GoesStation,
There are mainly two reasons for me making such mistakes. The first is because I learnt English only four years in high school in Bosnia. That was rather basic level of English. We learnt grammar and read some texts, but not much beyond that. All that I learnt after that was by reading books, listening to radio and participating on this forum. The second reason is because I do not communicate in English with people. If I had come in the USA in 1993, I believed I would be speaking American English like a native American. Or if I lived in the UK for 24 years as I had been living in Sweden, I would be speaking English like a Brit.Take for example, Aleksandar Hemon. He was a journalist in Sarajevo before the war in Bosnia broke out. And by chance, when the conflict started, he was in the USA, visiting some relatives. After a few years, one of his short stories got the first prize in the US, and he got a chance to publish his first book in English. After that, he published more novels and became a well-respected writer. He is even married to an American woman, who had probably helped him and corrected his mistakes. Life is a lottery, in which I unfortunately never hit the jackpot. But when I am thinking that some of my school colleagues were murdered and tortured in the war, I have to be grateful that I am still alive. I am aware of my limitation regarding English, but can't stop because I feel I have to go on, even if I never succeed.
