Hi, it’s me Ai (Kiri). Today I had a nice conversation with one of my co-workers “B” about different languages that exist in the world.

Needless to say, we use (hear, speak, read and write) English as a common language. Being a non-native English speaker, I have been putting a lot of effort to improve my English skill ever sincne I started learning English at the age of 12. Yes, it’s been a long time, but still I’m not perfect yet. I still make a lot of grammatical mistakes as I write or speak fast. (If I slow down, usually I don’t make so many mistakes.) I still have problems in using pronouns (to, from, of, in, on, at, above, under, … etc.) and still mix them up. Especially when I talk about a date or specific/approximate time, the pronouns are so confusing. Also I make even worse mistakes with articles (a, an, & the.) I sometimes forget to put it, or put extra one when I don’t need to. …I don’t think I am using all of them right yet. I need more training and actually need to ask everybody to correct me.

For example…

1. I came to Mobile, AL (on / in / at) July 7th, 2004. ***I have been using “on” for this case. Is it correct?

2. I will take a class (on / in ) summer. *** I think ”in” is correct if I dare choose one, but in that case don’t I need “the” right before ”summer?” …I suppose I can also say “I will take a class this summer.” and that is correct, right?

3. I took a class (on / in) last summer. *** For this case, I don’t think I need any of those, but still I’m confused. How is it??

Hmmm…. I need to work on those more.

To be continued. Thank you for reading

Ai  a.k.a.  Kiri