How to Create a Language Journal You'll Actually Want to Study From

As someone who has learned three languages in the past, I have always thought that the hardest part of learning any language is just remembering everything. The sheer amount of vocabulary and grammar structures that come with a new language is always overwhelming, and it is so infuriating when you KNOW you've learned something but have no idea what it was. After a lot of trial and error I've come up with a system that works really well for me that you can use to help you organize everything to make studying so much easier and more fun! The key? Tricking your brain using a few psych tricks to make you WANT to study with the journal. I am currently learning Korean so all of my examples will be in Korean, but the idea is the same for any other language as well!

Step 1: Find a Journal and Give it a Cover

The key point here is to choose something you really like. Do you prefer a lined composition book or an unlined sketchbook? Is it easier for you with college or wide lined paper? This is definitely somewhere you want to splurge a little. It sounds silly, but you want to pick something you love because the more you like what you've chosen the more motivated you'll be to work in it since just having it is a happy and positive experience. Basic psychology: if you like something you're much more motivated to do it, and if you don't then you won't. The more you force yourself to do something you think is boring, the less motivated you will become to continue doing that thing which can eventually lead to giving up. Throughout the journal making process we'll be building up positive associations with your language journal so that you'll be excited and inspired to use it.

Keeping that in mind, it's now time to decorate the cover of your new journal! It doesn't have to be extreme or fancy (unless of course you want to, in which case you should absolutely go all out!) but you should personalize it in some way so that it becomes a personal object you are attached to. At the very least add a title, your name, and a few images or stickers of things you like. I like to find fun paper at any craft store and cover the front, then secure it with packing tape. Remember, the more you interact with it the more you'll use it later.

Looking at my journals you can tell I definitely have an obvious color pallet and theme, but that is the point! Choose what you love and go with it. The title I put on both of my journals is "Korean Studying" (I know, impossible to crack that code).

Step 2: Inspiration Page and Table of Contents

When you first open the journal the front inside cover (on the left) will serve as your inspiration page and the first page of actual paper (on the right) will be your table of contents. Languages are extremely difficult to learn, so if you are challenging yourself and learning one there must be an underlying reason why. Maybe you want to get a job in a new country, want to visit a new place on a vacation, or you have a friend or loved one who speaks the language and want to communicate better. Your reason is what motivates you, so the more reminders you have of WHY you're tormenting yourself in the midst of trying to decipher a particularly difficult grammar structure the more likely you are to push through. That is the purpose of the inspiration page. Every time you open your journal, you give yourself an automatic boost seeing images or mantras on why what you're doing is important to get your mind right before diving in.

Inspiration Page: You can add images of different places in the country you want to visit, actors or musicians from that culture you like, memes, inspirational mantras, foods or drinks you want to order in the language, pictures of yourself there, poems or quotes in the language, etc. This should be incredibly personal to you and will be wildly different for each person. Unlike the cover, this should NOT be done all at once at the beginning. You want to add little chunks at a time as you find things you like, or when you feel your motivation waning. Only add one or two things at a time! If you find you need way more space, you can do the same to the back cover (and if even that does not suffice, you may be a person who would benefit from a vision board!) This is the emotional tie you're creating in the front of your book, and the practical logical tie is the table of contents.

Table of Contents Page: When I first started these, I never would have added a table of contents. It feels like just an extra (long) step. However the table of contents isn't to make your journal more pretentious, it is to help you quickly locate exactly what you're looking for when you need it. When you're writing or working on an assignment and need to quickly remember which page the vocabulary related to cooking is, you don't what to flip through all 60 pages in your notebook to find it. Not only is that extremely frustrating, but after 10 minutes of flipping through the journal only to realize now you also need to find a certain grammar structure and have to repeat the process over again is enough to make anybody throw in the towel. With the table of contents, it takes maybe 15 seconds to find what you're looking for and saves you the extra unnecessary work of searching, the frustration and the discouragement. You do have to number all the pages in your notebook at the bottom, but that is not difficult, only a bit tedious. However, it will save you eons of time in the future. The rest of this page is easy. Every time you add something, just write what the topic is and the page number. Boom, done.

Notice on mine the numbers are a little odd. When numbering my journal I accidentally skipped pages, and so had to add page 22.5 and so on. It doesn't have to be perfect, just functional (and fun!).

Step 3: Grammar Section

The first half of the journal is going to be the grammar section where you make notes about grammar structures, common phrases, and sentence frames. On each page of my journal in this section I include these things:

• Title of the structure in both languages

• How to conjugate the new structure and any explanation that is needed

• Examples from my teacher or textbook (that I know for sure are done correctly!)

• My own examples using the new structure

• Pictures or images that I label with my sentences to help me remember.

If you don't like to draw then you don't have to add pictures, but it will definitely help. The best way to remember material is to engage with it in multiple different ways and employ all your focus and skills on it. Even if your skills just involve stick figures and smiley faces, anything you add will help you remember and make you more likely to revisit it in the future. Remember, the point is to make your journal something you're proud of and want to return to. The harder you work on it and add things you like, the more you'll use it.

Step 4: Vocabulary Section

Next, open the journal to the middle. This doesn't need to be exact! This second half of your journal is going to be the vocabulary section. On this page, add a sticky note or a tab so that you can flip to it easily. All the pages past this one will be purely for vocabulary. There are two types of pages that I like to have in this section. First, a page can be set up into sections that are all about the same topic and include all different parts of speech (verbs, adjectives, nouns, idoms, etc). Creating a page like this will help you keep all the words about a specific topic in one place so you can find them easily. My layout for this type of page has a box for each part of speech, and room along the edges or bottom for notes or images.

The second type of page is a diagram page that will help you remember lots of different nouns or words for specific things. Make sure after you make the page, you add it to your table of contents to make it easy to find! This section is much less rigid than the front of the journal and can be done in multiple ways.

All Done!

There you go! Just like that you're finished setting up your journal and ready to jump in to your new language. Remember to continually add to your inspiration page and write down your pages in the table of contents to give yourself a quick inspiration pick-me-up when you need it and keep everything organized. Go be great!