my English has plateaued

Hello everyone, I've been learning English for the past 14 years. I was 13 years old when I started learning English which was quite late to start learning a foreign language, I think that If I started learning English 5 years earlier I wouldn't be having this problem. To make the matters worse I was very lazy at the time and I didn't take English seriously until I was 16 years old, by then I started to make a very nice progress which unfortunately came to a screeching halt after 3 years of intense study. Since then I feel like I'm no longer improving my English, it feels like my English has plateaued way too early for my liking and no matter the amount of effort I expend to progress further it's all for nothing. For a time learning new words was my way to do something about my English so I didn't feel stuck in the same place but diminishing returns kicked in, right now I don't feel like the size of my vocabulary is holding me back in any way. Any advice how to make myself a better speaker? Unfortunately deep down I feel that it's as far as I can go and trying to improve my English is just a wasted effort because I already fulfilled my limited potential.

Neurolinguists call this phenomenon 'second language attrition'. I guess this is the process you have probably been going through.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-language_attrition

And it's never late to start learning a foreign language unless you are dead already, so that's kind of bull in my opinion:)
But it's definitely late to start learning to play the piano at 13 if you want to become a professional piano player. But with the human mind it's different I guess. It works in mysterious ways. I know it first hand:)

..that you reached your full potential? Another bull:) And you know that how? You're what 27, right. Basically a snot :)) (don't flip out, that's my way of saying something nice to people:) Because you feel you're stuck and stumble for words sometimes? Nobody knows their full potential.
There's no perfect remedy for that. If you want to become a better speaker, you need to speak.

It seems more like a case of The Language Learning Plateau because I don't feel like I regressed.
http://www.lingholic.com/reaching-a-plateau-in-language-learning-how-to-get-out-of-it/
http://www.cambridge.org/other_files/downloads/esl/booklets/Richards-Beyond-Plateau.pdf
From what I read about Second-language attrition there needs to be an actual regression in language proficiency for it to occur fortunately I don't think that actually happened in my case. Well, I forgot a lot about grammar but I don't think that lost had any impact on my actual language skills.

Fair enough, if you feel it's the case here, ...which again still leaves you with that problem that you feel you can't go any further because of some unidentified subliminal implicit or whatever mind capacity restrictions, right?
..and which again keeps going back to one solution: speak, the more the better

Therein lies the problem, I would need to speak to myself which I do, but I can't do that for more than 15-30 minutes a day, It just feels strange. Is anybody here willing to talk to me via the Internet? I haven't assessed my English proficiency for ages, but I guess it's around C2 level, maybe not quite there yet. It's hard to asses it myself right now.

You've got to be careful because they can you lock you up in a loony bin:)
Generally, what can I say? I'm not much of a language-teaching methodologist.
But I can be a perfect mixologist because I know how to serve a damn good Belushi cocktail. I'll bet nobody knows here what that means.
Now seriously, if it’s any consolation, in fact, you might not be someone who can consider himself in 'distress' here at all :)
I tell you what. There are a lot of people who 'deep down'(ha-ha) think their brains are unusually large in relation to their body size. What they don't know is that in fact this phenomenon is called macrocephaly and it's often the case that it comes with mental retardation.

Consider yourself lucky because you actually believe that in your case it's the other way around:)

>>Is anybody here willing to talk to me via the Internet?

Why don't you try those free conversation lessons via skype?
There are a lot of people from the US or UK there willing to shoot the breeze for free
google it

Just to round out our nice late Sunday chat with a pleasant note, let me throw in some thoughts about those mind restrictions and 'potential' things, ok :)
I know it doesn't apply to your linguistic problem in hand, at least directly, but since I'm a well known 'life coach' in the immediate virtual vicinity (self-proclaimed though to be truthful:), here is one particularly interesting phrase by Sigmund Freud I've run across recently.
It can be perfect food for thought for someone dealing with any kind of 'deep down my-sorry-ass problems':

"If you wake up one day and find that you only have one arm and one leg, then crawl with your one arm and one leg."

What a meaningful thought that is indeed!

It was nice talking to you
bailing out

Do you think total language immersion would help? By total I mean moving to an English speaking country and stop using Polish entirely for like a half a year or so. The shortervthevstay there the better but on the other hand I would like that "vacation" to have a meaningful effect on my language proficiency. There's another setback with that method. I'm learning the north American variety of English so ideally I would have to go to northern USA which would be both expensive and possibly not feasible due to VISA nonsense.

Sorry for some omission of the etc. I wrote those posts on a phone

you've got a serious problem, man

@Lepton

Yes, active and total immersion would definitely help, or it could help beacuse it still depends largely
on one's audiotory aptitude I guess, but not only that of course. Some people pick it up better and quicker than others and vice versa. It doesn't take a PhD in psycholinguistics to know that.
But you know that already. don't you?

What do you mean by 'not feasible'? Expensive, yes, but not 'unfeasible'.
'Unfeasible'(and dangerous) would be trying for a caucasian European male to cross the US border in the Rio Grande Valley with a bunch of so called unaccompanied alien minors from Honduras and El Salvador. I don't understand why you would have a problem getting a B1/B2 visa.
Well, unless you've already overstayed it once and were ordered a voluntary departure and messed with that either. Then you have a problem.

p.s. you obviously meant 'the longer the stay the better'
and remember, if you're entering the US on B1/B2 visa and you have the opportunity to stay there longer, you need to apply for a change of your nonimmigrant status with USCIS at least 60 days before your visa expires. Don't mess with them.

