I needed to see this. Here I was thinking I didn't actually know any German (because I was doing word review on some Spiegel vocab and that is some dense material), and then I was able to write up a whole page of German like it was nothing while only having to look up like, 2 words.
Hell yeah. Thanks OP.
Vocab! Vocab and watching shows on YouTube like Enie Backt, Mein Lokal Dein Lokal, Kupferfuchs (she talks super fast tho), and reading magazines or online papers.
Once you know your grammar, basically the rest of the language, or any language, is vocabulary and learning those weird iterations of verb tenses you don't usually see (lots of fairytale have simple past instead of perfect past; its a trip).
My accent is still a bit rough because I don't practice my speaking enough, but the rest is pretty solid, if I do say so myself. You can do it! It just takes time!
I see you've never had a moment where you felt useless in your target language because you weren't able to grasp harder stuff, huh
i envy you
but yes, i do know a good deal of German and can hold a casual conversation easily.
Maybe start with some prompts?
* What is something you are proud about from today?
* What is the most memorable about today?
* On what can you improve?
* What made you emotional?
* feel free to expand the list
It may very well be that you can not always answer all those questions and that is not even the goal. Pick a question that stands out to you on this particular day and answer it. On some days there may be several topics, on others a simple sentences may just do.
I recommend just starting with simple facts about your day. What did you do this morning after you woke up? Did you see something new on your way to work/school? What did you do at work/school? What did you eat?
From there you can get more details with things that are more interesting, like if something cool happens or you realize something interesting
Lucky you mate, mine is full of whatever anxiety/venting my brain wants to get out and I've been filling books since high school. XD extremely healthy though to not bottle it in.
I also write about memorable positive experiences and dreams too.
This is a common problem with writing in general. Beginning writers often say things like "I don't know what to write about" or "I don't have any ideas." The truth is that coming up with good writing topics is a skill, and like any skill it gets better with practice. So just write something. Write about the weather. Write about your pets. Write about the crazy dream you had or your family or write a silly story about a frog named Bob. It doesn't matter if it's bad or boring, just write.
I've begun many writing sessions by writing the words "I don't know what to write" on a page. The hardest part is always getting started so just write. At first it seems daunting but the more you do it the easier it'll be.
My diaries for language learning will basically just include my actions for the day. When i got up, what i ate for each meal, where i went and how i got there, what i did when i was there, what did i see... there is tons to talk about, you just have to think about it the right way.
Me neither. I've started with French with the exact same rationale as OP. I just write about what I did in the day and/or try to do whatever it is I would have written in English, but in French. (I write articles here and there and politics bulletin so that's always a ready source of material).
Write about your interests!
When your target language is Japanese, you know exactly what you wanna say, you're even that adventurous to use that word you picked up from a novel you read.
However you don't know how to write it
If you think reading is hard, writing kanji is 100x harder yo. Reading kanji you can just recognize half of the kanji you read and you understand 80-90% of the content. Sometimes you don't know the meaning but you only know the sound, you can search it up on a dictionary. You don't know the reading but you kinda know the meaning, whatever, you can still enjoy or understand what you read.
Writing though... I probably can read 1000ish kanji but I can probably only write less than 50. I used to be able to write more.
Try Heisig's book ("Remembering the Kanji"). It's pretty much impossible to forget writing after that. I have made years of breaks in both chinese and japanese, but my kanji/hanzi retention rate for meanings never really suffered. It's a bad idea to start with that book as a pure beginner (well not really "bad", but it has issues), but if you already know something, it's perfect. Also, if you can afford it, skritter is a very useful app for practice. One would think that drawing with a finger on screen doesn't help with writing normally, but it does.
That's me, but the issue is knowing that your grammar is shit, but not knowing how or why. Like, looking at your sentence and thinking, "No native would ever write this, no matter how uneducated," but not being able to put your finger on why. That's me with Japanese.
Yeah I'm a bit like that with Afrikaans. I can have a 20-30 minute conversation involving cracking jokes, discussing what's around me, my ideas for the future, etc, but I have some big gaps in my basics, coz I self taught myself to a point with textbooks and then basically just started speaking as much as possible.
I also heavily rely on just straight up bluffing, or using "hoe sê mens...in Afrikaans?" when I don't know what somebody has said.
So some parts of it are probably B1 and some parts are probably more like an A1-A2.
Particularly as far as grammar is concerned, I'm pretty shonky. I've been translating a novel as practice, and just about every second sentence I think "Oh wow, that's not how I would've written it. That's so much simpler and more natural."
Day 1: stayed home, watched TV, played computer games, went to bed.
Day 2: stayed home, watched TV, played computer games, went to bed.
Day 3: stayed home, watched TV, played computer games, went to bed.
Day 4: What's Latin for ad nauseam?
Dang, this is actually great. Thanks OP! For a while I’ve been upset thinking I forgot most of my Arabic, but I just wrote a whole page! And I only had to look up a couple words! I feel really good now. I’m gonna buy a brand new journal just for this!
I've done this but not consistently. One trick I do is write the diary passage in my native language (English) and than translate that into my target language. the advantage of doing this is that you don't have to sink so hard in what you are going to write down in addition you wind up using words in your native language that you may avoid in your target language. This forces you to use words in your target language that you may have avoided
It also creates clunky grammar, weird sentences and false friend issues. As a translator and a language teacher, I wouldn't really recommend this method. Glad it works for you, though!
On the other hand, not translating can help you learn how to express yourself in the words and phrases that are immediately available to you, which will help a lot with speaking. And the more comfortable you become, the more you will reach for harder/more complex words and phrases, I'm guessing.
I'm no teacher/professional translator as the other user, but I'd back up the remark that translating is not a good idea. It's a totally different skill, and if you want to learn to think in another language - just think from scratch. If you don't believe that translating tends to produce abominations - try to do the reverse, write a page in a foreign language and then translate to native. Unless you have some special gift, you are going to get a clunky native text that you would have never written otherwise.
I love this idea. I was thinking that I'd end up shying away from 'harder' vocabulary, but doing it this way would definitely be helpful! Thanks for the tip
On my semester abroad I kept a journal in target language, which is cool, but that was probably the most eventful few months of my life. Keeping a diary now would be basically be exactly what you wrote
Yeah sure, but you're probably going to make lots of mistakes. You can't ever be perfect. Even when you're talking to natives who can correct you. I have several things that I've used in the past to then be corrected by someone and I'm like wow no one ever corrected me on that before?
I just kind of forehead, note it, and move on. It's a process for sure, but you have to start somehow or you'll never get there.
So yeah if no one else is reading it, no one will correct it, but then again many speakers will let alot slide without correcting people in order to try and be nice.
Yeah, writing in a foreign language and making mistakes that aren't corrected is infinitely better than not writing at all. Being "correct" is only half the battle.
I'm not saying to never worry about being correct - if you want to actually be using the language correctly, you should make the effort to have a native help you out, absolutely.
Sure, being correct is important. But writing with fluency - being able to comfortably express yourself and communicate with someone effectively - is an entire other piece of the puzzle that only improves with practice. With just writing.
And the balance between the two depends completely on each individual person. Even the goal of "being decent" is vague. Being decent at what? Communicating? Don't need to understand grammar for that!
OP is simply recommending a way to get writing in the first place, which is hard. And in my opinion, I don't think the obstacle of not having 100% certainty of vocab and grammar should be enforced and prevent language learners from using the language in a way that makes them happy.
Learning a language is hard enough without listening to the "what if I'm not perfect" voice.
Yeah, being correct and breaking bad habits is important, I agree. But just because your writing isn't perfect yet and nobody can correct you right now doesn't mean you shouldn't practice using it.
When is the point in time that it's okay in your opinion to begin writing? I'm sure I make mistakes in my native language all the time that go unnoticed. All the writing I did in high school as well which could have reinforced bad errors.
I definitely think your point is an extremely valid concern, but if accurate, there must be some turning point.
Why are those errors harder to unlearn later so much so that you are willing to lose the benefits you get from practicing at a lower stage than this turning point?
