Dear bac Phuong,
You told me wait for your letter. I knew, but I have something to say. Please do not think I am defending myself, I just want to say what I am doing.
The first thing is about my University which I am studying. You said that you know it is not the best one, it is just medium good. Actually that is not wrong, but in University Entrance 2014 only about 100 students (who were studied in College before) could pass the exam. I am one of them and I am proud of it. We had to get 16 out of 30 points, while Foreign Trade University (the best University in Vietnam) need 17 out of 30 points. So, it is not really easy to get there.
Then, the second thing is learning English. I had found out speaking English like native person need three things: pronunciation, stress and intonation. So if I want to speak English well, my pronunciation has to good enough.
The truth is my pronunciation is worse than you think. When I saw videos from BBC Learning English which name is Pronunciation Tips on youtube. I realize that I can not pronounce many consonants (for examples: ð, θ, ʒ, ʤ...), event I had pronounced they wrong for many years. In my province, there are not many good English teachers (special in speaking), so from Primary school we were not touch really careful and exact by our teachers. Now, for over 20 years pronounced wrong, I need to fix everything. It is more difficult than learn from begining. Before search in Internet, I event did not know what is voice and voiceless, because all we studied in school is grammar, that's why I could write you but could not speak.
After pass University exam, I realize what I need to do now is practice every consonants and vowels exactly before do anything. This is the first step and also the most important if I want to succeed. For other people, it is may easy to do, but my tong is a little bit shorter than a normal person and unlucky, people from my province pronounce "n" for "l", and "n" for "l" and so do I. Event now if I speak fast without thinking before, I still pronounce like that in Vietnamese. So, I found it is a little bit difficult for me to fix and pronounce exactly. We do not have some consonants in Vietnamese: ʃ, ð, θ, ʒ, ʤ, ʧ... So I watch video on Internet and try to pronounce like them. Now I can pronounce almost consonants and just have problem with voiceless (d,g...). I still practice everyday.
The English sofwares that you gave to me is at higher level of mine. They all are stories, dialogues... I think I will practice them at the second step.
I know what I am doing and what my problems are. You are older and have more experience than me but my problems are not the same like your and I may have to walk on the longer way than you. So sometimes I feel pressure when you say I do not want to do what you told me.
Finally if you really want to say something, please tell me. I do not want you told me about your nieces who are lieing to you. Because I have ever lie to you anything still now. As I said before, I do not have any reason to lie. And to me, with out the trust, every relationship is meanless.
I know, you really care for me, for my future. Everything you do for me demonstrates that and I grateful for that. After talk to you 2 days ago, I think a lot and this night I can not sleep. So I write you this letter - as I said before - I am not defending myself, I just let you know what I am doing.
If this email has something which are not good, please forgive me.
Best wishes,
Chau Hien