what do you remeber about learning to speak english?

English is fairly common in schools and in the media here. When I was a kid, I figured I could make some simple sentences, as long as I knew the words. This is when I discovered English is almost the same as my own language, as long as you mind the expressions and question sentences that are formed with an auxiliary.

I kept learning words from games, books and sometimes from tv or the radio. My reading skills were way ahead of my spoken language, but later I also learnt how to pronounce the words I had read years before,

Now I know a decent amount of English.

I remember when I arrived in New York it was confusing how regular Americans pronounced words like 'here' and NYers said 'heea' among other words which NYers 'eat' the Rs which always confused me and didn't know which was the right way to say them. It would take me many years to realize that NYers have a different accent and now I occassionally slip into this accent myself depending on who I am addressing.

I also remember having a lot of confusion with the 'T' pronuciation and the 'TH' pronunciation which is a very common mistake Spanish speakers make when learning English because they pronouce them both like we pronouce the T in Spanish (tirteen).

I remember making mistakes like saying apron-cot for apricot, which caused grownups to laugh.

The first word I spoke was congratulations