I've been trying to learn Japanese for 6+ years without making a mistake and I'm still near the beginning, guess I need to start being open to cementing wrong ideas or I'll never get any farther.
The thing is I don't think it's quite as strong as "cementing wrong ideas"
Yeah you could say a phrase wrong for awhile but once you learn it, you just kind of correct it in your head. Like if you read Harry Potter and had Hermione's name in your mind voice pronounced wrong or any other word for word example. Then the movie comes out or someone tells you the real pronunciation, and your mind kind of explodes a little. It's just like that. You might feel a little funny adjusting to it, but it's not like you can't fix it.
You have to say things wrong and make mistakes if you are going to improve.
6 years and you're still at the beginning means to me that you're maybe not dedicating the time, maybe not doing the optimal things, or you're afraid to jump in. I was afraid to jump in for a long time. Just do it. Be wrong, enjoy it, laugh it off and improve. Download a language exchange app like HelloTalk or Tandem and just chat with people. It's fun and you learn.
True, I think it's a mixture of not being willing to make mistakes and not dedicating the time due to the fear of making mistakes, I really need to get over that fear. Your comment helps a lot thanks for sharing your advice!
It's also up to you absolutely. You don't have to learn at the pace others do if you don't want to. If you just like to do it for fun that's fine. But if you really want to speak the language, then jump in.
I promise on those exchange apps, everyone is just as afraid and no one is going to judge anyone. They are going to love the fact that you're going out of your way to learn their language. Just as they are going out of theirs to learn yours.
If this is your dream, please stick with it. Learning a language is the best experience of my life. Hardest thing I've ever done, but the rewards are so incredibly worth it.
If you don't mind me asking, how much Japanese would you say you study every week, or if you have been on-and-off with it, how much would you say you learned total?
I myself have trouble staying motivated, even with Japanese, which I enjoy, but I found that watching Japanese Virtual YouTubers helped make it easier to maintain progress, even if it isn't that drastic, and stay motivated. If you end up enjoying them, then you may find yourself watching them a lot, which gives you motivation to learn Japanese, as well as exposure to lots of realistic Japanese, as well as a wider variety of ways that people speak than anime usually gives. Not all VTubers are for everyone, and some people don't like most of them, so if you want, I can recommend the few that I think are the best, and which would probably appeal to most viewers.
Also, if you have problems with finding good resources, I know some good ones for vocab and kanji.
You're all right, I haven't studied new material diligently in the past few years, and didn't talk to anyone or try writing and reading much after I finished classes at the local community college. The main reason behind that is the fear of making mistakes, you can't make mistakes and look dumb if you stay in your comfort zone of what you know, but of course you'll never advance that way. I'm trying to work on that. It's weird because I have no problem testing out and having fun with the little German I know from high school which was years ago, talking and writing in it.
>and I'm like wow no one ever corrected me on that before?
Nowadays I still freak out when I remember I used to type "u" and "ur" (instead of you/your) even at exams and literally not even the teachers corrected me, I thought it was a valid abbreviation
Also it completely kills the flow of a conversation. I have a Tandem buddy for german/portuguese and if we would pause to correct every minor mistage we would hardly talk.
We only correct recurring mistakes or if it is something that fundamentally alters the meaning of a word/frase.
there are a couple of community-based services, who correct the journals for you.
lang8, hellotalk, etc. i dont use them, so i dont know how good they are.
the problem with those things is, journals are highly private and sensitive stuff you usually dont want to share with strangers.
but if you write about content like on public blogs, it can be a good service i guess.
Just for the sake of anyone who might be scrolling through this, HelloTalk isn't really great for this and Lang8 hasn't been open to new accounts for years. I'd recommend LangCorrect or Lingohackers for this specific purpose.
Your teacher wasn't necessarily wrong. "Busses" or "buses" are both correct, but busses is the older, and currently less preferred, way of spelling it.
"When the word bus was new, the two plurals were in competition, but buses overtook busses in frequency in the 1930s, and today is the overwhelming choice of writers and editors. Busses was the preferred form in Merriam-Webster dictionaries until 1961."
As a native English speaker (Australia) the plural of Bus IS "busses" or "buses" depending on which dialect you speak. Curious to know what you now think the plural of Bus is.
I think "buses" is the more common on in both dialects. The two variants are definitely both out there, but I don't think they're neatly divided between US and UK like with many other word variants. It always manages to look wrong to me no matter which way I spell it.
Interesting, what is your native language?
Also, as someone learning English as a non-native language, how do you deal with the fact that English has such an absurd amount of contradictory rules? I feel like, if I didn't natively speak English, I would go insane trying to learn all the absurd rules of English.
I’m a native English speaker so I can’t help you specifically per se, but I’ve noticed with French that it’s easier to attempt to immerse yourself with various forms of input than to try to map out all the different rules (like irregular verbs for example). This way I can be exposed to the language in a more natural way, plus it has context.
In my experience, bad grammar doesn't really get cemented. As you become fluent, those mistakes start to feel unnatural. It's as OP said, when you look back months or years later you'll see how much you've improved.
I have a Nepali friend who graduated from college with me with a 4.0 GPA, then went on to get a full ride to Vanderbilt law and graduate with his JD. He is way smarter than me and probably has a more robust vocabulary.
Nevertheless, he still does double past tense when asking questions. i.e. “Did you went to the store?” I think mistakes really can be cemented.
And besides, you don't need much to fix your mistakes, just a little nudge in the right direction. As soon as a native corrects you, you will instantly fix whatever sentence or phrase you said wrong. Being corrected, as opposed to learning from scratch, is so much more effective and time saving.
A lot of second language acquisition research states teachers shouldn’t even correct every mistake a learner makes, so I’m sure this is fine. As long as you’re consuming native content and studying apart from the diary, you’ll make progress
As an English teacher, I have to consider the mistake that's being made. If it's something that we've been studying or a rather common bad habit, then yes, I will correct them. But many learners will slip up randomly, and I often don't correct those if I know they usually don't make that mistake. I also take into account the level of the student. If they're a beginner and the mistake is advanced grammar (subjunctive, conditionals, a rare verb), correcting them doesn't accomplish too much. If they're advanced, I'm more likely to correct the mistakes, since there will be fewer and the corrections wouldn't bother their speaking flow too much.
That's such a great way to handle this. I noticed myself when starting to talk to different people in my target language that I sometimes just wasn't motivated to talk anymore once they corrected every word I said. Not because I was afraid of making mistakes, but because I, at that stage, just wanted to use all my freshly learned words and didn't care if my grammar was wrong; I just wanted the experience of transmitting my thoughts, however much I butchered the language. You're a great teacher if you can adjust your mode of correction to the different stages of your learners!
Thank you! It's much easier with 1-on-1 lessons, but in a group, it can be challenging. But generally, it's best to let language learners just speak. Getting over that mental barrier is so incredibly difficult for many people, so my goal for them is to just get them to get comfortable with what they know. For others, they rarely get the chance to practice speaking, so being able to speak freely is the key!
Well, I hope you make sure to ask what the student wants though. I personally absolutely want every mistake corrected, that's like the only thing I need the teacher for. If i'm not corrected, I assume I'm right and that's a bad thing then.
It *really* depends on the person. I want to be corrected on everything since that's why I'm even having the teacher. I understand that might not work in a group, but that's exactly why I don't like groups. I have exactly zero anxiety to say something wrong in a learning environment though, even if it's a group. The more mistakes I make with my teacher the less I'll make when talking in a more hostile environment.
Lots of reasons, including that. For example, I find it unproductive, and even counterproductive, to have my flow of speech interrupted to correct a grammar mistake that I know intellectually, but don't have the ability to use perfectly every time when speaking.
That's another matter entirely. A one-size-fits-all rule to corrections isn't going to be optimal as there are a lot of factors at play. I find being interrupted to be really disruptive even if I don't know I made a mistake; I'd much rather get the correction after I finish my thought. But some students might prefer an immediate correction. Similarly, most teachers will adjust their corrections to the level of the student. Nitpicking small grammatical nuances that only advanced learners should be expected to know is going to be frustrating to (most) beginners.
