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.