French books, blue Collins French dictionary, and stationery on white desk

This article is the seventh in the Subject Guides series, which gives detailed advice on how to study and score well for specific subjects. It contains edited excerpts from Chapter 4 of the book “How I Study”.

General Paper (GP) Subject Guide
Mathematics Subject Guide
Biology Subject Guide
Chemistry Subject Guide
China Studies in Chinese (CSC) Subject Guide
Economics Subject Guide
Third Language Subject Guide
University Admissions Tests Preparation Guide

At the start of secondary school, many of us are offered the opportunity to take up a third language at the MOE Language Centre (MOELC). It’s indeed not easy to learn a new language on top of the seven or eight other core subjects we have to tackle.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the quitting rate is high, and few persist till the fourth year. As someone who took French all the way to the O Levels and enjoyed it immensely, I feel that this does not have to be so. Knowing the tips and tools that you can tap on will make learning a third language not only manageable, but also endlessly fun and rewarding.

Keep Pace With Your Lessons and Homework

I’ve deliberately added this most obvious point as the first, to underscore just how important it is. In the very beginning, things will be exciting (I can now introduce myself in French!). But as new vocabulary start to pile up and complex grammatical rules threaten to unravel your brain, you must commit to consistency.

Finish and turn in every piece of homework on time. If you find yourself struggling to follow during a particular lesson, it’s completely normal. But also take it as a sign that you should put in a bit more work after the lesson that week to ensure that you’re on track.

Work on Vocabulary and Grammar

There’s no shortcut to this. One word: Memorise. Memorise tons of vocabulary. Memorise all the grammar rules and exceptions. There are, however, ways in which you can boost the efficiency and effectiveness of your learning:

  • Use flashcards. In learning a new language, flashcards are a must-have. It’s so easy to create word-translation flashcards for all your new vocabulary. After creating the cards, review them regularly. (I used Brainscape, but any flashcard app should work just fine. Quizlet and Anki are other popular choices.)
  • Have a word bank. This can be in the form of a notebook or a digital document. Note down every new word you encounter that’s not part of the given notes. (What I did, for efficiency, was simply to add the word as a new flashcard to my study decks. I literally had decks named “Huge Pile of Nouns”, “Huge Pile of Verbs” etc.)
  • Practice. Retention is vastly increased when you use what you’ve learnt. Telling a simple story with newly learnt vocabulary, crafting a sentence with a new tense you just learnt—all of these help to solidify the new vocabulary and grammar, making it “your own”.

Read, Write, Listen, Speak (and Watch!)

Chinese was my first language. I didn’t start learning English until I was six. Yet it wasn’t long before my proficiency in English outstripped that in Chinese. Other than a variety of factors (pure diligence, a voracious reading habit etc), one of the main reasons my English improved at such a dramatic speed was that I used it daily.

When learning a foreign language in an institutional setting, you simply don’t get that. Taking the MOELC weekly three-hour lessons alone, your exposure to the language is scant.

It’s so important to immerse yourself in the language. To compensate for this crucial lacking factor, here’s a comprehensive list of ideas for each component:

Read

  • Read children’s books. In my first year of learning French, I went to the MOELC library and checked out these amazing French picture books. I took note of the syntax and went over all the words I didn’t know. You can progress to higher-level books over time. Books that have been translated to English are very useful as well e.g. The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) for French.
  • Download a news app. This is good extra reading, especially as you become a more advanced learner. Of course, you may not know every word, but with a dictionary in hand, you’ll be well-poised to understand the article. It also helps you to see how the sentences are written.
  • Download a dictionary app. This is for convenience because you’ll find yourself needing to search up words a lot. Just search online for a good dictionary for your language. You should not be using Google Translate.

Write

  • Take school assignments seriously. You will most likely be given writing tasks. Be they in-class or take-home assignments, make the most out of them. Be bold; try new expressions that you’ve just learnt, and construct more complex sentences with varied grammatical calisthenics. Do it even when you’re slightly unsure; that’s the wonderful thing about these assignments—your teacher will correct them for you.
  • Keep a diary. In my fourth year, I started a document in which I tried to write a bit about my day, in French. I didn’t manage to keep it up for long, but I think it’s a really fun way to practise your writing! The one shortcoming of this approach is that you may not know for certain if your expressions are grammatically sound.

Listen

  • Find audiobooks and podcasts. Search for these online! Try to look for those that match your current level. When listening to the audio, you can play it at a slower speed, and gradually increase the speed to normal.

Speak

  • Talk to yourself. Especially in the beginning when your speech is still embarrassingly choppy, it can be good to practise by talking to yourself. Use a voice recorder to record yourself, then listen to the audio. Check your pronunciation, accuracy of expressions and fluency. (This is, by the way, how I prepared for my French oral exams.)
  • Find a classmate. Of course, it can be very helpful to converse with someone. If you’re learning as part of a class, it’s a great chance to start chatting with a friend in the language that you’re learning. Try to correct each other’s mistakes, if you can. You can even go the extra mile and arrange a weekly phone call or Skype session to practise speaking.
  • Find a native speaker. This is the best but also most difficult-to-arrange option. There’s nothing like conversing with a native speaker that helps to instantly catch your mistakes and perfect your pronunciation. There are online communities out there through which you can find an online language exchange partner. There’s even an app, Tandem, which does this. (Disclaimer: I came across this free app while studying French, but have never tried it personally. Do let me know if it works for you!)

(Watch!)

  • Learn through movies and TV shows. In the weeks leading up to my French O Levels, my dad made us all watch French movies during our weekend “family night” under the pretext of “preparing for the French exam”. My friends who take external lessons for Korean improve dramatically by watching their favourite Korean dramas. Try to see if you can catch certain phrases and understand them without depending on the subtitles.

Bonus: Multimedia Resources for Learning French

The amazing thing about learning a foreign language is the wealth of multimedia resources you can tap on. Here’s a list of additional resources I personally found either useful or fun when taking French:

For any other language, just google “(whatever language) learning resources”. I’m sure you can find interesting stuff on YouTube for just about any language as well.

Have a question? Leave a comment below or drop me a message anytime. Don’t forget to check out the other articles in the Subject Guides series too.