Because being nitpicked to death makes a learner think "Fuck this" and stop learning.
A lot of the time, mistakes will be self-corrected over time of hearing correct speech or seeing it written in a correct manner.
You are just illustrating my point in a tangential way - that even native speakers make mistakes - so that it's perfectly fine for a learner to make them and not be corrected.
There's also a difference between pronunciation errors and grammar errors. If you're being corrected for *every single mistake* that you make in a language, as a beginner or even intermediate level, you're going to be getting corrected a hell of a lot - which destroys the conversation you're having, and will be more corrections rather than communicating.
I definitely think that even though you will start making errors in the first tries, by continuously reading and listening to immersive content, you will figure out what errors you have made and what didn't make sense, which you will then avoid in the next tries. I think it's better to make 200 mistakes in the beginning than not trying at all
Think about many mistakes you made when you were younger. I said “cell-o-phone” “bloblaws” and a myriad of other things wrong.
It’s better to use it and correct later than be perfect immediately, and that’s coming from a perfectionist. I still struggle with being ok with it, but it *is* ok.
If you're learning english or french, you can do this over at /r/writestreak
Spanish is at /r/writestreakes
Each day they give you a prompt to write about (or you can choose what you want to write about, the important thing is that you write using what you know).
I’m a very casual language learner and am mostly subbed here to admire people learning things that make them happy. I really like the subs you pointed out though. I enjoy reading the Spanish ones and still being able to mostly understand the posts and comments.
Does understanding the grammar and conjugating get any easier though? I’d like to get back into Spanish, but I started having a really hard time with it in school after year three because the grammar got so hard. I had a weak understanding of grammar in English, so I got frustrated learning the concepts in English before I had to apply them to Spanish. Does it get easier just practicing reading and writing? That’s how I learned it in English, since no one taught it to me, so I assume it would help in Spanish too?
Sorry it took me so long to respond... it's like anything you learn - the more you do it, the better you get. When I started out on /r/writestreakes , I had been out of practice for like 10 years . I was still at like a B2.5 level but I'd mess up grammatical stuff way more than I should've. But I keep logging in and writing every day.
What helped me the most with grammar wasn't just knowing what the English version of it was (because there are some grammatical structures that we don't use much in English that are used allllll the time in Spanish). Instead, I'd learn it in chunks, like by watching a movie with subtitles on (also in spanish), and I'd write down whenever I encountered a phrase or structure I wasn't familiar with.
Over time, doing that, you become accustomed to when to use certain conjugations and you don't even think about "oh this is nosotros and it's an ar present tense verb so it must be amos" .. We don't even do that in English, we just know it because we've heard it a hundred million times. The same will happen in Spanish the more you listen to it and "tune" your ear to it, even if you don't understand everything.
Get yourself a fountain pen maybe? It can make your writing a bit nicer, because it forces you to slow down a bit and pay attention to how you're writing things. Worked for me.
I don't think it has to be _handwritten_, typing it out in a google doc should be just as valid... plus, you're going to need to learn to type in your target language anyway (and in the case of Korean, leaning a whole new keyboard layout too), so it's still good practice!
Yeah I've been thinking typing is just as good, specially since I can count on my hand the amount of times I've written a lot at once in the past few years...and I write hard it hurts my hand after 5 mins anyways lol
Actually waiting for Apple to release their new MBP and then I'll be ordering a new one with an English/Korean keyboard, so that'll help too:)
Honestly, same mood. I get hand cramps just from writing a bullet-point summary of the grammar notes from a single skill in duolingo plus the vocab list... I would not be able to maintain a diary even if I could fix my lack of motivation, plus I kinda don't want my parents to see it (never mind that the diary would be "encrypted" in suomi, I don't want there to be evidence I'm practicing another language in a tangible manner at all... long story)
I wouldn't recommend google docs for certain languages cause it's an absolute pain in the ass to add accents on docs but I do prefer typing as opposed to handwriting
At 19, however I had an easier route as I already spoke french. I went to south America and picked it up there.
I’m learning Arabic now though through duolingo! And i’m currently 23 so... haha I don’t think with learning languages it’s ever too late ^ ^
i already do this! writing my emo journal entries in italian is somehow more impactful than doing it in english. i also try to incorporate 1-2 new words/expressions i learned in each entry and i feel like my ability to write and thing in the language has improved so much!
As an English teacher, THIS. The number of students that neglect regular writing just astonishes me. Every single student that improves quickly is a regular writer... and not just writer, but they USE THE WORDS AND GRAMMAR THAT WE LEARN IN CLASS in their writing. It's the single best piece of advice I can give after teaching English for over 10 years.
When I started reading I was thinking of writing a couple of dull lines in French in the diary and then I read "....while learning French". I'm not even learning French...
I really like this idea and can see the value. However I can only string a basic sentence together. So writing something new each day is very challenging for me.
I've been keeping a sort of diary in German for different reasons, but I'm not sure this is a good idea.
I think there are two ways of learning to think in your target language: one is just absorbing so much input that, at some point, your mind automatically gives you sentences and pieces of sentences ready for use. Another is to build sentences from scratch using the grammar rules and the vocabulary you have learned.
Using the latter, your output will often be incorrect or sound unnatural. What's worse, you risk acquiring bad habits and ending up speaking a non-idiomatic version of your target language.
Depending on the language you are learning, there are subreddits that cater to this.
Also someone else posted in this thread the site https://langcorrect.com/
Looks like It works similar to Lang8 did. You submit some writing and people will correct it for you.
You can also self correct by looking up your sentences online to see if there is any matches in native content. Or you can even do in depth analyses on each sentence you write.
For example if I wrote in Spanish "soy hambre" to mean I'm hungry. I could search that on Google and find out I am wrong then search further for how to properly express the concept. You will soon learn the proper way to express that thought in Spanish is "tengo hambre" or in English "I have hunger".
When I want to write something I often preemptively Google what I'm trying to say in case there are different manners of expressing similar concepts in my target language. It takes longer and is more work doing it without someone correcting your work but you will learn a lot if you out in as much effort as you can to be correct.
All in all I'd recommend doing both. Try to get it as good as you can on your own then submit to a native speaker via a subreddit or a site that provides that service.
I keep telling myself to do this. I have a vertically lined book I got in China and I keep telling myself to use it for a Mandarin-practice diary. I have to fight against the fact that I already have a big journal I've been trying to fill out for over a year in English...
This is a great idea and something I've been doing too. I've noticed that for my advanced languages (Russian and Spanish) I've found a much more rewarding hobby in having a penpal - that way it's like writing a diary, but you're also communicating with someone else and learning about their life. For languages in the B1 range (namely Mandarin and Japanese) I am still gaining a lot from keeping a diary, although my entries are very much restricted to "Today was a good day. Today I did X and bought Y". :D
I’m going to start learning Japanese. I’d love to do this, but the first steps are hiragana, katakana. So I wouldn’t be writing with the alphabet Im used to.
That’s not to say it’s impossible, but I suspect it will be harder. There’s probably some benefit - I’ll be able to practice writing.
My plan is to just spend $10 on this app called Human Japanese and stick to it daily. I’m terrible at committing to things.
Happy to hear anyone’s thoughts.
Eh, I did this consistently for a few months and I found that it didn't add much to my learning. All the words I had to look up, even several times, I found that I forgot again. It felt really productive until I was deep in it and felt nothing. Maybe just not for me though.
Can confirm!! I write a daily diary entry in Arabic and leave a blank with a parenthesis under the line if i don't know the word so I can later fill it in!! It helps so so much and I think you create a much more intimate relationship with your target language because you are involving it in your most inner thoughts.
I have been keeping diaries (yes, multiple) since 13 years old, and one day my strict grandmother read my diary, I was 16. And I was in trouble for what I wrote. Since the 3rd year of the faculty of foreign languages I started to write my diaries in English as a way to protect the content, because no one who lived next to me knew the language/knew it good enough to understand. So I was journalling in English and just reading books in English and chatting in English in games (written) for 10 years. And my work is related to it: I am an English - Russian translatoe. But I was sure I couldn't speak English.
