I think I have more or less reached the level that would be useful in my job. I have studied German and English. German is B2 certified. English probably B2 or C1, though I never did an exam in English. (Since high school that is.) I am using both languages in my job, I get a whole lot of oral practice with them. So at least speaking and understanding is not to be forgotten soon.. My writing abilities in both languages are lesser than my verbal talent for them. So should I keep on practicing my writing? I am not sure. I would like to, I think it is fun, but that useful for my career, it is not. And there are of course other focuses and priorities I have to divide my time and effort among.
I don´t have reached my goals , because in my case is unlike you . I own a reading and writing well above in English and Spanish , but my biggest difficulty is the pronunciation. I'm practicing with new italki partners and other acquaintances. Pretty soon I'll get achieve my goals in both, English and Spanish.
You should practice the 4 skills together, read more to better your writing and listen more to better your pronunciation. Both of the two process have to be performed side by side.
Rage To Love, the question is if you even care if you are literate in English or not! Do you need to read and write or do you WANT to be able to do those things or are you quite happy with just being able to speak well?
Learning to spell is very hard. If you have some idea how to spell in English then you can use spell-check like most Americans do and not use your time for that particular skill if it's not useful to you. Maybe it would make more sense to learn how to speak yet another language or play an instrument or learn something else instead with that time?
I would sit down and write out all the things you could do with that time and rate them as to how much benefit they will give you professionally and personally and how much you would enjoy them and see what comes out on top.
@Flavia, I think with English the problem is more that pronounciation does not follow spelling. Hence I have learnt English first verbally by watching TV and listening to pop songs. Then when I was 13, I started the English classes, and I had to learn how to write it. I remember writing '1', one, as 'wan' for example. My teacher told me it was wrong. I told her: "What? Why do you write 'wan' as 'oh nay'??" Maybe you knew that 1 was written as 'one', but pronounced it as 'oh nay'? :-)
Anyway, the question is, when you have reached a certain level, should you keep on practicing not to lose it? Or should it stay in your brain. I think I am already noticing I am failing to remember the spelling of certain words. In English worse than German, since the latter is much more phonetic than the first. It is about half a year since I studied something.
As far as my understanding, no certificate in language could mean you have ne'er studied in abroad or no job in professional language careers to keep write on your own, doesn't make sense when no goal from you with other study activities less, you probably don't notice from language school/centre in order to enrich in extra studying knowledge, reminded by other possiblities.
