I'm now learning Mandarin Chinese and since it reached enough level (should be HSK 6 level on reading), I started to practice writing.
However, in so many cases I could not come up with words, especially more complicated words (in the case of Chinese, especially chengyu (成语)). Thus, my sentences consist of simple words and look a bit uneducated. For example, I tend to write the former while the latter looks better:
在日本很多女人对男人要求太高了,所以很多男生不能结婚。
在日本女人对男人有好高骛远的要求是比比皆是,导致大部分年轻男人不敢结婚。
The former sentence is full of simple words, and my writing teacher asked me to use more words that are appropriate for writing and on the context, with more difficult words (especially in Chinese, the use of words between speaking and writing is different, and I tend to use too much of "speaking words - 口语话).
Actually I had the same problem when learning English, and my English is still full of simple words, at least my vocabulary on writing is not as rich as the vocabulary I see while reading. I could not come up with words, so typically I tend to use too much of "good", "quite", etc... instead of "tremendous", "supreme", etc...
Another problem is the repetition of words, and I should use different words to avoid it.
So how can I make myself avoid the trap of using too much of these simple words and come up with words while writing (except "studying more")? I have no problem of vocaburaly level as I understand the meaning of these relatively difficult words while reading. It is just that I cannot come up with while writing...
(And I just found out that I use too much of "use", where "abuse" would fit better...)