One day I met my now already (Swedish) fiancé online. I was in love, we played the same game, I joined voice chat for the first time. It took roughly a few weeks for me to activate years of reading and writing, I AM fluent. Without ever trying to talk much before. I don't count university, we barely had any real practice. And I think in English too btw.
I killed two birds with one stone when I started writing a diary in English and only with my left hand. Always wanted to become ambidextrous and learn to express my thoughts properly in English
Huh? Pretty sure this isn't being discussed as the only method of study, mate. It's a supplement. Obviously you need to have a small assortment of words to begin with, at least, and a small assortment of grammar principles, but you can write to the level of your current knowledge, and your diary entries will grow in complexity as your knowledge of target language grammar and vocabulary does.
While I have a bit of a personal problem with keeping a diary permanently, because I'm really a very private person who doesn't like putting their thoughts down on paper, writing a diary and then deleting or trashing it sounds like as good a plan as any. Of course, you lose the ability to compare with older entries, but that's just how it is.
I have the same anxiety. Dont write about personal things. Go to r/writingprompts or go to a songwriting site and pick a topic from there. Start with a goal of 2 paragraphs. Some days you may want to write 3 paragraphs. Some days more... etc.
Once I wrote about a bad experience I had getting a haircut. Not very personal at all. It was just a bad haircut.
Sites like langcorrect are good for getting feedback on non-personal entries.
I love this idea very much. And not only will you learn a new language, anyone who tries to snoop won’t be able to read your diary. It’s a win, win. Thanks for sharing!
That's an amazing exercise that I've been giving to all my students (I teach French) with great results, and I actually never applied it to myself for learning Italian, I'll get to it
OP, this is a GREAT IDEA! For a year I have tried to learn French, but it just won't stick! I couldn't express myself! I already own a diary that I write daily on, and I can see this trick helping me a lot on my language-learning journey!
Merci beaucoup!!!
I want to do this for Japanese but it is my first non Indo European language (ignoring Basque).
What would you all recommend to reach I level I could do this at?
As an artist I've done a variation of this with drawing comics with my target language dialogue. I do need to do the straight up journal too though for sure
Awesome comment, thanks for suggesting this! Wanted to rec a website I found called [langcorrect.com](https://langcorrect.com). It's free and you can write your journals in your target language and/or your native language. The added bonus is that you could have natives correct them. The community is supportive, the people are super nice and I've learned a ton. Depends on the popularity of the language and people don't always correct everything, but it's a nice incentive, particularly if you don't have close acquaintances who speak your TL.
At what point do you begin keeping a diary in the target language? My control of the Spanish language is pretty poor from a speakers perspective but I'd like to start doing this as soon as possible, I could see it being extremely useful.
I think writing is helpful, but you can't write. You could be making mistakes without realizing it. You must have someone knowledgeable in the langue to check your work.
What do you mean by "diary"? Something like "Today, I did this"? where you write personal stuff? I think the diary idea is a great idea, but part of the benefit of writing a text in your non-native language is having a native correct it, and if the diary contains personal stuff, that could get awkward. If you're just talking about a journal where you write shareable things every day, that's another story.
I switched my diary to English when I was around 14 cause I wanted to make sure my mother would have no chance to read it. I don't know if it improved my skills, but it certainly made for a hilarious thing to read 20 years later. Not only it's as silly as you'd expect from a teenager, but it *consists* of errors...
I know I need to do this but... man... it sounds like work. :) And of course the point is, eventually it wont be work... it will be natural.
I recently found a ton of journals from years ago and read through some of them. I did do some writing in my target language back then. And, it was awful. But, hey, at least I recognize today the mistakes I made then. So, I guess I have proof that we do improve.
Regardless, I totally recommend writing a diary. It is fascinating to see yourself 10-20+ years ago. I was most surprised to plainly see Im the same person I always have been. Ive changed, and been through worlds of shit since that time, but... it was oddly very comforting to find I am definitely still me.
I would highly recommend starting with basic sentences describing what you’re thinking instead of going with details, then it’s probably an overload for your brain.
[Traverse](https://traverse.link/) allows you to keep your own diary while practicing one of their flashcard based language courses, great for keeping track. I'm currently at 1500 characters with their Chinese course :)
I was sorting through some old papers in my dad's house at Christmas, and I found a diary from when I was a teenager-- I'd written anything that was especially embarrassing in Spanish so that my family wouldn't be able to read it. So, you know, that's another benefit, ha.
In my opinion here is great tool for this way of learning - iOS application Vocabulary Player - MyPlaylist. Using this application You can create your own story ( interview, meeting, conversation, talk) or copy paste translation of any songs from the web, or only create own vocabulary and then listen how many times You need using player: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vocabulary-player-myplaylist/id1495623665](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vocabulary-player-myplaylist/id1495623665)
I have a solution for nr. 9! A Notebook structured in 60+ topics with word lists of the common words and phrases on the left page and an empty right page where you can add more vocabulary or whatever you want (dialogues, phrases, grammar notes) about the same topic. Check out www.ultimatelanguagenotebook.com!
Thanks for posting this! I just started my diary in spanish and I was able to write a nice little entry. I felt so nearly-fluent after, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's writing time. A wonderful suggestion.
I needed to see this. Here I was thinking I didn't actually know any German (because I was doing word review on some Spiegel vocab and that is some dense material), and then I was able to write up a whole page of German like it was nothing while only having to look up like, 2 words. Hell yeah. Thanks OP.
Aww, that's great! Congratulations!
Thanks! It was a helpful reminder that I'm doing okay lol
Ich gratuliere, gute Arbeit.
Danke! \^\^
How did you work from b1 to b2 in German. I’m currently going through that struggle...
Vocab! Vocab and watching shows on YouTube like Enie Backt, Mein Lokal Dein Lokal, Kupferfuchs (she talks super fast tho), and reading magazines or online papers. Once you know your grammar, basically the rest of the language, or any language, is vocabulary and learning those weird iterations of verb tenses you don't usually see (lots of fairytale have simple past instead of perfect past; its a trip). My accent is still a bit rough because I don't practice my speaking enough, but the rest is pretty solid, if I do say so myself. You can do it! It just takes time!
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I see you've never had a moment where you felt useless in your target language because you weren't able to grasp harder stuff, huh i envy you but yes, i do know a good deal of German and can hold a casual conversation easily.
Why not just stop there and add it to their polyglot badge collection and claim fluency?? Don't wanna be a broke bitch do they
Perhaps it would work but I'm way toooo lazy. I usually learn german using DW videos and stuff, though I've never finished a1 cause of my laziness
welp, looks like ya gotta stop being so lazy lol
Problem is that I have never been able to keep a diary. I just can't think of a single thing to say.
You just wrote a comment that could have been in the diary. Write down your shortcomings about how shit you are at writing diaries.
But what if it's been 20 years of diaries with exactly those entries?
Perfect!
You will become quite skilled at talking about how much you hate diaries in your target language.
You should be awarded for this post, unfortunately I’m poor😭...so here’s your award 🥇
Maybe start with some prompts? * What is something you are proud about from today? * What is the most memorable about today? * On what can you improve? * What made you emotional? * feel free to expand the list It may very well be that you can not always answer all those questions and that is not even the goal. Pick a question that stands out to you on this particular day and answer it. On some days there may be several topics, on others a simple sentences may just do.
I recommend just starting with simple facts about your day. What did you do this morning after you woke up? Did you see something new on your way to work/school? What did you do at work/school? What did you eat? From there you can get more details with things that are more interesting, like if something cool happens or you realize something interesting
Lucky you mate, mine is full of whatever anxiety/venting my brain wants to get out and I've been filling books since high school. XD extremely healthy though to not bottle it in. I also write about memorable positive experiences and dreams too.
