How I say it

I noticed today that my pronunciation is getting better. As you probably have understood (if you didn't know already) english is not my first language. Hence I struggle with proper grammar, spelling and pronunciation in english. I do speak well enough so that people understand what I am talking about most of the time. My approach when I don't know how to say a word is:
a, switch to a simpler word that means about the same (this also goes for spelling)
b, just pronounce it like I think it should be

When I do' b' I many times come up with my own words, which to some people (whom I might be married to) find amusing.

People do every now and then ask me to parrot back a word they say so I can get it right, but that do not always work, don't ask me why. What comes to mind right now is the name 'Hugh' - I just can't say it. To me it sounds like I'm saying huge..

I'm not sure why I have so much problems. It could be because Norwegian have pretty much the same letters as the english alphabet, but even with almost the same letters the sounds of many letters in Norwegian are different from the sound of the same letters in english.

(Are you still following?)

Say you try to make me write down letters while you spell to me. You might say "e" and I would most likely write "i". See how it gets hard?

I am getting better, I noticed that today. I was at church and for some reason they have all their songs in english (could be because it's in Australia). I love to sing, really really love it, so I will sing along even though I do not know the song. I just listen to the music and pay attention to the people around me and sing away. Many many times I have (pretty loud too) pronounced words very wrong only to realize it half way through the word when I hear people around me singing it differently. But today (make a mark in your dairy) I noticed that I actually sang the words the same way as the rest of the congregation...

So there might me a little bit less free entertainment for certain people (not mentioning any names here..) in the future.