IMPROVING ENGLISH VOCABULARY IN A PRACTICAL AND SMART WAY ✿

I came with a marvelous idea for using anki to improve my english vocabulary. I didn’t a lot of books when I was in school and I regret it because I had time and reading is so good for you. Because I’m so aware and critical of my english abilities from spending a majority of my time in Japanese I’ve been proactive with English. If I come across a word that’s unknown to me I look it up whether it’s from the internet or books. I’ve been using my iphone’s merriam webster application for that. It allows me to star words and browse “history” where it shows all the words I looked up (it’s pretty long so I don’t know if it keeps all of it or up to a certain extent. I never bothered scrolling all the way down that). It bothered me that this application doesn’t have an export feature where you can export all the words you starred or looked up so that you’d have a very relevant and possibly familiar vocabulary list (some of the words are SO rare or specific with the definition i really doubt i’ll come across it again). I finally had an epiphany on how to use it to expand my english vocabulary EFFECTIVELY. One of my reasons I was discouraged from using anki to learn english vocabulary was that I didn’t want to add every english word that I don’t know that I come across because it gets inefficient because some of these words may not be worth putting in my deck bcause it’s too common (and I didn’t realize yet somehow since I spend most of my time in japnaese) or it’s too rare (as in useless but you know knowledge is power. perhaps not but for my purposes I would like to learn the most USEFUL frequent difficult english words that I dont’ know). For Japanese i pretty much do this where i put almost all words i don’t know in my deck or i put in que to add to my deck (que has been collecting a lot of dust). I can’t do this to myself for english because it’s my NATIVE LANGUAGE. My motivation for proactively learning english words is so that I can enjoy what I read more easily (for some things there’s words that come up that i don’t know and then when i look it up i think it’s so useful but somehow i don’t know it and i couldn’t have guessed the meanign, decrease word look-up, keep up with poeple my age (I’ve read those stories of people who were completely fluent and articulate and then went to a foreign country and could not speak fluently anymore after a few years because they have no one to talk to… and i’m sure because they don’t come into contact with their native language their vocabulary grown as much as other people their age in their home country), and so i dont’ look like a fool lol. I also like being productive and achieving things. I want to grow. I can’t imagine a year or 2 years passing and have nothing to show for myself. I’m talking about those people that play games on ipad and facebook all day when they could be accomplishing real shit like learning languages, reading books. ALSO I HAD concerns about the reading method for learning words. I recently had several instances where I saw the “unknown” word in the sentence and realized it’s actually familiar and that I’ve looked it up in the past (more than once or twice sometimes) and I had this new context in this sentence and I could not for the love of god remember the definition even vaguely. all i could remember is that the word doesn’t sound like what it means and I remember looking it up multiple times before and I remember feeling satisfied withthe definition in the sense thta after havingread the definition I thought the choice of the word was perfect. I know people say you’ll pick it up from context and seeing it multiple times but here i am looking at a word i ‘ve seen in context at least 2 times in the past and looked up 2 times in the past and it’s staring at me and it’s familiar but the DEFINITION does not come to me. i read the definition again and it’s as if i’ve never read it lol or i go oh yeah it DOES NOT sound like what it means. some words they don’t sound like what they mean at all or even opposite. sometimes the word sounds harsh or soft or something so i have something to go on to have it be memorable. so anyways this happened to be several times with several words and it made me think wow so much wasted effort.

anyways the EPIPHANY. maybe it’s not superb enough to call it an epiphany but in case someone else finds it helpful i wanted to share.

I found the perfect way to achieve my goals while addressing my concerns. the solution is use anki and use the MCD format where you blank out a part of the word or definition or both and then put what goes in the blank on the back of the card

EXAMPLE ( i KNOW THIS WORD, don’t worry. i learned it years ago)

FRONT: MELANCHOLY
depres____ of spirits : DEJECTION

===========================

BACK: sion

I can do whatever format i want to do on the front depending on the word. for example i might put the sentence on the front as well. but the format always HAS to include the DEFINITION on the front otherwise it’s pointless. it fixes the problem i juts mentioend above about wasting effort where i can only remember the word vaguely but cannot recall the definition whatsoever despite multiple look-ups in the psat. It’s up to me how i’ll tailor the format for a certain word.