I'm still writing on my phone so please be tolerant of any misspellings or any other language errors that creep up when writing on a screen instead of comfortable mechanical keys which beg to be pressed... anyway, I actually meant what I wrote I would really want to do spend just enough time to push my English from that imaginary rut and really start to feel that my English is improving once again and not more than necessary unless I would meet someone there and have a fling. I consider that scenario very unlikely almost like a sigma 7 event. It's very different the other way around, it's trivial for polish woman to find a temporary boyfriend. They don' even need to speak English well because let's be honest they just want sex there are not seeking a deeper connection, well I'm and English speaking woman who want that don't even consider guys from eastern or central Europe as they consider as 2nd class citizens of the EU. I'll continue from my desktop PC writing something long on a phone is tedious. One more thing how would you asses my language skills? Be honest how bad my English really is
?

Just stay with us and help those who struggle. When one teaches, two learn.

>>When one teaches, two learn . . . and the fourth one messes around:)

>>One more thing how would you asses my language skills? Be honest how bad my English really is

Looks like you want to hear what you want to hear.
I didn't say it's bad. You've gotten sloppy in your last post but you know that already.
You'll be fine. I've seen worse.

Somehow I just can't write well on a phone, even tough it's a top on the line 5.2 incher it still can't replace good old keyboard connected to a computer with a big IPS monitor. On a phone I forget what I already wrote mid-sentence that's how I create little linguistic monstrosities. I don't know how some people manage to browse the internet on their phones as comfortably as they do on a desktop or rather a laptop since most people nowadays rarely even own desktops. Not only browse the internet but write forum posts, too. Tablets and laptops are quickly eclipsing "old clunky" desktops in usage. I've got everyone of those devices, all quite new and apart from the desktop and obviously the phone all the others are more or less gathering dust. Anyway back to the topic I'm wondering about if it wouldn't be better to take up another language instead of taking infinitesimal steps forward that can't even be noticed by anybody. All the low hanging fruit has long been picked. I'm wondering if achieving native-like proficiency is even worth it. In all probability I'm already at C2 level but I can't pass for a native speaker. My strongest suit is my vocabulary which is comparable to that of an educated native speaker barring slang terms. Speaking is a bit rough due to my accent, fluency is quite good and I don't limit myself to simple words and grammar. The thing I've got problems with are articles which I omit way too often. My reading comprehension is fine, definitely better than that of average native speaker which isn't really a big achievement. A read a study that concluded that a perplexing number of people don't understand what they read which is sad. A huge number of Brits have problems understanding passive voice. I can't find the exact study I only found this:
http://dahayden.com/2012/01/are-you-being-a-passive-voice-patsy/
In general, people don't understand what they read, be it English speakers or Polish speakers. :(

Jestes jakis dziwny Lepton

So I've been told but I'd rather be very mildly eccentric so at the very least you don't get easily bored when I'm around then to be one of those run-of-the-mill guys which are inherently boring and unadventurous but we're are getting off-topic here. BTW it's supposed to be an English only forum so stick to the target language and refrain from using any other languages here, besides how hard could it have been to write such a simple sentence that you wrote in English? On top of that your post was really redundant it literally brought nothing new to the discussion. For those who already managed to forget the purpose of the topic: it is about how to get past the point in the language acquisition that seems at fist insurmountable, because being stuck at the same point for over a year wasn't something you would expect, you would expect to get closer and closer to native-like proficiency.

You have to be born a native speaker to "get closer to native-like proficiency". You can't really get this?

Honestly? It is terrible. You should waste no more time here and go to improve it.

Why is it terrible? Terrible is such a very strong word indicating that I should be making mistake upon mistake and have vocabulary comprising of a couple of dozens of words. Maybe exceeding a hundred words. Would you care to elaborate why you think it is so terrible? You are very succinct in making such an unpleasant statement. Don't you think you should give some explanation? I'm asking because you are the first person I came across that has some kind of problem with my English. No one has ever complained about it before. My language proficiency never actually stood in the way of getting the message across. I've communicated what I want to just fine and I haven't heard any complaints from the people I'd been taking to. My English when used as a tool gets the job done, so why do you think it's so horrible? And if you actually read the whole topic you wouldn't have written what you did, because the whole point was that it was not improving.

There's definitely something wrong with my English I took a test, this one:

http://www.cambridgeenglish.org/test-your-english/

To be fair I only scored 23 points out of 25 which still places me at CPE level. Maybe it has something to do with BrE and AmE English? It took me less then 5 minutes to complete the test. They should show which answers I got wrong, maybe it all came down to BRE and AME differences.

I only needed to read the last sentence from your 1st post today to spot a mistake. 23 points? Weak. I do 25 in 1 minute with my eyes closed.

In the real life people aren't so obsessed with mistakes, people often omit articles when they write in a hurry. When I write on English technical forums people aren't so obsessed with minor mistakes. You, on the other hand wrote a few sentences that even an elementary student could have written. What an achievement! I'm so utterly impressed by your impeccable command of the English language.

You cannot go through life thinking that 'sloppy' use of any language is acceptable. It is not!!
The idea of this forum, is to show learners of the English language how to use the language as it was meant to be used. What people do in the privacy of their own homes is of no interest to me.
I just want people to have an idea of perfection, they of course, have a choice. But always remember this old saying:
'When an Englishman opens his mouth, I know everything about him'.

@Lepton
Then don't be so obsessed with it, have a look at your previous posts.

PS. When I said you are weird, I didnt mean "mysterious" or "eccentric", simply weird like some retarded person.

*Better not to write. Another mistake :P

Shut up. Write more than a single sentence or don't write at all.