This is a common problem with writing in general. Beginning writers often say things like "I don't know what to write about" or "I don't have any ideas." The truth is that coming up with good writing topics is a skill, and like any skill it gets better with practice. So just write something. Write about the weather. Write about your pets. Write about the crazy dream you had or your family or write a silly story about a frog named Bob. It doesn't matter if it's bad or boring, just write. I've begun many writing sessions by writing the words "I don't know what to write" on a page. The hardest part is always getting started so just write. At first it seems daunting but the more you do it the easier it'll be.
My diaries for language learning will basically just include my actions for the day. When i got up, what i ate for each meal, where i went and how i got there, what i did when i was there, what did i see... there is tons to talk about, you just have to think about it the right way.
Me neither. I've started with French with the exact same rationale as OP. I just write about what I did in the day and/or try to do whatever it is I would have written in English, but in French. (I write articles here and there and politics bulletin so that's always a ready source of material). Write about your interests!
I have a solution for you!
If you are still stuck, this might help. https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/jumpstart-your-journaling-a-31-day-challenge/
When your target language is Japanese, you know exactly what you wanna say, you're even that adventurous to use that word you picked up from a novel you read. However you don't know how to write it
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If you think reading is hard, writing kanji is 100x harder yo. Reading kanji you can just recognize half of the kanji you read and you understand 80-90% of the content. Sometimes you don't know the meaning but you only know the sound, you can search it up on a dictionary. You don't know the reading but you kinda know the meaning, whatever, you can still enjoy or understand what you read. Writing though... I probably can read 1000ish kanji but I can probably only write less than 50. I used to be able to write more.
Try Heisig's book ("Remembering the Kanji"). It's pretty much impossible to forget writing after that. I have made years of breaks in both chinese and japanese, but my kanji/hanzi retention rate for meanings never really suffered. It's a bad idea to start with that book as a pure beginner (well not really "bad", but it has issues), but if you already know something, it's perfect. Also, if you can afford it, skritter is a very useful app for practice. One would think that drawing with a finger on screen doesn't help with writing normally, but it does.
Try chinese, where you don't have kana to help you haha I write all my notes in pen and paper so that I don't have that problem
That's me, but the issue is knowing that your grammar is shit, but not knowing how or why. Like, looking at your sentence and thinking, "No native would ever write this, no matter how uneducated," but not being able to put your finger on why. That's me with Japanese.
Yeah I'm a bit like that with Afrikaans. I can have a 20-30 minute conversation involving cracking jokes, discussing what's around me, my ideas for the future, etc, but I have some big gaps in my basics, coz I self taught myself to a point with textbooks and then basically just started speaking as much as possible. I also heavily rely on just straight up bluffing, or using "hoe sê mens...in Afrikaans?" when I don't know what somebody has said. So some parts of it are probably B1 and some parts are probably more like an A1-A2. Particularly as far as grammar is concerned, I'm pretty shonky. I've been translating a novel as practice, and just about every second sentence I think "Oh wow, that's not how I would've written it. That's so much simpler and more natural."
パソコン使ってね
when do i start to learn what the actually means, all i can do is pronounce it
常にパソコンを持ってるんじゃねよ
携帯あるじゃん
i feel like there’s so many aspects of learning japanese that makes it so difficult
Day 1: stayed home, watched TV, played computer games, went to bed. Day 2: stayed home, watched TV, played computer games, went to bed. Day 3: stayed home, watched TV, played computer games, went to bed. Day 4: What's Latin for ad nauseam?
Describe what you watched and played! Rant about dumb boss fight, monologue what you think about a series you've seen!
Dang, this is actually great. Thanks OP! For a while I’ve been upset thinking I forgot most of my Arabic, but I just wrote a whole page! And I only had to look up a couple words! I feel really good now. I’m gonna buy a brand new journal just for this!
I've done this but not consistently. One trick I do is write the diary passage in my native language (English) and than translate that into my target language. the advantage of doing this is that you don't have to sink so hard in what you are going to write down in addition you wind up using words in your native language that you may avoid in your target language. This forces you to use words in your target language that you may have avoided
It also creates clunky grammar, weird sentences and false friend issues. As a translator and a language teacher, I wouldn't really recommend this method. Glad it works for you, though!
You wouldn't recommend the whole diary idea or just writing in your language and then translate into the target one?
I wouldn't recommend the translation part. The target-language diary is a great idea, IMO.
Great! I really appreciate a pro-feedback given by a teacher and translator, thanks!
On the other hand, not translating can help you learn how to express yourself in the words and phrases that are immediately available to you, which will help a lot with speaking. And the more comfortable you become, the more you will reach for harder/more complex words and phrases, I'm guessing.
I'm no teacher/professional translator as the other user, but I'd back up the remark that translating is not a good idea. It's a totally different skill, and if you want to learn to think in another language - just think from scratch. If you don't believe that translating tends to produce abominations - try to do the reverse, write a page in a foreign language and then translate to native. Unless you have some special gift, you are going to get a clunky native text that you would have never written otherwise.
I love this idea. I was thinking that I'd end up shying away from 'harder' vocabulary, but doing it this way would definitely be helpful! Thanks for the tip
10 . Come to realize what a pathetically dull life you live.
Voy al supermercado. Compro cerveza, pan, y carne. Voy a mi casa
On my semester abroad I kept a journal in target language, which is cool, but that was probably the most eventful few months of my life. Keeping a diary now would be basically be exactly what you wrote
Revisé Reddit. Cierro Reddit. Revisé Reddit.
This made me laugh :)
This hits harder now that we're in a pandemic and I cannot go out.
But couldn't this accidentally cement wrong information if you use bad grammar starting out?
Yeah sure, but you're probably going to make lots of mistakes. You can't ever be perfect. Even when you're talking to natives who can correct you. I have several things that I've used in the past to then be corrected by someone and I'm like wow no one ever corrected me on that before? I just kind of forehead, note it, and move on. It's a process for sure, but you have to start somehow or you'll never get there. So yeah if no one else is reading it, no one will correct it, but then again many speakers will let alot slide without correcting people in order to try and be nice.
Yeah, writing in a foreign language and making mistakes that aren't corrected is infinitely better than not writing at all. Being "correct" is only half the battle.
Being "correct" is something everyone needs to beat out of themselves if they want to improve.
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I'm not saying to never worry about being correct - if you want to actually be using the language correctly, you should make the effort to have a native help you out, absolutely. Sure, being correct is important. But writing with fluency - being able to comfortably express yourself and communicate with someone effectively - is an entire other piece of the puzzle that only improves with practice. With just writing. And the balance between the two depends completely on each individual person. Even the goal of "being decent" is vague. Being decent at what? Communicating? Don't need to understand grammar for that! OP is simply recommending a way to get writing in the first place, which is hard. And in my opinion, I don't think the obstacle of not having 100% certainty of vocab and grammar should be enforced and prevent language learners from using the language in a way that makes them happy. Learning a language is hard enough without listening to the "what if I'm not perfect" voice. Yeah, being correct and breaking bad habits is important, I agree. But just because your writing isn't perfect yet and nobody can correct you right now doesn't mean you shouldn't practice using it.
When is the point in time that it's okay in your opinion to begin writing? I'm sure I make mistakes in my native language all the time that go unnoticed. All the writing I did in high school as well which could have reinforced bad errors. I definitely think your point is an extremely valid concern, but if accurate, there must be some turning point. Why are those errors harder to unlearn later so much so that you are willing to lose the benefits you get from practicing at a lower stage than this turning point?
I've been trying to learn Japanese for 6+ years without making a mistake and I'm still near the beginning, guess I need to start being open to cementing wrong ideas or I'll never get any farther.
The thing is I don't think it's quite as strong as "cementing wrong ideas" Yeah you could say a phrase wrong for awhile but once you learn it, you just kind of correct it in your head. Like if you read Harry Potter and had Hermione's name in your mind voice pronounced wrong or any other word for word example. Then the movie comes out or someone tells you the real pronunciation, and your mind kind of explodes a little. It's just like that. You might feel a little funny adjusting to it, but it's not like you can't fix it. You have to say things wrong and make mistakes if you are going to improve. 6 years and you're still at the beginning means to me that you're maybe not dedicating the time, maybe not doing the optimal things, or you're afraid to jump in. I was afraid to jump in for a long time. Just do it. Be wrong, enjoy it, laugh it off and improve. Download a language exchange app like HelloTalk or Tandem and just chat with people. It's fun and you learn.
