3 Ways to Start Journaling in Your Target Language RIGHt NOW!
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Journaling is an amazing way to improve several different language skills all-in-one!
Not only are you being forced to discuss your everyday life (which is not always the topic of language courses, surprisingly!) you also have the chance to study grammar at a slower and less stress-inducing pace than speaking. Think of writing as a way to train your brain to articulate ideas more quickly, ultimately improving your conversational skills, too!
I can tell you even from experience in my native English that learning to write effectively has ultimately made me a better public speaker, which is something I never expected when I just casually started blogging in high school.
Now that we know journaling has some benefits, let’s talk about how to actually do it. Because let’s face it… When you’re learning an entirely new language, it’s not always that simple. You might not know all the vocabulary or grammar structures needed to express what you’re thinking… so how do we deal with that?
I’m going to share three different ways you can try journaling in your target language, no matter what skill level you’re at! And if you’re interested, you can try these methods out with my FREE language learning journal prompt workbooks, which I have available for all language levels on my website (A1-C2)! So be sure to check those out after reading this post!
Method 1: The Free-Flow Approach
This first method is called the free-flow approach. With this method, you write whatever comes to your mind without looking anything up in the dictionary. This is the approach that most people believe they need to take when starting to journal… but this is actually the HARDEST method out there! So if you want to use this method, I think it’s important to know its specific benefits you can gain from using it so that you don’t lose motivation and give up.
The main benefit here is that free-flow writing forces you to use the words you already know, so it can help highlight some gaps in your vocabulary. While doing this you can leave blank spaces in your writing for specific vocabulary you need but don’t know and try looking them up later. Or, if you want to challenge yourself a little more, force yourself to only work with what you know. It’s up to you how much of a challenge you want to undertake!
Method 2: The Brainstorming Approach
The brainstorming approach is similar to the free-flow approach except instead of going in completely blind, you take some time to brainstorm and study some vocabulary you might use before you start writing. This way you’re already primed with the words you might need and can use the writing exercise as a way to practice using those new words.
Again, you can change the difficulty level on this depending on what you want to get out of it. For beginners, it might be helpful to have your word list right next to you while writing so you can make the effort to use all of the vocabulary. If you’re more advanced then you can do it without the crutch of the list in front of you.
This method can also be especially great if you’re trying to practice some new grammar structures but don’t want to get caught up in missing vocabulary. By planning ahead what vocabulary you want to try using, you can give yourself the space to focus on properly-formed sentences.
Method 3: The Look-Up Approach
The last approach is the easiest and, in my opinion, the best way for anyone who is nervous about journaling to get started. It is simply called… the look-up approach! And, you guessed it, this approach has you look up any unknown words as you go along.
The big question here, though, is do you use a dictionary or something like Google Translate? And honestly, I think both methods are valid so long as you understand how you’re using them to achieve your goal. Both tools accomplish the same goal, but slightly differently.
Using a dictionary is usually pretty one-to-one. You need a word, you look it up, done. Maybe you glance at other words on the page, but overall you are just extracting the needed information. And typically, the words are more accurate, as well.
Of course, this can be done with Google Translate, too, but there’s a larger temptation with a tool like Google Translate to rely too heavily on larger phrases or even whole sentences. Which is not a bad thing to do, but you should have a purpose so you don’t fall into the trap of translating everything!
For example, when learning the German cases and grammar, I would try to write the sentence the way I think it should be written. Then I would type it into Google Translate and see how correct I was. In this way, I am using the tool to correcting my grammar for things like cases and word order. Not just blindly copying. So if you’re mindful about it, it can be beneficial!
Which Method Should I Choose?
Now that we know some ways we can journal, you’re probably wondering which one you should start with.
Personally, I think the best way to challenge yourself is to rotate through all of the methods, that way you are always challenging yourself to something new and different. On days where you’re a little more tired or not in the right mindset to journal, you might try the look-up approach to fill in your gaps. On days where you feel on-fire and ready to tackle something new, maybe you’ll try free flow. If you just learned a really cool new set of vocab, you might decide to do the brainstorm approach so you can practice it.
Whatever you choose to do, I want to leave you with two pieces of advice:
First, journaling is a tool. It can be hard, but anytime something is difficult, I want you to remember that THAT is when you are growing. And that thing that was hard last time will be so much easier in the future because of your effort. The result of your journal entries, whether they’re “good” or “bad”, is not what this is about. Much like everything in language learning, it is about the journey. Use your old journal entries to benchmark your progress over time, but remember that one bad journal entry does not mean you’re a bad language learner. Learn from it and improve yourself!
Lastly, I want to let you know that even if you decide to use the 30-day journal challenge workbooks I link in this post, you do NOT have to write everyday. Feel free to take days off, even weeks off if you want to! It is a tool you should to use when you want to and feel you need it. If you can’t commit to journaling everyday, you can pick it up whenever you want to! Sometime habits are better formed when they are fun and don’t feel like an obligation.
If you do start using my workbooks, though, I would greatly appreciate if you could share your experiences with them on social media with the hashtag #Jetzt30JournalChallenge to spread the word! Or, if you are interested in joining a community of language learners focused on staying accountable and encouraging each other to get more done together, you can join our Quanta Study Discord server.
I hope you found this post helpful! Tschüss!
