Focusing on Indonesian Vocabulary

Hi everyone,

Today is a public holiday in Singapore, so I don’t have to go to work. Unfortunately, yesterday, I got a cold from one of my colleagues, and am still feeling a bit out of sorts, so in the morning I stayed in bed a bit longer compared to a normal public holiday. I’ve watched a few YouTube videos featuring Nikuyo Nikunokoji, my favorite Japanese drag queen, before finally getting out of bed. I’ve just taken a pill of Panadol for my cold, hoping to feel better soon.

Last night after work, I went to The Coffee Bean yet again to study Indonesian. As usual, I made around 30 flashcards with Indonesian words with the aid of ChatGPT and memorized them on the spot.

Through my decades of experience of learning foreign languages, I am convinced that building up your vocabulary is crucial to developing your fluency and comprehension in a language, so I am right to be focusing on vocabulary at this stage. Since I am learning Indonesian from a beginner’s textbook with an audio CD, I can also learn grammar and pronunciation along the way.

Based on my estimate, I need to learn around 10,000 words to be able to understand Indonesian books and movies. So, at the rate of 25 words a day, I need to continue learning for 400 days, which is a bit over a year. This might sound like a daunting task to some people, but I don’t think it’s too difficult to achieve, especially in comparison with such languages as English and Japanese, which literally take ages to learn.

Yesterday, I cooked Japanese curry and rice for dinner with a Hotcook, an automatic cooker manufactured by Sharp. As usual, the dish turned out quite good. Since I cooked a lot, I divided it up into a few days’ portions and put them in the freezer, so I can take out a portion and reheat it whenever I’m too busy or lazy to cook dinner.