Optimize your language learning 💪 Note taking & organization tips

[@LindieBotes]

Hey friends! What are your best ways to organize your language learning?

[@keithmo6394]

make friends and talk to them,交朋友并且和他们谈话

[@najaubais1965]

I tried a lot of things to keep myself consistent, but in the end, all I felt was frustration. So I spent a few days researching different people's study routines. I tried the study routine of many Polyglot KZbinrs whom I follow like you. But somehow, nothing worked. So I gave it a different approach. I still followed someone else's study routine, but I also wrote down how I felt while learning, as I saw in one of your videos about planning. It's a video from a few years ago; you actually wrote a journal in your target language, while I just wrote my feelings in English. This note was the turning point for me. It helped me understand what I like to learn the most? and what kind of resource makes me feel bored? etc. So I categorized the languages I am learning into three categories: focus languages, high-priority languages, and low-priority languages. I spend most of my time on focus languages and learn them almost every day; for high-priority languages, I don't learn them every day, but still, the time I spend on them is pretty decent. And lastly, for low-priority languages, I spend around 30 minutes on alternative days, so 3 or 4 sessions a week. So I believe that when organizing your language learning, it is necessary to understand your desires and goals. Which might be hard for people to do. I blindly followed other's study routines before because I didn't know what I wanted. Most videos about habits and organizing ask, "Why are you learning this language? What do you want to achieve?" Honestly, I still don't know. All I know is that I like learning languages. But now I know how I like to learn. And the only way I feel we can find our perfect study routine is to observe our own study habits and plan accordingly. I still write a daily log on my notion page. Of course, Notion, how could I forget? It was a game-changer for me. In my notion of planning, I have three pages that help me modify my schedule whenever needed. My daily log, activity tracker, and my monthly summary. For my daily log, I have a table where I note down every day about which language I learned, the resource I used, the total time I learned that day, and how I felt while learning that day. For the activity tracker, I don't really track what activity I did; it's more like which lesson I covered that day, whether I completed every lesson scheduled for that day, and so on. So today, as the last day of the month, I analysed my progress from last month. I noted down how many lessons I completed and how many hours I spent on each language, and according to that, I modified my schedule for next month (as I have a target in mind and it's the first quarter of the year, the deadline I set to achieve my target is the end of March). Now I am consistent at learning, and I also constantly change my study plan. This month I changed it twice: after the first week of February, then in the middle of the 3rd or 4th week of February. These constant changes make it more exciting, too.

[@ChrisBadges]

I also use a separate notebook for each language when I put in planned learning efforts(not for potshots), trying to stick to one set of lessons/one book per notebook. I do have a notebook that is an idea dump/diary, but this is not used for languages on purpose. Maybe that would be the place to put in such an overview of reading and apps use as you have it. You see, I would need to organize my reading goals more. I tend to read a lot on my Kindle late at night, but the paper books need to be finished too one day😅 There are a lot of learning apps I like too. I haphazardly rely on the apps' internal streak counter to discipline myself. But then I have not decided to turn on all notifications in all apps, being afraid of notification Armageddon😂 I use a pocket paper calendar for work plans. Deadlines at work and family I manage with the Google calendar, whose notifications I find particularly helpful.

[@louandbarb]

This was such a helpful video, Lindie. It's amazing that you have been making language learning videos for so long and yet each new video has wonderful new content that really helps me. I'm not sure that I make many comments on your videos, but thank you, you feel like a very good and caring friend.

[@scrintal]

Your learning organization tips are invaluable, Lindie! It's good to see that Scrintal can help language learners streamline their note-taking and studying processes. 📚

[@nicnotes]

The Bible studying idea is such a great one, will definitely use that as well, thank you!

[@ehkbv]

I’m using it for German and it’s really good. This is the first time I’ve seen someone mentioning it

[@strikerpro15]

I needed this video. Currently I’m having trouble studying my languages because I get tired of the other things I’m doing. I’d love to try Scritter and a habit tracker to hopefully mitigate the issues I’ve been having!

[@iamcuriousidiot]

Thank you so much for this video!!! I’m almost 30 and went though life literally not being able to take or keep consistent notes. I don’t know how I finished my masters in science and learnt portuguese!! Now I’m learning Chinese and I find it difficult not knowing how to take and keep(!) notes for review. Excited to start this journey and be more organised!