the second rule is that the word that I put in my anki deck has to be “useful” or “easy to remembeR” (sounds like what it means etc). I either come across a word that satisfies one of those criteria and keep it in mind or write it down and then add it later or scroll through my m-w history and starred words (like I have to be strict with adding the useful and easy to remember words. there’s so many words there so i feel like I want to know all these so i’m smarter but clearly it’s counter-intuitive to add all those words unless they all happen to fit my criteria. some of them SO OBSCURE). It’s such a relief that my countless look-ups aren’t completely for nil. one way to satisfy the criteria of “useful” is multiple look-ups with the word or familiarity with the word only and none with the definition like I mentioned before. I’ll give you one of those words. it was AUSTERE. here’s the long entry on m-w

1 a : stern and cold in appearance or manner b : SOMBER, GRAVE
2 : morally strict : ASCETIC
3 : markedly simple or unadorned
4 : giving little or no scope for pleasure
5 of a wine : having the flavor of acid or tannin predominant over fruit flavors usually indicating a capacity for aging
synonyms see SEVERE

btw for the card i used concise dictionary. both of these dictionaries are on lingoes (google and download if interested in an internet free dictionary though i’ sure everyone is connected 24/7 nowadays) for me.

to me austere sounds like something FANCY, chic or something that has to do with trees or nature. so every time i looked it up the definition did not match what it sounds like to me so the disparity stood out to me but I could never remember the definition. with this card format i can remember it somewhat effortlessly. i have to put in the effort of anki but at least the format isn’t painful and USELESS like front; word, back: definition. that’s the worst format for me personally lol.. i know that’s the DEFAULT if not the ONLY format for index cards for those kids in high school that are like helpless sheep that follow all the bs of shitty study methods. nonetheless that’s just my opinion so feel free to disregard it! I’m very excited to see how this will work out and I will update on it if it explodes in my face somehow.

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MY NEXT ENTRY will be on learnig korean and something I watched recently on korean. Sometimes I don’t have that spark or interest with watching shows but once in a while I get really excited about watching a show and i actually enjoyed watching almost every minute of the show. those are the best when you have your craving, you “digest it” and it’s just as good as you anticipated it to be if not better. what happened was i didn’t feel like watching even though i downloaded a shitton load of japanese tv and i have so many bookmarks to youtube videos, more japanese tv shows, korean shows , and i hvae my american shows on the streaming etc…. then i found about an episode of a korean show and i thought i HAVE TO watch it so i tracked down the file and got it and watched it. it satiated me lol. I also added a bunch of words to my deck but my comprehension good nonetheless 🙂

I’m on a writing roll.

I’m not referring to my previous 2 posts or the one that I’m going to post after this one. I’m talking about something else that I’m writing that I will probably never post anywhere. I wanted to address cries of “omg I want improve my writing but I have nothing to write about” OR “I’m going to improve my writing this year and write one lang-8 entry a week/day/month.” I sneer at all the people who write something along these lines on the internet. 90% of these people will most likely write 0 lang-8 entries after that or 1. I’m dead serious. The “I have nothing to write about” is clearly a first world problem.

Recently I’ve been writing and I will not reveal what the topic was but it’s unpleasant. It’s relevant to me and it is an issue in my life so I have more than enough motivation to write about it. Before I never thought to write it down because I want forget it and not dwell on it and “waste my time” on it since there’s other stuff I’d rather be doing. For some reason this time around I feel like writing about it and keeping track of facts or at least my accounts (there’s always bias). It’s not completely enjoyable but I was able to write a lot and I have a lot to write on it and add to what I wrote later on. My logic is that I don’t want to trouble my brain to remember all these memories and I have a fear that I’ll forget these memories in the future. I think I should write it down so that I have no worries of forgetting memories. some memories are fleeting so that memory won’t play in my head for a long time but then I still remember years later. There isn’t much reason or trigger for me to remember most of “these” memories so it’s only natural I’ll hopefully eventually forget them. Also putting all the memories down will hopefully allow me to organize them chronologically, make connections, recognize patterns so that I can come to a clean-cut decision/reflection. I’ve been vacillating on how I feel about it or what the actual issue is or if one even exists.

