Before, I didn’t like to use an English-Japanese dictionary when I read in public. I thought it wasn’t cool. Now I use it and I am happy to do it because I am doing something good for me. It’s much faster if I read books without a dictionary by guessing the meaning of words that I don’t know. However, my purpose of reading is a bit different now from what it used to be: enjoying stories, getting inspired, AND learning English even further and deeper.
When I read books, I try to learn how authors use words. I used to use an English-Japanese dictionary because it’s much easier to understand what words mean. But I switched it to an English dictionary. I have known for a long time that it’s better for you. It takes me longer and more effort to read a book that way, but I have to learn and know how words are applied in sentences. That’s why I have to know meanings in English. If I learned the meanings of words in Japanese, I can’t use them in English sentences. It takes me much longer to read a book now. I check all words I don’t know. I don’t get frustrated because I know it’s good for me.
When you learn and master a language, you should not translate the language from your mother language and vice versa. It is said that you have mastered the language when you start dreaming in the language. Most of the times I think in English: I have done this for 16 years now. I have a hard time with translating sentences, especially from English to Japanese. It’s easier to translate just words. But for sentences, I am afraid that some feelings may get lost during translations.
It’s like having a switch in my head: turn on English and turn on Japanese. When I was invited to gatherings of Japanese women living here in the U.S., I felt like the switch in my head was turned on to the Japanese mode. It happens automatically. Then, not only I started speaking in Japanese, but also I started acting a bit more Japanese, although they think I am quite different. When I walked out of the gatherings, my head got tuned to the English mode.
Since I changed the purpose of reading and started using an English dictionary, I can tell the way I write changed also. It was definitely worth the effort. Like a diet, when you study a language, you can tell you are progressing so much in the beginning but it stagnates at a certain level. That’s the frustrating point. But if you keep making efforts, you see a big leap again.
I definitely enjoy learning different languages. Especially, when I speak to people from different countries in their languages, even if it is just greetings, it lowers a wall of cultural difference. Just by recognizing their languages, it brings us closer. I will keep reading with my English dictionary no matter how long it takes me to finish a book. It’s important for me, especially because I started using English more now for blogging and writing. I want to use the language so as to create my art of writing as if I were painting a picture on a canvas.