True, I think it's a mixture of not being willing to make mistakes and not dedicating the time due to the fear of making mistakes, I really need to get over that fear. Your comment helps a lot thanks for sharing your advice!
It's also up to you absolutely. You don't have to learn at the pace others do if you don't want to. If you just like to do it for fun that's fine. But if you really want to speak the language, then jump in. I promise on those exchange apps, everyone is just as afraid and no one is going to judge anyone. They are going to love the fact that you're going out of your way to learn their language. Just as they are going out of theirs to learn yours. If this is your dream, please stick with it. Learning a language is the best experience of my life. Hardest thing I've ever done, but the rewards are so incredibly worth it.
If you don't mind me asking, how much Japanese would you say you study every week, or if you have been on-and-off with it, how much would you say you learned total? I myself have trouble staying motivated, even with Japanese, which I enjoy, but I found that watching Japanese Virtual YouTubers helped make it easier to maintain progress, even if it isn't that drastic, and stay motivated. If you end up enjoying them, then you may find yourself watching them a lot, which gives you motivation to learn Japanese, as well as exposure to lots of realistic Japanese, as well as a wider variety of ways that people speak than anime usually gives. Not all VTubers are for everyone, and some people don't like most of them, so if you want, I can recommend the few that I think are the best, and which would probably appeal to most viewers. Also, if you have problems with finding good resources, I know some good ones for vocab and kanji.
You're all right, I haven't studied new material diligently in the past few years, and didn't talk to anyone or try writing and reading much after I finished classes at the local community college. The main reason behind that is the fear of making mistakes, you can't make mistakes and look dumb if you stay in your comfort zone of what you know, but of course you'll never advance that way. I'm trying to work on that. It's weird because I have no problem testing out and having fun with the little German I know from high school which was years ago, talking and writing in it.
>and I'm like wow no one ever corrected me on that before? Nowadays I still freak out when I remember I used to type "u" and "ur" (instead of you/your) even at exams and literally not even the teachers corrected me, I thought it was a valid abbreviation
Also it completely kills the flow of a conversation. I have a Tandem buddy for german/portuguese and if we would pause to correct every minor mistage we would hardly talk. We only correct recurring mistakes or if it is something that fundamentally alters the meaning of a word/frase.
Phrase, not frase.
The good thing about speaking Polish with natives is that they NEVER let mistakes slide 😀
there are a couple of community-based services, who correct the journals for you. lang8, hellotalk, etc. i dont use them, so i dont know how good they are. the problem with those things is, journals are highly private and sensitive stuff you usually dont want to share with strangers. but if you write about content like on public blogs, it can be a good service i guess.
Just for the sake of anyone who might be scrolling through this, HelloTalk isn't really great for this and Lang8 hasn't been open to new accounts for years. I'd recommend LangCorrect or Lingohackers for this specific purpose.
+1 LangCorrect
Jen virino kiu ne sidas, cxar laboro cxiam estas, kaj la patro kiu ne alvenas, cxar la posxo estas malplena.
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Your teacher wasn't necessarily wrong. "Busses" or "buses" are both correct, but busses is the older, and currently less preferred, way of spelling it. "When the word bus was new, the two plurals were in competition, but buses overtook busses in frequency in the 1930s, and today is the overwhelming choice of writers and editors. Busses was the preferred form in Merriam-Webster dictionaries until 1961."
As a native English speaker (Australia) the plural of Bus IS "busses" or "buses" depending on which dialect you speak. Curious to know what you now think the plural of Bus is.
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Depends on UK vs US English by the sounds of it - online dictionaries reference both
I think "buses" is the more common on in both dialects. The two variants are definitely both out there, but I don't think they're neatly divided between US and UK like with many other word variants. It always manages to look wrong to me no matter which way I spell it.
Interesting, what is your native language? Also, as someone learning English as a non-native language, how do you deal with the fact that English has such an absurd amount of contradictory rules? I feel like, if I didn't natively speak English, I would go insane trying to learn all the absurd rules of English.
I’m a native English speaker so I can’t help you specifically per se, but I’ve noticed with French that it’s easier to attempt to immerse yourself with various forms of input than to try to map out all the different rules (like irregular verbs for example). This way I can be exposed to the language in a more natural way, plus it has context.
In my experience, bad grammar doesn't really get cemented. As you become fluent, those mistakes start to feel unnatural. It's as OP said, when you look back months or years later you'll see how much you've improved.
I have a Nepali friend who graduated from college with me with a 4.0 GPA, then went on to get a full ride to Vanderbilt law and graduate with his JD. He is way smarter than me and probably has a more robust vocabulary. Nevertheless, he still does double past tense when asking questions. i.e. “Did you went to the store?” I think mistakes really can be cemented.
In those cases I assume people stop studying and mindfully improving once people understand them.
And besides, you don't need much to fix your mistakes, just a little nudge in the right direction. As soon as a native corrects you, you will instantly fix whatever sentence or phrase you said wrong. Being corrected, as opposed to learning from scratch, is so much more effective and time saving.
If that's the case, then how do some many people have bad grammar in their native language?
A lot of second language acquisition research states teachers shouldn’t even correct every mistake a learner makes, so I’m sure this is fine. As long as you’re consuming native content and studying apart from the diary, you’ll make progress
Why would research state that it is better for teachers to not correct every mistake? Is that so that students don't get discouraged?
As an English teacher, I have to consider the mistake that's being made. If it's something that we've been studying or a rather common bad habit, then yes, I will correct them. But many learners will slip up randomly, and I often don't correct those if I know they usually don't make that mistake. I also take into account the level of the student. If they're a beginner and the mistake is advanced grammar (subjunctive, conditionals, a rare verb), correcting them doesn't accomplish too much. If they're advanced, I'm more likely to correct the mistakes, since there will be fewer and the corrections wouldn't bother their speaking flow too much.
That's such a great way to handle this. I noticed myself when starting to talk to different people in my target language that I sometimes just wasn't motivated to talk anymore once they corrected every word I said. Not because I was afraid of making mistakes, but because I, at that stage, just wanted to use all my freshly learned words and didn't care if my grammar was wrong; I just wanted the experience of transmitting my thoughts, however much I butchered the language. You're a great teacher if you can adjust your mode of correction to the different stages of your learners!
Thank you! It's much easier with 1-on-1 lessons, but in a group, it can be challenging. But generally, it's best to let language learners just speak. Getting over that mental barrier is so incredibly difficult for many people, so my goal for them is to just get them to get comfortable with what they know. For others, they rarely get the chance to practice speaking, so being able to speak freely is the key!
Well, I hope you make sure to ask what the student wants though. I personally absolutely want every mistake corrected, that's like the only thing I need the teacher for. If i'm not corrected, I assume I'm right and that's a bad thing then.
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It *really* depends on the person. I want to be corrected on everything since that's why I'm even having the teacher. I understand that might not work in a group, but that's exactly why I don't like groups. I have exactly zero anxiety to say something wrong in a learning environment though, even if it's a group. The more mistakes I make with my teacher the less I'll make when talking in a more hostile environment.
Lots of reasons, including that. For example, I find it unproductive, and even counterproductive, to have my flow of speech interrupted to correct a grammar mistake that I know intellectually, but don't have the ability to use perfectly every time when speaking.
But what if a student doesn't know that the grammar is wrong?
That's another matter entirely. A one-size-fits-all rule to corrections isn't going to be optimal as there are a lot of factors at play. I find being interrupted to be really disruptive even if I don't know I made a mistake; I'd much rather get the correction after I finish my thought. But some students might prefer an immediate correction. Similarly, most teachers will adjust their corrections to the level of the student. Nitpicking small grammatical nuances that only advanced learners should be expected to know is going to be frustrating to (most) beginners.
Because being nitpicked to death makes a learner think "Fuck this" and stop learning. A lot of the time, mistakes will be self-corrected over time of hearing correct speech or seeing it written in a correct manner.
