana! You want to become a shrink, right? 
OK, I’m interested in swapping information on language learning. Some time ago my family moved to Canada and I didn’t speak much English when I arrived. As a matter of fact I didn’t speak any English - I just understood some words. I had ‘learned’ English back home at school but that wasn’t really sufficient. I mean I always had decent grades in English at school but that didn’t mean I could actually speak or even understand English because there were more than 20 students in my class and the only person who tried to speak English during the lessons was our teacher whose native language wasn’t English of course. So you can imagine how we learned English. Then when we came here I had to take tests before I could go to school and those tests showed that I did pretty well in sciences but I had difficulties in all subjects where a good command of English was required.
OK, that’s my story so far, I’m interested to hear what other people have to say and will tell you more about my learning techniques.
I’m an electrical engineer in the Ukraine and the company I work for was bought by a US firm in the mid 90ies. When I started my job I didn’t speak any English, I just could read basic technical documentations in English but often I had no idea how to pronounce some of the terms. Then when the takeover happened all existing staff were given an English test. Although my results were not to best to say the least I still managed to keep my job but I had to sign up for an intensive inhouse English course. The program was extremely well structured. For example, we used only materials that were directly related our immediate job responsibilities. Then a year later we had to take another test that involved technical English and this time I did much better than on the previous one. In 2001 I was given the opportunity to work for one year at our parent company in the US. First I wouldn’t speak so much at work but then I was invited by some of my American co-workers to visit them in their homes and they would ask me to tell them what life in the Ukraine is all about. They literally forced me to speak and I asked them to correct my English when I would make a mistake.
I started learning English when my father offered me a summer job three years ago. He is running a medium-sized printing company and wanted to find new suppliers outside of Germany. He said if I could find him a new printing machine I would earn a commission. So off I went online and started shopping around. I sent out emails and posted enquires through online forms and forwarded the quotes and offers to my father. He reviewed them and shortlisted the ones he was interested in. All of the correspondence was in English and I had to look up phrases almost every day. Together we eventually landed a very good deal with a French company that sold us a new printing machine and even installed it in our factory. They also signed a maintaince contract with us. My father invested a huge amount of money but he still paid much less then he would have if we had chosen a Germany company. Now I’m still work for him when I have time and it’s always a job that involves communicating in English.