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.