Learn English – Word for unused in a while

synonymsword-request

I'm looking for a word which can fit the gap in the sentence:

"My french is a little bit ______ since I haven't used it in a while"

I came up with poor but hopefully there's a more appropriate word.

Best Answer

Make no mistake about it, by far the most idiomatic way to say that is with the word rusty:

(of knowledge or a skill) impaired by lack of recent practice

Something that's rusty has been affected by rust. This is just like a piece of metal that has been lying around your backyard unused for a long time. And what happens to metal when it's under constant exposure to the atmosphere? It gets covered with rust. The same thing can happen to your language skills if you haven't been practicing them for a while—they might get rusty.

Examples:

My French is a little bit rusty since I haven't been using it for a while.

My Spanish is a bit rusty these days because where I live there is nobody to practice speaking it with.

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