My First Experience Speaking English The first time that I had an actual conversation in English was very surprising. I have never studied with a teacher or at any school and everything that I have learned, I learned on my own. That means that my journey at this learning process has been through, let's say, a very winding road. It started when I was a teenager and American/British rock fan. At that time, I was in love with bands like Aerosmith (which I've watched 4 live concerts), Guns N' Roses, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Queen, and so on... I used to listen to albums with the lyrics in hands and that way I figured out how to pronounce words while trying to sing along the tracks. Firstly I was just imitating because I couldn't understand the meaning. Therefore, I have searched for the translations and things started to make sense. After a while I fell in love with country music, and by the same process I found out many phrases and vocabulary. Country music was absolutely important for me because is always some sort of "story telling" which gave me knowledge about lots of everyday's sentences. Through the music, I'have learned a lot of English and still do. One day I was sitting on a table, playing cards with some foreign friends that were in a vacation around Brazilian's coast. They speak Portuguese very well, but all of sudden they started to speak English. I was like "oh my God, I can understand every sentence they are saying!" and for my astonishment I was able to respond them with pieces of the country songs lyrics that I've had memorized. They asked me if I ever had studied the language before or if I had lived or traveled to some English speaking country. And then, for their astonishment the answer was no. They complimented me and said that I was doing extremely well for someone who had never studied it before. Of course I made many mistakes, but besides that, the conversation was flowing in a pleasant way. It was exactly a year ago and I got really excited by improving my skills so I started to read, listen, write and speak every chance I can. So, I may have not been doing that great indeed. But their compliment was a starting point in my journey because they made me believe that I was good. They pushed me forward and I'm sure that besides I'm still way to far of being really good at it, but I'm improving fast and i can feel it. What a great power does a compliment have, don't you think? Grateful for that. Have you complimented someone you care about for their good job today?