Going back to those issues I don’t see the point of forcing yourself to write whether it’s writing every week or making yourself write about some topic. I’m only “motivated” to write about what I wrote about because it’s relevant to my life. The reason is it’s not going to continue because you’re not really interested. It’s akin to what I do for comprehension and learning grammar which is watching entertaining, hilarious media or read books by wonderful and talented authors (btw some of the critically acclaimed Japanese writers do suck and aren’t compatible with me. REMEMBER to be picky). because it’s enjoyable. there’s no” I have to watch it for 30 minutes otherwise I’ll forget my Japanese grammar.” I’m just enjoying watching whtaever and being proactive while watching by looking up stuff (it doesn’t have to be everything). I do it because i find it fascinating and entertained by it. First and foremost reason for doing something in Japanese is that it’s FUN, the second reason is “it’s in Japanese so it’ll help me learn it or maintain it.” Don’t get the order backwards. there’s way too much media to be settling and wasting your time and subjecting yourself to misery.

hmm so enjoyable writing. so for the example I wrote isn’t enjoyable completely. It gives me catharsis so I am able to continue writing. It’s relevant to me so I hold interest. Please don’t waste your time practice writing about some article no one reads or remembers for improving on your Japanese. focus on why you want to improve your writing skills. what are you going to do especially on a daily basis. I’m not the type of person who is into diaries. An entry a a day, a week is too much commitment. however if you’re one of those people who enjoys the activity of writing diaries greatly and want to do it in the your target language then it might work out. however for me that will never work so i don’t even try and my life is so boring anyway . I love hearing about other people’s lives especially people who are well-accomplished, famous, hard-working, good-looking, or all of the above. If you evaluate your situation and realize there isn’t really a need/practical reason in your life for writing (you like doing other stuff more or you were never into it or you can’t come up with any topic that interests you or is relevant to you to the point of writing about it or if you’re level is too low) then accept it and focus on understanding the language especially if you don’t even understand daily conversational language. honestly i think it’s pointless writing if you don’t even understand conversation level Japanese/your target language. Conversational Japanese is pretty easy and seems simple but watching it and speaking it are 2 different things. there’s a lot of tools in your toolbox from mastering comprehension of daily conversation Japanese. it takes practice to really know how to use your tools and when to use each of them. I honestly will admit that I understand Japanese really well like usually 95% -100% or something like that depending on the audio quality, the people who are talking (some people don’t talk clearly. it’s not my fault, it’s their fault) but I dont’ think have a good command of Japanese with speaking or writing (speaking> writing though). I know I can definitely get across the main point in Japanese even if it’s not completely correct I know the person will understand what I’m trying to say. i don’t really have a strong desire to work on it. I writ elang-8 entries sporadically because randomly I really want to write about something and I felt like writing about it in Japanese and english. then when i get to writing it it’s frustrating and i can’t remember words or I’m trapped by grammar (I know what I want to express but grammatically i have to wrestle and ponder about certain things and I don’t want to compromise by simplifying how I want to express it or  summarizing the content). I have high standards on how satisfactorily I want to express myself. Needlessly to say I don’t post much and i just don’t have a lot of topics I want to write about. sometime I do but I don’t want to share it with people so I definitely won’t post it on lang-8. I don’t say bullshit I’M GOING TO WORK ON Japanese WRITING/SPEAKING SKILLS now because there is no need for me and I’ve had enough experience to predict the future regarding that.

ACNE TIPS

I think I finally conquered acne! I never thought I’d say this. sometimes I hoped I would outgrow acne once I escaped my teens years but it persisted. I wish I was more vigilant earlier because it’s not that hard. I’m going to go over what I’ve done to eliminate acne and hopefully some of it will apply to you!

I remember I searched for natural remedies for hyperpigmentation at one point because that’s the biggest problem with acne for me is that sometimes it leaves hyperpigmentation behind. if you severe acne you may even get pock marks. as much I hate the hyperpigmentation at least i don’t have pockmarks.

Later I came to the realization that there isn’t much of a point of trying remedies for hyperpigmentation if I’m going to continue getting acne. I only see a point of doing the hyperpigmentation remedy if I found a way to stop getting acne or “outgrow it.” I realized after a while that I get acne on the same spots or same areas over and over. For example I’ll get a huge pimple on my cheek, it’ll take 5 to 7 days to heal completely if it’s that huge. Usually if it’s big and unsightly it leaves hyperpigmentation behind. After it heals, 1 or 2 weeks later another pimple shows up in that same spot or similar area. Repeat this over and over with that spot and other spots. I swear the longest I’d gone without acne during that period of my life was probably 2 or 3 weeks. I’d always have at least one pimple on my face (this includes the initial bump, huge swollen white pimple and healing phase) for half the month. I’ve been dealing with this for so many years and didn’t think about why I’m getting acne in the same spot over and over.

