catch up with
Is it correct to say: I tray to catch up with my English level'
9 Answers
Well, you can console yourself with the knowledge that your English is excellent. And your sum total of language knowledge far surpasses that of any monolingual. Everyone on this list is to be commended for trying to break the bonds of monolingualism! heheh
James said - "common problem is that if we don't use our acquired language frequently, we start to lose it".
I would be a perfect example for this. When I turned twenty, I came to the US from Hungary. Never used my native language after that, and now I cannot form decent sentences. I constantly have to look up words when I call my sister with whom I did not speak for forty years. (She had no telephone, at one time the waiting list was over ten years long to to get one. (Hu was a communist country.))
But those are different things. Dunia said she wants to say mantener mi nivel de inglés. Many people have that goal with language. Naturally, we all want to improve, but a common problem is that if we don't use our acquired language frequently, we start to lose it, so we want to maintain it at its previous level.
I think that's what Dunia means here.
Improve means to get better and it is not the sense I want to give it.
It is to have now the same level I used to have in the past
I try to improve my English to the level of my Spanish (which is fluent).
(This was posted by Hungarian expatriate who does not speak any languages well, so make correction as needed.)
I just realized that you are probably confusing "catch up with" and "keep up." The latter does mean mantener: "I want to keep up my English."
You could say it as "I want to keep my English from getting rusty." Or, more formally, "I want to maintain my English proficiency/skills/fluency."
I want to say that I want to keep my level of English = mantener mi nivel de inglés.
No, it isn't really understandable. What is it that you are trying to say? ¿Que quieres mejorar tu inglés?
To catch up with means to bring one thing up to the same level as another thing.
