Last Blog Post of 2023 - Watched a Lot of Netflix!

Yesterday morning, I tried to write a journal entry as I normally do on Saturdays, but I couldn’t think of anything to write about, so I gave up after only writing a few lines, and opted instead for watching some Netflix. I watched the first four episodes of the series “Grace and Frankie” and the movie “The Craigslist Killer.”

I’ve subscribed to Netflix for several years, so of course I’ve known that “Grace and Frankie” existed, but for some reason I haven’t gotten around to watching it until now. I started viewing it mainly for the purpose of learning colloquial English, thinking that it must be a light-hearted comedy series that’s easy enough for me to understand.

As it turned out, “Grace and Frankie” was a bit of a challenge for me - not only did the dialog contain many Americanisms that were too vernacular or location-specific, but it also introduced too many family members into the first few episodes, leaving me scrambling to keep track of who’s who, which I found very frustrating.

Having said that, Jane Fonda and Martin Sheen are great in this show. Fonda was 77 years old when it was first released, but she still looks energetic and youthful for her age. As for Sheen, this is the first time I’ve seen him play a gay character. His performances look genuine enough - he actually kisses his boyfriend character several times - and he doesn’t go over the top by portraying his gayness in a caricatured way, demonstrating his refined skill as an actor, and his fundamental respect for LGBTQ+ people, which is something I truly appreciate as a gay man.

The movie “The Craigslist Killer” is a made-for-television movie that was released in 2011, starring Jake McDorman, Agnes Bruckner, and William Baldwin. This is based on the true story of the serial killer Philip Markoff, who was a medical student in the Boston area when he committed his multiple crimes, including murders and robberies. Compared with “Grace and Frankie,” I found this movie much easier to follow, as the story was quite straightforward. It’s a film of decent enough quality, and an excellent material for me to study English with, so I’m quite happy I watched it.

After dinner, I went back to studying French, where I learned three pages’ worth of words from my French dictionary. As of now I’m about four percent in, so I’m definitely making good progress. Vocabulary constitutes a big part of what makes up a person’s proficiency in a foreign language, so I’m determined to keep learning until I reach the end of this dictionary.

No Illusions About Learning Vocabulary

This morning, quite miraculously, I was able to wake up early enough to write this journal entry. Although I know that I’ll get sleepy during the day, I’m still glad that I get to be a bit more productive this morning than usual. I’ve just poured myself a cup of decaf coffee to put my brain to working mode.

It’s been a few days since I started learning French vocabulary in earnest. This time, I’m using a French-Chinese dictionary to learn French words, though I didn’t buy it specifically for the purpose of learning both French and Chinese; rather, it’s because its Chinese translations are written in plain language that’s easy for me to understand, compared to other French-English or French-French dictionaries. 

I’m trying to learn words from this dictionary at the pace of three pages per day. Given that there are 765 pages in total, it will take me 255 days to finish learning all the entries in this dictionary. It’s roughly a year, assuming that I’ll take a break of two days out of each week. It certainly sounds like a daunting task, but I’m confident that I can accomplish it, given that I’ve done similar things in the past.

By the way, this time, I’m not using flash cards to memorize words the way I used to in the past. In fact, I’m not even trying to commit the entries to memory - instead, I simply pore over them meticulously and make sure I understand what each word means. I read through the same segment three times in total, twice on Day 1 and once on Day 2, to deepen my impression.

Aside from that, I pay close attention to how each word is pronounced. Whenever I’m not sure what a certain word sounds like, I immediately look it up in the dictionary or on the YouGlish website, and try to imitate it on my own. I’ve never tried this method in my previous vocabulary learning projects; it’s something that’s been made possible by modern technology, for which I’m immensely grateful.

I don’t hold any illusions about how quickly I can improve my French to a highly proficient level. Basic grammar and pronunciation can be learned in a relatively short period of time, but acquiring an extensive vocabulary is definitely a long-term undertaking, requiring months, if not years, of commitment. I strive to hold a realistic yet hopeful view and continue to tackle my daily learning tasks calmly and surely.

Watch This Video to Improve Your English!

Yesterday was Christmas Eve, and I had a quiet relaxing day, mostly spent at home. I woke up around 9 a.m., had a shower, and wrote a journal entry in English, which took me around two hours. As usual, I had my journal entry proofread by ChatGPT in both American and British English. Luckily, not so many errors were detected this time - I just made one glaring mistake involving the usage of a definite article near the end of my journal entry.

Once again, I noticed that my writing gets fewer corrections in British English than American, demonstrating that my written English is more closely aligned with the former compared to the latter. I honestly don’t know why it’s the case, because since I was very young I’ve always preferred American English, mainly due to the way it sounds and my general feeling of adoration for American pop culture, such as music and movies.

To this day, I still think that the U.S. has the coolest and most cutting-edge culture in the world, despite its numerous problems like gun violence and drug addiction. The good thing is, with the high-speed Internet and streaming services like Netflix and Spotify, there is more than enough American content that I can enjoy here in Singapore without visiting the States.

Given the recent strong exchange rate of the US Dollar, it’s gotten considerably more expensive to travel to America. I think I can make do with virtually enjoying American culture through streaming services for the time being.

Speaking of American English, last night I watched the YouTube interview of a Japanese woman called Hana who currently resides on the East Coast of the U.S. with her American husband. What’s remarkable about Hana is that she speaks English with native fluency with no accent, despite being born and raised in Japan. I actually mentioned this video in my previous blog entry, but it's definitely worth revisiting, so please indulge me:

In the interview, she talks about her experience of growing up in the countryside where there are very few foreigners around. She studied English through virtual means, such as watching American shows with English subtitles and posting her writings on language-exchange websites to have them amended and learn from her mistakes. 