[@MDobri-sy1ce]

Neat video Lindie. I typically, use different coloured note books for different languages. Also, I will typically chose a certain colour of the country's flag. Like, this book is green so I will think Brazilian Portuguese because of Brazil or a yellow book for German. The note books are more rough notes though. I make word documents with the first sentence written in English and the target language underneath with the new word underlined and in bold. However, I still put the name of the language inside because the majority of active studying is in the morning so just in-case. I do almost 2 hours 20 minutes per-language every morning and one hour in early evening excluding Saturdays. I switch to just the main target languages usually, but since I finished up the Swedish Skill Tree over a week ago, I am trying to get my Spanish to where French is. I know this isn't going to be feasible for most people. I have been a college student on and off for a decade plus so, I am used to studying long hours. But later in the evenings or weekends I switch to more passive ways like KZbin, movies, reading, and other content.

[@junaidbaghdadi-dd1eb]

Dear Lindie, Great of All Time! Good to see you after a month😊 There`s a news that I`m also learning Hungarian 🇭🇺...You`ve helped me a lot in Language learning. Lo❤e from Pakistan 🇵🇰🥰

[@nicolascabrera908]

thanks Lindie! I'm learning to speak english and i use your videos for input. I like your videos!

[@cottagemouse]

Thank you so much for this video. This is exactly what I needed as I’m having trouble deciding a productive note taking and organizing strategy. I couldn’t figure out how many notebooks I should have and what note taking strategies actually help with retaining information. This answered many of my questions and was very useful as my current methods have put me in a rut with my language learning journey and I haven’t been as productive as I want to be. Thank you thank you for the helpful advice ❤

[@LindieBotes]

Wow I'm so glad it was so helpful for you! Sometimes just getting ideas from other language learners is really useful, for me too. I wish you all the best with your language learning journey - you got this!

[@diederdas27]

Happy Easter, Lindie!

[@lidiamajda7327]

Thank you, Lindie! So many useful tips, I'll definitely put them in my daily language-learning routine

[@nikkasandoval3159]

This was helpful as I have been contemplating adding digital note taking into my language learning habits. The Scrintal app looks like it would be perfect for what I want to do digitally. I currently have a binder with printed out podcast that I'm studying with in Korean and then a notebook where I write out all the vocab and grammar that I didn't know. I also use a separate notebook for each textbook as well. Thanks again for these tips!

[@LindieBotes]

Glad it was helpful! Enjoy your digital organising 😎

[@giusi9199]

I love your videos and your tips, I'm glad you're back also on Instagram! You always motivate me to keep studying languages! Thank you 🤗

[@arrayindexoutofboundsexcep1088]

Great to see you, Lindie ❤️

[@The4cultures]

Welcome back lindie

[@vlalala8725]

와 대박 !! 글씨도 너무 잘 쓰시네요

[@colisaelf7206]

You’re awesome, you even learned Traditional Chinese characters, which are much harder than Simplified ones 😮

[@colisaelf7206]

一些是简体字，但但部分又不是，混合版😂

[@flippenlife]

I'm a newly graduated graphic designer, got any tips on getting experience without doing an internship and are you using language learning when working with UX?

[@manuelabottelli8658]

I like your videos very much ❤

[@ChrisBadges]

Hey, Lindie! Great job with the interesting ideas in this video. Do you have any suggestions for Afrikaans fiction? Non-fiction would do too. Ek hoe van die taal❤

[@thelanguageunschool]

Lindie, when it comes to taking paper notes, what do you do if you have more info about a topic and there's no space left?

[@LindieBotes]

I use notebooks so I’ll turn to the next page or just start a new notebook 🌸

[@ehkbv]

Get transparent stickers,note pads. They’re the best imo ❤

[@취성어]

참 잘했어요.

[@hayley1072]

Such a great video. Is there kanji in your Bible?

[@anna7276]

As an older lady scrintal looks impossible! Lol. I’m such a tech noob! I’ll stick with the good old notebook and pen! Haha

[@duddn03]

디즈니 만화에 나오는~ 귀여운 소녀같아욧!~~

[@ginismoja2459]

Anybody know why some Japanese books open from right to left?

[@TheShivamSharma-rb5qy]

Are you learning German??🧠

[@putraswarga608]

First?

[@ACDC.]

Scrintal needs 290 years to complete all their roadmap just to be the 10% or all the rest apps of the market like obsidian, Affine, Miro, Boardmix, etc, etc, etc Sad but true

[@LindieBotes]

Obsidian and Miro have quite different use cases than Scrintal… I don’t know the others though.