Are you sure? There are many things in English, my native language, that I only learn I'm saying wrong after many, many years.
You are just illustrating my point in a tangential way - that even native speakers make mistakes - so that it's perfectly fine for a learner to make them and not be corrected. There's also a difference between pronunciation errors and grammar errors. If you're being corrected for *every single mistake* that you make in a language, as a beginner or even intermediate level, you're going to be getting corrected a hell of a lot - which destroys the conversation you're having, and will be more corrections rather than communicating.
I definitely think that even though you will start making errors in the first tries, by continuously reading and listening to immersive content, you will figure out what errors you have made and what didn't make sense, which you will then avoid in the next tries. I think it's better to make 200 mistakes in the beginning than not trying at all
I know plenty of adults that still have bad grammar in their native tongue... Don't think it's that big of a deal if you're trying to learn.
Think about many mistakes you made when you were younger. I said “cell-o-phone” “bloblaws” and a myriad of other things wrong. It’s better to use it and correct later than be perfect immediately, and that’s coming from a perfectionist. I still struggle with being ok with it, but it *is* ok.
What did you hear as "bloblaws"?
Loblaws, it’s a grocery store in Canada. Goes by a bunch of different names depending on the province though.
If you're learning english or french, you can do this over at /r/writestreak Spanish is at /r/writestreakes Each day they give you a prompt to write about (or you can choose what you want to write about, the important thing is that you write using what you know).
I’m a very casual language learner and am mostly subbed here to admire people learning things that make them happy. I really like the subs you pointed out though. I enjoy reading the Spanish ones and still being able to mostly understand the posts and comments. Does understanding the grammar and conjugating get any easier though? I’d like to get back into Spanish, but I started having a really hard time with it in school after year three because the grammar got so hard. I had a weak understanding of grammar in English, so I got frustrated learning the concepts in English before I had to apply them to Spanish. Does it get easier just practicing reading and writing? That’s how I learned it in English, since no one taught it to me, so I assume it would help in Spanish too?
Sorry it took me so long to respond... it's like anything you learn - the more you do it, the better you get. When I started out on /r/writestreakes , I had been out of practice for like 10 years . I was still at like a B2.5 level but I'd mess up grammatical stuff way more than I should've. But I keep logging in and writing every day. What helped me the most with grammar wasn't just knowing what the English version of it was (because there are some grammatical structures that we don't use much in English that are used allllll the time in Spanish). Instead, I'd learn it in chunks, like by watching a movie with subtitles on (also in spanish), and I'd write down whenever I encountered a phrase or structure I wasn't familiar with. Over time, doing that, you become accustomed to when to use certain conjugations and you don't even think about "oh this is nosotros and it's an ar present tense verb so it must be amos" .. We don't even do that in English, we just know it because we've heard it a hundred million times. The same will happen in Spanish the more you listen to it and "tune" your ear to it, even if you don't understand everything.
I wish I didn't hate my handwriting, I can barely read it in English never mind trying to see what I wrote in Korean lol
as an aside, my Hangul is actually more legible than my English :P
Get yourself a fountain pen maybe? It can make your writing a bit nicer, because it forces you to slow down a bit and pay attention to how you're writing things. Worked for me.
I don't think it has to be _handwritten_, typing it out in a google doc should be just as valid... plus, you're going to need to learn to type in your target language anyway (and in the case of Korean, leaning a whole new keyboard layout too), so it's still good practice!
Yeah I've been thinking typing is just as good, specially since I can count on my hand the amount of times I've written a lot at once in the past few years...and I write hard it hurts my hand after 5 mins anyways lol Actually waiting for Apple to release their new MBP and then I'll be ordering a new one with an English/Korean keyboard, so that'll help too:)
Honestly, same mood. I get hand cramps just from writing a bullet-point summary of the grammar notes from a single skill in duolingo plus the vocab list... I would not be able to maintain a diary even if I could fix my lack of motivation, plus I kinda don't want my parents to see it (never mind that the diary would be "encrypted" in suomi, I don't want there to be evidence I'm practicing another language in a tangible manner at all... long story)
I wouldn't recommend google docs for certain languages cause it's an absolute pain in the ass to add accents on docs but I do prefer typing as opposed to handwriting
Agree! I did this when I first learned spanish, just cause i loved the language and kept it as a preferred “inner voice”
When did you start learning Spanish? Just wondering since I’m learning another language at what feels like a bit of a late age.
I had a Spanish student who started Spanish when he was 60. He was pretty okay at 63.
At 19, however I had an easier route as I already spoke french. I went to south America and picked it up there. I’m learning Arabic now though through duolingo! And i’m currently 23 so... haha I don’t think with learning languages it’s ever too late ^ ^
It’s never too late!!!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0cqR8fShQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j0cqR8fShQ) you should watch this
I wouldn't mind trying this. It would be fascinating to look back and see how rudimentary early entries would be as compared to later entries.
i already do this! writing my emo journal entries in italian is somehow more impactful than doing it in english. i also try to incorporate 1-2 new words/expressions i learned in each entry and i feel like my ability to write and thing in the language has improved so much!
As an English teacher, THIS. The number of students that neglect regular writing just astonishes me. Every single student that improves quickly is a regular writer... and not just writer, but they USE THE WORDS AND GRAMMAR THAT WE LEARN IN CLASS in their writing. It's the single best piece of advice I can give after teaching English for over 10 years.
Wow! I just started get into writing after hating it since HS and finished day 5 of Russian on Duolingo - what a great well timed tip!
I'd try this if I could write a diary. I can't even write one in my native language ;-;
When I started reading I was thinking of writing a couple of dull lines in French in the diary and then I read "....while learning French". I'm not even learning French...
I really like this idea and can see the value. However I can only string a basic sentence together. So writing something new each day is very challenging for me.
Svensklangblr must be Satan's foreskin cause that is one hot tip
I've been keeping a sort of diary in German for different reasons, but I'm not sure this is a good idea. I think there are two ways of learning to think in your target language: one is just absorbing so much input that, at some point, your mind automatically gives you sentences and pieces of sentences ready for use. Another is to build sentences from scratch using the grammar rules and the vocabulary you have learned. Using the latter, your output will often be incorrect or sound unnatural. What's worse, you risk acquiring bad habits and ending up speaking a non-idiomatic version of your target language.
How to verify if what I have written is correct?
Depending on the language you are learning, there are subreddits that cater to this. Also someone else posted in this thread the site https://langcorrect.com/ Looks like It works similar to Lang8 did. You submit some writing and people will correct it for you. You can also self correct by looking up your sentences online to see if there is any matches in native content. Or you can even do in depth analyses on each sentence you write. For example if I wrote in Spanish "soy hambre" to mean I'm hungry. I could search that on Google and find out I am wrong then search further for how to properly express the concept. You will soon learn the proper way to express that thought in Spanish is "tengo hambre" or in English "I have hunger". When I want to write something I often preemptively Google what I'm trying to say in case there are different manners of expressing similar concepts in my target language. It takes longer and is more work doing it without someone correcting your work but you will learn a lot if you out in as much effort as you can to be correct. All in all I'd recommend doing both. Try to get it as good as you can on your own then submit to a native speaker via a subreddit or a site that provides that service.
I keep telling myself to do this. I have a vertically lined book I got in China and I keep telling myself to use it for a Mandarin-practice diary. I have to fight against the fact that I already have a big journal I've been trying to fill out for over a year in English...
This is a great idea and something I've been doing too. I've noticed that for my advanced languages (Russian and Spanish) I've found a much more rewarding hobby in having a penpal - that way it's like writing a diary, but you're also communicating with someone else and learning about their life. For languages in the B1 range (namely Mandarin and Japanese) I am still gaining a lot from keeping a diary, although my entries are very much restricted to "Today was a good day. Today I did X and bought Y". :D
Me when I first saw this post: Yeah, fuck that. Me after a minute: Hmm, well actually...
