1)I find the whole "cach xung ho" thing really dificult. It's not that I don't know who to address by what term anh, em, chi, di, chu, con, tao, may etc, for the most part I do. The problem is that most of my speaking has been with girlfriends and i'm very used to referring to myself as Anh. So when I start a conversation with an older woman and address her as Chi and myself as Em, it all starts out fine but i find myself calling her Em and me Anh and back and forth later in the conversation.
2) I also have a difficult time using a lot of the particles like nha, nhi, the, vay, a, thua, etc. When i'm listening i sometimes hear them and it seems clear as a bell, but when i say the same sentence i often omit them. Other times i'm listening and those particles confuse the meaning of the sentence to me.
Any ideas on how to work on these? Obviously just pushing myself to get out there and tiep xuc voi ng viet as much as possible would help, but any ideas that i can use to practice/drill on my own?