On September 11, I finally finished learning French vocabulary from my Larousse French-Chinese dictionary, after about a year and nine months. I’ve been learning French off and on since 2003, but compared to my English and Chinese, my French lags far behind in overall proficiency, both in comprehension and in speaking and writing skills.
Based on my estimate, I have learned about 15,000 words in total from this dictionary. I can feel that my listening comprehension has substantially improved—notably, I can now understand about 80 percent of the newscasts on France 2, the state broadcaster. That’s a big change compared to before, when I could only understand about 50 percent.
Consciously studying vocabulary is definitely an effective method to improve your proficiency in a foreign language, so I’m really glad that I have gone through this painstaking journey of studying an entire dictionary. However, now that I’ve finished this process, I feel that my method hasn’t been particularly efficient—at least for the first four-fifths of this project.
First, I didn’t use a spaced repetition system when reviewing the words I’d learned. I reviewed only those dating back to ten days and not beyond, causing me to forget more than half of the items after a couple of weeks. Second, for most of this learning project, I looked up every single word and phrase that appeared in the pages I studied, making me conflate important items with unimportant ones.
As a result, I wasn’t able to retain most of the words I’d learned in my long-term memory. The loss was so extensive that I’ve decided to study another dictionary to make up for it. This time, I’ve decided to learn French words using my French-Japanese dictionary, also compiled by Larousse.
What makes this new project different from the old one is that I use the Anki flashcarding app from the beginning, enabling me to review the words following its spaced repetition algorithm. I review every item at least seven times—spread out at increasing intervals over 30 days—to help it stick to my memory. This is much longer than my previous limit of 10 days.
Also—perhaps more importantly—this time I’m much more discriminating in deciding which words to learn and which to ignore, so as not to overcrowd my limited memory space. Specifically, I’ve made it a rule to study no more than one word on every page of this dictionary, forcing me to learn only the most essential words appearing with high frequency in spoken and written French.
This highly selective approach will enable me not only to focus on important words, but also to progress much quicker in the dictionary, boosting my motivation to keep studying. Though I’ve only been working on this new dictionary for 17 days, I’ve already covered more than 6 percent of the total, indicating that I can cover the entire volume in a little over nine months—much faster than my previous learning project lasting 21 months.
Besides its spaced repetition system, another beauty of the Anki app is that it allows to embed audio and picture files in each flashcard. Instead of creating a flashcard for a headword in isolation, I create one with a whole sentence containing that word, embedded with a corresponding audio file generated with the ElevenLabs app. With this new method, I can make sure to memorize words with the correct pronunciation.
When I started learning French vocabulary in earnest, my goal was to become a fluent reader in French, not a fluent speaker. However, recently I’ve begun to think that being able to speak the language fluently can definitely facilitate the growth of your vocabulary, so you can’t just focus on one aspect of language learning and overlook the other. Practicing pronunciation while learning words is vital for effectively improving your comprehension skills, and I’m grateful to modern technology for making that possible.
I don’t know how much longer I’ll keep studying French—perhaps indefinitely, as long as my interest in this language persists. I’m fully aware that becoming good at French will serve no professional purpose for me, unlike English or Chinese. However, understanding this beautiful language and appreciating the culture behind it can enrich my life in ways that can’t be measured in dollars and cents. To achieve this goal, I’ll keep learning French words with diligence, dedication, and determination.
No comments:
Post a Comment