I gained so much experience during the time I was there, both academically and personally. My English especially has been improved so much. In America, you have to speak English no matter how bad your English is - you can't be shy about it. Before I went to study there, my English was just okay. My biggest challenge was vocabulary; although I was good at grammar, I did not know what many words meant. When I arrived, I sometimes did not understand what people were saying to me. However, after I had been there for a while, I started learning to communicate with the Americans. I was forced to speak English all the time out of necessity, which greatly sped up my improvement. After a lot of study and a lot of practice, I was able to just talk to people like everyone else. So now I can speak English fluently and understand everything they say