I start to doubt myself when my learning progress seems too slow. I have heard about "dreaming big", and I try, but I still cannot convince myself that I can ever excel in English, even though I work on it every day. My big dream is to be good at English. A slow learner can be good at English. I do believe it. "Self down" does not make sense. Perhaps you meant to say "I start to put myself down"? How fast you learn is less important than you think, Molly. The important thing is comprehension, not speed. Choose some little thing that you like a lot: a poem or song. Then set about to understand it thoroughly. Every single word! Memorize it! Sing it! If there is something you don't understand, ask people to help you. Once you have mastered it, move on the next one. It won't matter how much time you spend on that poem or song because you love it. A poem I like to recommend is "My heart leaps up" by William Wordsworth. It is very short. You can do it. You can learn a lot from that poem. Notice how he uses active verbs. He conveys action by using the form SUBJECT + VERB over and over. He does use present participles like "my heart is leaping up". Instead, he says "my heart leaps up". It is very powerful.