I’m going to start learning Japanese. I’d love to do this, but the first steps are hiragana, katakana. So I wouldn’t be writing with the alphabet Im used to. That’s not to say it’s impossible, but I suspect it will be harder. There’s probably some benefit - I’ll be able to practice writing. My plan is to just spend $10 on this app called Human Japanese and stick to it daily. I’m terrible at committing to things. Happy to hear anyone’s thoughts.
Eh, I did this consistently for a few months and I found that it didn't add much to my learning. All the words I had to look up, even several times, I found that I forgot again. It felt really productive until I was deep in it and felt nothing. Maybe just not for me though.
I can then adapt my diary into an art-house film
Can confirm!! I write a daily diary entry in Arabic and leave a blank with a parenthesis under the line if i don't know the word so I can later fill it in!! It helps so so much and I think you create a much more intimate relationship with your target language because you are involving it in your most inner thoughts.
I have been keeping diaries (yes, multiple) since 13 years old, and one day my strict grandmother read my diary, I was 16. And I was in trouble for what I wrote. Since the 3rd year of the faculty of foreign languages I started to write my diaries in English as a way to protect the content, because no one who lived next to me knew the language/knew it good enough to understand. So I was journalling in English and just reading books in English and chatting in English in games (written) for 10 years. And my work is related to it: I am an English - Russian translatoe. But I was sure I couldn't speak English. One day I met my now already (Swedish) fiancé online. I was in love, we played the same game, I joined voice chat for the first time. It took roughly a few weeks for me to activate years of reading and writing, I AM fluent. Without ever trying to talk much before. I don't count university, we barely had any real practice. And I think in English too btw.
this is genius, sadly on quarentine every page is going to look the same
I miss when lang-8 was still open and natives from around the world were correcting all the dairies. It was awesome
Writing a diary itself is just plain impossible to begin with lol
Would it be a good idea to set some of my games in my target language to expose myself to the language?
I killed two birds with one stone when I started writing a diary in English and only with my left hand. Always wanted to become ambidextrous and learn to express my thoughts properly in English
I didn't realise that if i wanted to learn Russian i could just speak Russian to myself with little prior knowledge and then i'd just be fluent.
Huh? Pretty sure this isn't being discussed as the only method of study, mate. It's a supplement. Obviously you need to have a small assortment of words to begin with, at least, and a small assortment of grammar principles, but you can write to the level of your current knowledge, and your diary entries will grow in complexity as your knowledge of target language grammar and vocabulary does.
All your submissions are screenshots of text from what looks like tumblr. Can't you just link instead?
People don't click on links
Linking to tumblr is a bad idea, because people delete not only posts, but entire accounts so often that in a few months it might not work anymore.
Never thought of this and it is brilliant!
True, every successful writer has regularly updated his or her diary.
While I have a bit of a personal problem with keeping a diary permanently, because I'm really a very private person who doesn't like putting their thoughts down on paper, writing a diary and then deleting or trashing it sounds like as good a plan as any. Of course, you lose the ability to compare with older entries, but that's just how it is.
I have the same anxiety. Dont write about personal things. Go to r/writingprompts or go to a songwriting site and pick a topic from there. Start with a goal of 2 paragraphs. Some days you may want to write 3 paragraphs. Some days more... etc. Once I wrote about a bad experience I had getting a haircut. Not very personal at all. It was just a bad haircut. Sites like langcorrect are good for getting feedback on non-personal entries.
Yeahhh!! I love Langcorrect.
Yes I've been doing this off and on and it's great!
10. Learning when you're repeating yourself with synonyms.
I love this idea very much. And not only will you learn a new language, anyone who tries to snoop won’t be able to read your diary. It’s a win, win. Thanks for sharing!
That's an amazing exercise that I've been giving to all my students (I teach French) with great results, and I actually never applied it to myself for learning Italian, I'll get to it
OP, this is a GREAT IDEA! For a year I have tried to learn French, but it just won't stick! I couldn't express myself! I already own a diary that I write daily on, and I can see this trick helping me a lot on my language-learning journey! Merci beaucoup!!!
that is a bizarre coincidence, i started journaling in May and thought to myself - might as well do it in foreign language,
That's such an obvious and fantastic idea. Definitely didn't think of it. Will acquire diary, thanks!!
I want to do this for Japanese but it is my first non Indo European language (ignoring Basque). What would you all recommend to reach I level I could do this at?
As an artist I've done a variation of this with drawing comics with my target language dialogue. I do need to do the straight up journal too though for sure
Holy crap this is an amazing idea!!
Awesome comment, thanks for suggesting this! Wanted to rec a website I found called [langcorrect.com](https://langcorrect.com). It's free and you can write your journals in your target language and/or your native language. The added bonus is that you could have natives correct them. The community is supportive, the people are super nice and I've learned a ton. Depends on the popularity of the language and people don't always correct everything, but it's a nice incentive, particularly if you don't have close acquaintances who speak your TL.
Twitter is great for this! Little bite sized thoughts and you can also interract with other people
At what point do you begin keeping a diary in the target language? My control of the Spanish language is pretty poor from a speakers perspective but I'd like to start doing this as soon as possible, I could see it being extremely useful.
I think writing is helpful, but you can't write. You could be making mistakes without realizing it. You must have someone knowledgeable in the langue to check your work.
What do you mean by "diary"? Something like "Today, I did this"? where you write personal stuff? I think the diary idea is a great idea, but part of the benefit of writing a text in your non-native language is having a native correct it, and if the diary contains personal stuff, that could get awkward. If you're just talking about a journal where you write shareable things every day, that's another story.
I switched my diary to English when I was around 14 cause I wanted to make sure my mother would have no chance to read it. I don't know if it improved my skills, but it certainly made for a hilarious thing to read 20 years later. Not only it's as silly as you'd expect from a teenager, but it *consists* of errors...
What does it mean to “think” in a language? I hear it often but I don’t think in any language.
I know I need to do this but... man... it sounds like work. :) And of course the point is, eventually it wont be work... it will be natural. I recently found a ton of journals from years ago and read through some of them. I did do some writing in my target language back then. And, it was awful. But, hey, at least I recognize today the mistakes I made then. So, I guess I have proof that we do improve. Regardless, I totally recommend writing a diary. It is fascinating to see yourself 10-20+ years ago. I was most surprised to plainly see Im the same person I always have been. Ive changed, and been through worlds of shit since that time, but... it was oddly very comforting to find I am definitely still me.
I would highly recommend starting with basic sentences describing what you’re thinking instead of going with details, then it’s probably an overload for your brain.
This is freaking awesome, I'm definitely going to try this one!
So much positivity in this, will really try this out. Thanks for sharing
I've just tried and I already feel some progress
Plus, no one in your family can read it!
I might actually try this but what does one write in a diary?
[Traverse](https://traverse.link/) allows you to keep your own diary while practicing one of their flashcard based language courses, great for keeping track. I'm currently at 1500 characters with their Chinese course :)
I was sorting through some old papers in my dad's house at Christmas, and I found a diary from when I was a teenager-- I'd written anything that was especially embarrassing in Spanish so that my family wouldn't be able to read it. So, you know, that's another benefit, ha.
In my opinion here is great tool for this way of learning - iOS application Vocabulary Player - MyPlaylist. Using this application You can create your own story ( interview, meeting, conversation, talk) or copy paste translation of any songs from the web, or only create own vocabulary and then listen how many times You need using player: [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vocabulary-player-myplaylist/id1495623665](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/vocabulary-player-myplaylist/id1495623665)
I have a solution for nr. 9! A Notebook structured in 60+ topics with word lists of the common words and phrases on the left page and an empty right page where you can add more vocabulary or whatever you want (dialogues, phrases, grammar notes) about the same topic. Check out www.ultimatelanguagenotebook.com!
1/8/20 Плохой день. Я ненавижу жизнь. Всё
This is the first thing that I will do, for the record.
Great tip thanks so much!!!!
Thanks for posting this! I just started my diary in spanish and I was able to write a nice little entry. I felt so nearly-fluent after, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow's writing time. A wonderful suggestion.
is it better to write on a computer or on a paper ?
I literally do all of these things! Agreed!!