I consider myself rather fluent in English and I’ve been at the intermediate/advanced level for many years now. I can read basically anything with almost full understanding - except for texts on topics which are unfamiliar to me. I can listen with the same understanding. I can write well and I can talk to anyone.
I’d like to bring my English to the next level. I know I’ve been using mostly the same words or phrases over and over again. It’s been many years since I took a deliberate effort to learn new words…
I feel I’ve stagnated at this level and simply continuing to read, listen and talk in English will not help me further develop myself.
How can I get to the next level?
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I am somewhat in a similar situation with the exception that I have some other linguistic project going on. If I were to dedicate my time to go from C1 to C2 here’s how I would do it.
First get an idea what C2 is.
I feel that in the language community A1-C2 are throw around quite liberally, the first think to do in my mind is to define your goal more clearly. I can’t be bothered to look up the “official” definition but suffice to say one should be pretty damn good at the language.
I think if you are going to go from C1 to C2 one would have to have a serious look at some grammar at some point to understand why certain constrictions are used instead of others. I would be on the look out for a grammar book that covers all parts of speech in a concise but clear manner.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any suggestions in terms of books other than I remember that I looked at an Oxford dictionary that was like over 1000 pages long. It sure is comprehensive but probably a bit too academic for most people. I am pretty sure that Oxford dictionaries has many grammar books catered to different demographics.
You did mention that you use certain phrases over and over again, it is something that I do to. I would make a word document where I list words and phrases that I find myself using to often to my taste. Then I would google the words and phrases in a thesaurus.
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I feel the same about my English proficiency - it seems I plateaued years ago. But in reality we’re progressing, and it’s only because we start from a good level, even huge progress in absolute terms looks minimal in comparison. I noticed my progress once I started to make English-speaking videos. Looking at a one-year-old video now, the progress is quite obvious.
My strategy to progress further is to do complex things in the language: presentations, videos, and even just reading aloud. Especially reading aloud is underestimated - don’t just do it for 5 minutes, but for an hour straight.
In my opinion, there is no way to cut corners - you’ll have to spend years to reach a true C-something level.
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I used to hear that the difference between C1 and C2 is one of vocabuly-size. I feel I am in a similar situation. Lingq could be instrumental in helping us , at this stage. Reading older books, or books about broader topis which you have not touched since a long while ago. Perhaps poetry, which tends to include some archaic expressions and terms (Dickinson, so interesting) , Shakespeare… I read them both (only partially) before I had Lingq and I have forgotten the words I learnt. Also, topics in different directions, subjects you studied at school (biology, science in general. Finally, old folklore tends to use more “material words” and verbs related to movement, and action that I do not see often (I’m Spaniard and words like “to hew”, “to tuck”, etc of purely germanic origin are harder for me. Also ethymology helps me a great deal: many words have logic from this point of view: jeopardy = jeu parti = juego partido = divided game (risk); “to deem” in English and думать in Russian share the same origin etc. Also explore books about synonyms, thesaurus, use of language, collocations and advanced grammar of course. Just my 50 cents…
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