First things first, the examples are from my Spanish learning notebook and I had Spanish in school for a few years so I’m not completely new to the language, but in this post I include how I would set up a notebook to start learning an entirely new language.
- index I use a Leuchturm A5 notebook and that’s why I didn’t create one myself, but I would use 2-3 pages for it depending on how much you want to include.
- progress this page will help you to keep an eye on the progress you’re making (I’m doing not a very good job). Basically how it works is you have the month(se for september), the numbers for the days and categories (key in the upper right corner). For example, if you did some writing (escribir in Spanish) on the 1st, you would color the box light green. The categories I used are writing, reading, watching and listening, but if you are starting you may also include grammar. (about 1 page)
- ressources this is probably self-explanatory, simply a list of radio stations, newspapers and music in the language you’re learning. I might also add books, films, series or youtube channels in Spanish. (about 2 pages)
(there’s a mistake in this one, Cadena Ser is a spanisch radio station not Cadena)
- motivation one page why you want to learn the language to motivate yourself and to keep going, e.g. include quotes, pictures of places you want to visit in the country, people speaking the language who inspire you or you know so you could communicate with them… (I haven’t created one myself, but I’m planning to do so)
- actual learning obviously the most important part in your notebook. I plan to write down every learning session I have (unfortunately I haven’t started yet, but I’ll add some photos soon). For example when I read a chapter of a book, I’ll include maybe a brief summary and my opinion. Also I’ll make sure to write down the vocabulary of the chapter, so that I don’t have one huge list of words but topic related lists, because I use to remember vocabulary much better when I can connect them to a certain topic.
- what I want to learn this could be very helpful before you start learning, because in the beginning you should have a decent plan on what to learn. Starting with a new language topics like introduction, weather, shopping and hobbies can be helpful or just things you are interested in e.g. any sports.
- grammar (in the back) I’ll have brief grammar summaries to look up tenses or prepositions. If you are new to the language you might add the topics little by little. I would use 10-20 pages for this depending on how detailed you want to include the topics and how big your handwriting is.
I hope this was helpful somehow, I’ll update the post when I get to use it more often (my holiday job is keeping me away from any productivity at the moment :/)
You can find the update here.
janainaart
yousharknotpass
dededos
blakekathryn
vaporwave
romaincrisis
2087