Whenever she came across words that she didn’t know, she would stop the video, look them up in the dictionary, and then resume watching. She also mentions that she talked to herself a lot to improve her ability to speak English.

That certainly sounds like a lot of work, but she somehow persisted in her efforts and eventually became fluent in English. Chika, the interviewer, who is herself bilingual in English and Japanese, remarked that Hana’s English sounds more native-like than hers in the sense that she uses expressions that only Americans would know, showcasing her in-depth knowledge of vernacular American speech.

Hana responded that it might be due to the enormous amounts of YouTube that she watches daily. She constantly incorporates new expressions into her knowledge and tries them out at the earliest opportunity she gets.

There are definitely a thing or two that I can learn from her experiences in studying English. It’s just the question of whether to put them into practice to give my English that extra boost it needs to elevate it to a new level.

My Language Learning Strategy, Explained

Yesterday, I had a very relaxing Saturday, which gave me ample opportunity to plot out the strategy for learning French to an advanced level. Depending on your level of proficiency, you should focus on different aspects of language learning, which I summarize as the following:

At the beginner’s level, you should focus on the three main pillars that constitute the foundation of your language skills, which are grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. A beginner’s textbook with audio clips is an ideal material for learning the basics. Grammar and pronunciation are particularly important at this stage - for grammar, you can train your skills through a few grammar drills books; as for pronunciation, repeating words and sentences several times with the help of an IC recorder is key.

At the intermediate level, the three main pillars previously mentioned are still important, but the emphasis will gradually shift to building up a robust vocabulary. There are only so many words that you can learn from a beginner’s textbook, so you need to make a deliberate effort to learn and memorize words from vocabulary lists and dictionaries. You can begin with a basic vocabulary list with 1,000 words or so - it’s important that the quantity is small enough for you to learn within a month or two, lest you get fatigued and burn out before you finish the list.

When you’re done with the first vocabulary book, you can progress onto something more advanced, but once again, you shouldn’t overestimate your learning capacity. You should find a compact-sized dictionary for intermediate learners that can be handled within a few months. Apart from normal dictionaries, you can also study dictionaries of slang and idioms, depending on your needs.

By the way, when it comes to memorizing words, I used to be a stickler for creating flashcards, either by hand or by computer software. However, over the past few years, I’ve become more neutral about the use of flashcards, and I no longer view it as a must for vocabulary building. 

Using flashcards for memorization can indeed be very effective, but it’s also extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive. If you’d rather avoid that cumbersome process, it’s perfectly fine if you just read through the dictionary and pore over the entries meticulously. Regardless of which method you use, the key to success is repetition, so you should go over the same entries multiple times before moving on to the next chunk of words.

As you progress from the intermediate to advanced level, your daily consumption of native content, such as novels, shows, and movies in your target language, should gradually increase. When you have acquired a large enough vocabulary, you should be able to read books without constantly reaching for the dictionary. You should definitely read extensively to get the feel of how the language is actually used by native speakers.

In addition to enjoying native content, at the advanced level, you should start practicing to express yourself in your target language, whether it is in spoken words or written form. The way things stand now, with the advent of ChatGPT, I believe that practicing to write is much more effective than practicing to speak, in the sense that the former is easier to proofread and correct than the latter, and you can therefore learn from your mistakes in a much more reliable and straightforward manner.

If you want to progress from C1 to C2 level as per the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), this practice of expressing yourself in your target language is crucial. However, having said that, this is a significant undertaking that requires years of practice, so it’s definitely not a must for everyone.

In my own case, I’m not aiming for fluency in the French language, so I’ll probably skip the final step. I’d be very content if I could read books and watch movies in French. Now, enough talk and strategizing. It’s time to get down to brass tacks of studying the language of Rousseau.

Ready to Learn French Vocabulary!

For the past few months, I’ve been learning French from a grammar-based textbook that I bought in Japan in September. I’ve been using it to primarily brush up on my grammar, but since it comes with downloadable audio clips, I’ve been practicing pronunciation with it, too. It took me a long while, but I’m finally approaching the end of this textbook, and am ready to do something new to bring my French up to a new level.

Based on my experience of learning several foreign languages, at beginner-to-intermediate levels, your focus should be on studying grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Now that I have covered grammar and pronunciation with my current textbook, the next logical step for me is to study vocabulary, so one of these days, I’m thinking of buying a simple dictionary with which to learn numerous new words and phrases in French.

My method of studying vocabulary is relatively simple - just open the dictionary, copy the words onto flashcards, and memorize them. Unlike what’s suggested by the latest linguistic theories on second language acquisition, typically, I don’t try to learn words in context, but rather opt for learning them mechanically in alphabetical order, covering the dictionary from beginning to end.

While I understand that this might not be the most scientific and efficient method, I can vouch for its efficacy to a certain extent, not least because this is how I built up the bulk of my vocabulary in English during my freshman and sophomore years in college. By the end of the second year, my vocabulary had grown robust enough for me to read through English-language novels without feeling the urge to reach for the dictionary.

My current goal is to become able to read French novels and understand French movies with French subtitles. I don’t aim to become fluent in spoken French yet, as it’s going to be a significant undertaking in its own right, requiring years of practice.

By the way, I don’t have a specific time frame as to how long I want to keep up my studies of French before learning another language. I guess the simple answer would be that I’ll keep learning French until I get completely fatigued, which is normally a good sign that I should switch to something else. The same goes for my English studies.