In English, please

Stina and her mummy Mamma-Lisa. The picture was taken in Istanbul.

My English is deteriorating, and deteriorating fast!

I realized this yesterday, when we had some friends over for coffee. The words didn't come out in a steady stream as they should, but were stopping on their way out, looking to see if it was their turn or if they needed to give way to someone else first. Stumbling and stopping, bumper to bumper sometimes, and sometimes not a word in sight.

So, I think I need to copy Annika, writing one blog post a week in English. And why not starting today, as well as any other day?

A language needs to be active. It does help to read books in English, it does, but this only helps to build a passive, understanding language. What I want to do is keep my active English alive, I want to be able to find the words I need, when I need them, and speak in an unrestrained way. Yesterday I felt like someone who had not ever crossed the borders of Sweden, neither physically nor culturally.

In this I could need your help, especially all of you who live in English speaking countries. Do I do something totally wrong? Is my language stocky and stilting? Are there ways to express something in a better way? Do I mix American English and British English? (Or any other type of English, but I don't hear e.g. New Zealand English very often, so I consider this risk as minimal.) Do I use the diacritical signs (i.e. comma, full stop, quotation marks, etc.) correctly? And so on.

PLEASE tell me! What I need is critique and improvement, not praises (okay, I'll take that too).

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The snow is melting away already, which is a pity. It is so much nicer with the beautiful snow covering the grayish-brown ground. But it is apparently good for making snowmen and cakes, the kids on the street are out with their sandbox buckets and ... WHAT do you call "hink och spade"?

Have a good Sunday, everyone, I will go sit in front of the fireplace to finish the first sleeve to the sweater I am knitting for Klas. Cross your fingers that it will be a sleeve that works, otherwise I actually see myself redoing more than the sleeve, as the fittings must have the same shape on all parts ...