Language / Need advice on how to improve Polish language skills [134]

Merged: Ways to improve my Polish?

Hi,

There have probably been many threads like mine before but I haven't seen any that I can actually relate to.

Polish is my second language and I have been learning it my whole life in Polish schools. I live in the United States and the area where I'm from Polish is not a commonly spoken language so I only ever get to speak it at home, but even then I have to include a lot of English to get what I want to say across. Generally, I have very basic communication skills and I can carry a conversation with a couple grammar mistakes here and then but a lot of the times when I speak to native Polish people or relatives and they start adding in difficult vocabulary and I feel really humiliated because I feel like my Polish should be better since I am born to Polish parents, and the rest of my entire family is Polish.

This kind of sounds like a sob story, but it does make me feel very humiliated and ashamed sometimes because I sometimes see how people who are younger than me and are much more fluent in Polish than I am. Do you have any suggestions to that could help me improve?