Do you remember back when we were kids? We would get those sheets of paper at the beginning of each school year which would tell us which supplies we needed. The first year I took French in middle school on that list was an French-English dictionary. I could probably walk over to the dusty bookshelf in our study and still find that very same book, undisturbed for years. When I first got it, I flipped through the pages, scanning, glancing at random words that caught my eye. That’s probably the closest I’ve gotten to actually using it.
I was always terrible at Chinese school. Back then I had this red Chinese-English dictionary, towards the end of it’s use the cardboard on the spine was well on its way to separating from the mesh that kept the pages glued together. Every week we would learn something like ten or twenty new vocab words which I would cram for and then promptly forget the next week. In addition to the weekly quizzes, there was always a reading passage that the teacher would make us read outloud in class, every student would get a sentence or two. To hide my illiteracy, each week I would go through the new passage and look up every single word. In the small space above each character I would write in the pīnyīn that was my crutch. Sometimes I think if instead of spending all that time on faking my literacy, I spent it on learning Chinese, I would probably be able to read the chinese menu in Chinatown by now. I did this for nine years.
Enough about the past. I’ve been thinking about dictionaries recently, or more specifically words. I’ve started prepping for the GRE (which is “the SAT for graduate school”) this past week, out of fear of the future (dun dunn dunnn). What immediately became clear after taking a practice test was that they use some seriously fancy vocabulary. Words like
Gossamer (adj.) - Characterized by unusual lightness and delicacy
Parsimonious (adj.) - Unwillingness to spend money or use resources
both of which I learned through GRE flashcard decks. Suddenly, I realized that I knew a lot less English than I thought I did.
During this time I was also finishing up Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (which I highly recommend), and I found that there were unfamiliar words that cropped up in that text. That got me thinking, how much vocabulary do I gloss over on a daily basis? Have I gotten comfortable with thinking that just because I’m a native speaker I no longer needed to look up words? That I could understand their nuance through pure context? That leads me to synonyms. How do you tell the difference between
Upbraid (verb) - find fault with (someone); scold
Lambast (verb) - criticize (someone or something) harshly
Castigate (verb) - reprimand (someone) severely
Because they’re so rarely used, I’ve never gotten the exposure needed to understand the subtlety between the three.
On the other side of the spectrum, my flashcards have enlightened me to the fact that there are words that I have been misusing and misinterpreting my entire life. I always thought that ambivalent meant that you didn’t care:
Ambivalent (adj.) - having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.
I also thought that being disinterested meant that you didn’t care:
Disinterested (adj.) - not influenced by considerations of personal advantage.
In addition to beefing up my english vocabulary I’ve also started reading Polar Bear Cafe (しろくまカフェ) which is a manga about Panda (and his friends) who are regular customers at the Polar Bear cafe (I recommend the anime).I’ve been spending a lot of time looking up Japanese words I don’t know. But it’s so rewarding in those moments when I read an entire page or two without having to reach for my phone.
I mean who isn’t?
I’ve been using a product called WaniKani for the past few months to learn kanji, and it’s working out pretty well. I’m at 715 kanji learned as of this blog post. I also super recommend this for anyone who has tried to pick up Kanji and then slid down the slippery slope of not doing it daily. After finishing their curriculum, which would put me around 2000 kanji, I’m going to work on actually learning Chinese this time around.
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