I figured out the cause. I didn’t want to acknowledge it or believe it but the cause is dairy. The “incubation time” made it difficult for me to realize that it’s the cause. If I drink milk I most likely will not get acne that hour or day. It’ll take a few days, a week, even 2 weeks. It’s delayed so I didn’t make the connection for the longest time. Also dairy products are ubiquitous. The go-to breakfast is either cereal or pancakes or waffles or french toast for most Americans. I’ve gone to restaurants and the dish I order mentions no cheese and nobody associates that dish with cheese but it comes with cheese on it. Americans love cheese .

During the period that I was suspecting dairy, I loved eating greek yogurt. I was also eating cereal with milk though not as frequently as the greek yogurt. The cereal I was eating was homemade, not processed & gmo & heaps of sugar & fake sugar. CEREAL IS NOT HEALTHY. do not be brainwashed by those commercials. just google it. stop eating cereal. stop throwing your money way on cereal. Also at the time I liked cheese in sandwiches, cheeseburgers, mac ‘n cheese. When I did my ditch dairy experiment the only dairy source that was difficult to give up was yogurt. For example, Red Mango has become very popular in the past few years and it tastes good. What would happen is I’d stop dairy for 2 weeks and my face would be fine. The effects weren’t pronounced since the effect is delayed. Even if I stopped dairy I could still get a pimple 3 days into it from the dairy I consumed before the experiment. Of course I loved my dairy and I didn’t want to deal with nasty vegan cheese (I haven’t tried but that’s all i hear) etc so I wanted to deny it. I hoped it was a coincidence that I’m just the type of person who is bound to get acne every few weeks regardless of dairy intake. I’d go on my dairy strike, cave a few weeks later thinking one cup of dairy shouldn’t make a big difference or maybe I just have a “low” threshold of dairy. then I would suffer from acne afterwards.

Once the link became clear. I thought it over and I realized just how strange it is that I get pimples on certain areas over and over. Dairy was causing acne to erupt in those areas. those areas aren’t areas where I’d suspect acne to erupt.

Then I changed my face washing routine and that sealed my no-acne deal. first of all I employ 2 different washing techniques lol.
first is the awadate (bubble/foam) washing. – YOUTUBE IT. In short 1) wash your hands thouroughly 2) use warm/hot water and make foam with your facewash/facesoap using the face foaming net 3) use that to gentle wash your face. Because it is foam you don’t have to touch your face or apply pressure.

second is the acne foam product that I buy and use. It comes out of the container in a lotion consistency and after I apply it to my skin it has a reaction and foams/bubbles up.

If I go outside and do stuff and come back home at the end of the day I use the awadate bubble/foamfirst then the acne foam wash. If I don’t go outside I only wash my face with water at night. To be honest when I first heard about awadate buubble/foam on japanese TV I was somewhat convinced that might solve my acne problems. but alas that was not the case but i think my skin was cleaner washing it with foam as opposed to just face face soap that’s not in bubble form.

I realized that using the acne wash in the morning works as prevention. I usually use it at night because I know salicyclic acid can make your skin sensitive to the sun. If I use it in the morning, I use it as soon as possible to increase the time from when it was on my face to when my face will hit the sunshine outside. I only put it on the areas that are acne-prone areas for me which are engraved in me from all these years of living.

When I used it only at night I still got pimples. It could also be contributed to the fact that I didn’t use it everyday and only used it every few days because I’m frugal and my belief that putting salicylic acid on your face too often isn’t beneficial. I believe that the mechanism for acne for me is I wake up and that during the course of my day a pore gets clogged and I get acne. It happened to me so many times. I’ll wake up with a clear face, go outside when I was attending school and go on about my day and then a few hours later when I looked at my face in the mirror I had a huge pimple developed and I didn’t feel it developing lol. Or sometimes I feel itchiness and then I realize that’s a pimple in the making. One day I started using it in the morning and golly gee whiz I don’t get pimples anymore. I still do but it’s really rare.

