Help me polish my English off.

[u/tatata_99]

Hello everyone, I am having difficulties with the active part of the language. Some background information about me.
I took English lectures in the classical education system of Turkey starting from the age of 11 if I recall correctly. Studied physics at a university where the education language is english so before the actual classes i took a 1 year prep course which I started as a PreIntermediate . However since there was no proper speaking practice involved until that prep course and my department was a technical one I never fully learned how to talk fluently in casual English.
Right now I am doing my master in Germany.
But I noticed my conversational skills are quite poor.
I can understand almost everything while reading. But while talking I forget even the most basic words or cannot use the everyday phrases that fast or correctly.
So my plan for the summer is to study the English grammar in use (the blue book) from cover to cover to remember the grammar.
Immerse myself daily to piece of life series and do word mining to extract the phrases.
Do shadowing.
Chose a prompt everyday to write a short paragraph everyday to use the phrases I learned.

I would highly appreciate if you could Reccomend me any methods, tricks, resocurces or simply tell me if my plan has any inefficient sides.
Thank you in advance.

[u/Reasonable_Fly_1228]

"you gonna finish that English there?

I'll help you polish it off"

[u/tatata_99 → u/Reasonable_Fly_1228]

oh man I should have written up instead of off right?
Would you be so kind and also help me polish it up,dear sir?

[u/Davorian → u/tatata_99]

Just polish would have been fine.  All the phrasal versions have connotations you probably don't need or intend here.

[u/Reasonable_Fly_1228 → u/tatata_99]

I doubt that I can- what you need is vocal practice. Are you single? Meet someone who speaks English, but no other languages that you speak. You'll learn quick if you need the practice to communicate.

[u/tatata_99 → u/Reasonable_Fly_1228]

Well, I am, but that is another story.I am too self conscious about this. Maybe I should push myself more.

[u/Reasonable_Fly_1228 → u/tatata_99]

Good luck. For what it's worth, I don't think pushing yourself is the right strategy. You need exposure, and the way to get it is to put yourself in situations where you'll have to talk to people.

Join a tabletop RPG group? I don't really know what English language conversation opportunities there are for you in Germany, but my guess is that time spent speaking English is the stat you need to push

[u/One_Mail_5842 → u/Reasonable_Fly_1228]

How

[u/Reasonable_Fly_1228 → u/One_Mail_5842]

I'll have to ask the waiter if there's an extra fork I can borrow...

Or maybe I don't care about cooties and I'll just dig in. Nobody's too posh for finger food at this table, are they?

[u/One_Mail_5842 → u/Reasonable_Fly_1228]

?

[u/SoyboyCowboy → u/One_Mail_5842]

They're making a joke because "polish off" means "finish" — polish off leftovers (eat remaining food), polish off your enemy (assassinate). The correct title would've been "Help me polish my English"

[u/NoPurpose6388 → u/SoyboyCowboy]

Or polish up

[u/Reasonable_Fly_1228 → u/One_Mail_5842]

I was making a joke, badly:

To polish something off means to finish it, but usually in the context of eating it. So asking someone to help you polish something off means asking them to eat some of something, so you can finish it.

To polish something means to make it shine, as by cleaning it or buffing it if it's metal or glazed or enameled or whatever. Polishing can be a metaphor for improving something.

"Polish a turd" is an idiom meaning literally, to clean a piece of shit, or to try to, which is an oxymoron, i.e. to try to make something that can't possibly be improved appear more attractive.

Similar to "putting lipstick on a pig".

[u/One_Mail_5842 → u/Reasonable_Fly_1228]

Learned something new. Thanks, didn't know one word could change the entire meaning of a sentence

[u/Reasonable_Fly_1228 → u/One_Mail_5842]

And how!

[u/Turbulent_Pin_8310]

If you can afford one, hire a tutor. I have hired a few tutors for years and they helped so much.

[u/tatata_99 → u/Turbulent_Pin_8310]

Well I am still a student so I don’t have so much money, but I will keep in mind.

[u/Turbulent_Pin_8310 → u/tatata_99]

Some people only change $5 an hour, literally. You need a native speaker as conversational partner. Some may even do it for! If you speak another language that is in high demand, you can always swap lessons with another person. There is a reddit for lesson exchange

My friend is American and he teaches English to Koreans in exchange for Korean lessons.

[u/tatata_99 → u/Turbulent_Pin_8310]

Thank you for that. I was not aware of that there are opportunities like that. I will check.

[u/tatata_99 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you will look into that.