Like many people my age, I was not taught English from my lessons at school, I was taught English by YouTube. At the age of 12, I started playing games on my mom's old laptop. They were all in English, which I didn't really understand at the time, but I managed. Around 13, I discovered YouTube, and with an instant hate towards all the people who made videos in Dutch, I turned to English. I didn't really understand it at the time, but at least 3 hours a day of watching gaming videos really did help. And still, the only YouTubers I watch to this day are English, or at least speaking English.

My parents have a lot of friends over in the United Kingdom, and there wasn't a year we would go there, or they would come over. I remember struggling in my broken English, just to say a simple sentence.

Of course I also had English classes at high school. I started off rather average, refusing to spend a lot of time studying, and ending the year with a 6.0 average. And, funnily enough, every year after that my grade got a whole number higher, capping at a 9,4 in the fourth year. I still didn't pay much attention in classes, I didn't know or care about grammar rules, because I used them automatically without even thinking about the rules. I didn't study vocabulary lists, I knew them before even opening the book. That sounds like I'm boasting, but the only reason that I didn't end my fourth year with a perfect 10.0 was that I forgot to hand in an assignment, which led to a 1.0.

In fact, in ling1 was the first time I heared about a lot of the grammar rules we use, and I now finally understand them.