Recently something I have been trying to mindful of doing is washing my hands thoroughly. I made this conscious decision from watching an ep of sekai ichi uketai jugyou. I specifically wanted to watch their special on taikan kyouka. the special also featured food-poisoning and hand washing. they were washing us how proper handwashing techniques as well as proper duration drastically decreases bacteria on your hands. The first step in face washing is WASH YOUR HANDS WELL.

to summarize this works for me.
1) avoid dairy. I know all the articles online say that there’s no SCIENTIFIC link or evidence that supports the notion that diet affects acne which makes people think okay I’ll EAT WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT. I think it’s PURE BS. Even if they don’t find a statistically significant correlation with food and acne everyone is different. not everyone is lactose tolerant and not everyone tolerates all foods. everyone is different so I say tweak with your diet (try eliminating dairy, processed food, etc). remember that the response is not immediate and is somewhat delayed. From my anecdotal experiences of seeing all kinds of acne-ridden faces in NYC i believe there is a link between diet and acne at least for some people. NYC also has pollution which is probably implicated in acne…
2) wash your hands thoroughly before washing your face. I don’t recommend using heavy-duty soap. I recommend thoroughly rubbing your palm with the other hand and the area between your fingers etc. Think of it as “pushing the germs off your hand.” This is what I learned from that Japnese tv show I mentioned.
2) use acne foam wash every other day in the morning. I was scared at first that if i use it every other day I’ll get pimples but every other day is wok ring fine. I’m apprehensive with using the foam wash everyday because it is salicyclci acid and it’s not good to use it too much plus I’m frugal. when i was using it everyday wasn’t getting redness or itching or dryness but I’d rather be cautious..
3) wash your face with awa by using awadate net = face foaming net
4) don’t touch your face
I heard this from korean TV. I was convinced this would make a huge difference and completely eliminate acne just like with the awadate net but it was not the case. I am sure it helps though. germs can cause acne. When I started putting this thought in the front of my mind I noticed so many that touch their face as well as people that squish their face when they lean their cheek on their hand.
5) go to sleep early. aim for in bed by 9 something and asleep by 10. if that’s too difficult aim for 12 am. Like the sunscreen, i hear about this from japanese Tv ALL THE TIME. However I notice that most tv talents, at least the ones that are popular, do not follow this because they’re filming talk/variety shows at midnight and whatnot. I remember watching london hearts or a ame talk special and they specifically showed us the time at the studio and it was 2am, 3 am. It was crazy. Of course if you’re under 18 years old you can only work till 10 pm if my memory serves me correctly.

UPDATE:

6) check your shampoo, toothpaste for SODIUM LAURYL SULFATE and switch ones that don’t have them ( especially if you have back acne or persistent chin acne) . I haven’t confirmed if SLS triggers acne on my chin or around my mouth but it seems strange that i get acne when i vigilantly use benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid, bha…. i got acne on my upper chain after 2 days of vigilantly using the above products. it makes no sense. bha is so effective. i will see for sure if that will take care of that problem. i would love to me 100% acne free. i thought i was too old this for shit.

Now I can focus on cures for hyperpigmentation. EDIT: I read online that weaaring sunscreen everyday helps fade the hyperpigmentation… I will try my best

BTw I’ve seen yotube videos for how I cured my acne and this one vidoe made lol when I thought about it. it was made this blonde girl and she’ snot particularly articulate or good at communicating. she talks in this tedious, draggy way. She makes it sound like she found the “solution” to acne at least for her but if someone were to summarize her video it would be “I suffered from acne because I was unhygienic. and I am idiot for not realizing that sleeping in your make up leads to acne”. the even shorter version is “I’M DIRTY” the bitch started washing off her make-up at night and used acne products afterwards and started to notice that her skin was clearing up. before she went with makeup on and she broke out really bad but she didn’t learn from her mistakes and kept going to sleep in her makeup. also she puts more makeup on after the acne breakout so her acne only got worse I’m sure. she wondered why she’s a victim of acne now even though she rarely suffered from bouts of acne in the past. IDIOT!!! she mentioned THAT she had a invincible mentality that teens have… even so it’s that simple and I don’t know why it took her 10-12 minutes to explain in the video. (I didn’t watch the whole thing but man some people should not make videos) I watched the last part and she doesn’t seem to realize that her video is summarized as “I suffered from acne because I was unhygenic. and I am idiot for not realizing that sleeping in your make up leads to acne.” I find it even MORE hilarious that she doesn’t realize it. for some reason she’s convinced that she is sharing valuable knowledge and is helping people but for me it was common sense.

ALSO regarding my dairy void… I drink organic soymilk ONCE in a while (without the crap like caraggean ) and don’t eat yogurt, ice cream, chocolate ( if it hates dairy in it), PIZZA, CHEESEBURGERS. I don’t exercise enough so I’m okay with it.