dazzlingblue

Learning more words and then knowing how to use them obviously are important in mastering English, or any other language. What are some ways you've found helpful in increasing your vocabulary range? Did you pick up a word list for the GRE, or do you just learn from reading novels?

I have a friend who's had 'language partners' to meet in person so that he can help him/her with English while s/he helped him with his Korean. Has anyone tried finding a 'virtual' language partner that might be able to support you, either on your speaking or writing ability? Skype is certainly a way to accomplish that, but I thought that exchanging e-mails might help, too. I don't really know too much about language partnerships, so I was just curious!

Does anyone have experience in having to relearn your mother tongue language? I moved from Japan to a rural part of Tennessee at the age of ten with my family, so while I was well-immersed into the English language, I never kept up with the Japanese. (I actually am a freelance copy editor---in English, of course.) I can speak in an informal, family manner, and I can make out stuff that may be on a packaging. But I really need to get back to studying kanji and other parts that I actually never studied. It's been hard for me to find some sort of a formalized plan to study a language that you kind of know, but don't. It's just not easy to find lessons that aren't trying to teach you customs while teaching words.