Do you speak Engllish?

I've been learning English since age 6 and thought I knew nearly every possible rule in English grammar, punctuation and pronunciation. In my English classes we watched films in English (with subtitles most of the time), BBC News was in our weekly schedule, listened to all sorts of pre-recorded dialogues and short educational conversations.

Imagine my surprise when I moved here and wasn't able to understand A LOT of  what people were telling me. I could recognize the words, but was having a hard time understanding. It's not easy to explain how exactly it felt. Perhaps the the best explanation is comparing to the process of "hearing but not listening". This is pretty much how I felt. It wasn't too bad, but let's just say... I smiled and nodded quite often )))

via

And hey, I've got news there: it gets better with time, so no need to panic that I wasted 19 years of my life studying English in vain.

And here's a little funny video for you to sum it up: