Using A Bullet Journal To Study A Foreign Language

Bullet Journals and Foreign Languages. Both are beautiful and awesome, and both can be equally overwhelming. So why on earth would you use something that's overwhelming, to learn something else that's overwhelming? What if I told you at least one of these doesn't have to be overwhelming?

Carrying around a bunch of supplies and using eighteen billion items to make the perfect bullet journal is a lot of work. And when you're busy with life, work, school, and everything in between, it's just daunting. So instead I'm going to simply it so anyone can use a bullet journal, and not need to carry an art room everywhere.

Forget The Notebooks

Notebooks are great and all, but the pages are fixed. You can't move them around to make the pages of information flow in a better way that makes sense to you. You can't move pages to make them more easily accessible for what you're working on. And if you completely mess up a page, you're only options are to deal with the page being there, or risk tearing it out.

Well I say screw that. Instead, use a binder. It has more possibilities. Not only can you rearrange as you please, but you can use multiple types of paper. Graph, Lined, Dotted, Sketch...anything! And if binders are too big and bulky for you, then use a refillable planner instead. You can keep the monthly and daily planner pages, or toss them out and simply use plain old lined pages, like the ones found here.
https://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Covey-Classic-Lined-inches/dp/B001TQDMWC
If you've got a scrapbook page cutter and a hole punch, you can still use any other kind of paper you want. It just might take some more time than it would with a standard binder.

Highlighters, Pencils, and Pens, Oh My!

Honestly, you don't need an absurd amount of pens and highlighters. If you want to get super decorative and fancy with it, save that stuff for when you're at home, and maybe do it as you're reviewing stuff you've learned. That way you're killing two birds with one stone. You can get by just fine with only a mechanical pencil, but suggest carrying at least one or two colors to help you mark something you want to easily find later. At most, I suggest only bringing along your color code index colors.

Now, On to the Pages!

Using An Index

Yes, I still recommend using an Index. Because of the movable pages, I suggest using a pencil with this if you want to index every page. However, if you'd rather not use an index this way because pencil erasing can get kind of ugly, I suggest using a color code index. Break down what kind of pages you're going to be writing. Vocabulary, Grammar, Alphabet/Kana, Etc, and give them their own color. Then, keep pages of that color together. I recommend writing the title of that page with that color, or going down the edge of the page with it.

Key, Goals, And Progress Log

Keep all of these on one page, and keep it simple.

Goals
When it comes to goals. Dont. Use. Numbers.
What I mean by this, is don't give yourself a goal like "I want to learn X number of words a month". Because sometimes, life gets really freakin' hard, and giving yourself a goal like this and failing to meet it because of it, can be very disheartening. For many people, if not most, that's enough to make you give up learning altogether. Instead, give yourself goals like "increase my vocabulary", "learn the hiragana", or something similar. That way even if you don't learn as much as you would have preferred, you don't feel as if you've failed.

Progress Log
Otherwise known as the future log. I do something somewhat different with this. Instead of having a full mini calendar overview, with numbered days and whatnot, instead I simply use Wk One, Two, Three, And Four. Here's my really bad quick sketch version:

Each week, I'll color in the bar to reflect the progress I felt I made. You may be wondering how I determine that, if I don't give myself a clear "learn x amount of words each week" goal. Well, I decide each week what my goal is, based on what else I have going that week. So if I'm really busy, I might decide instead of learning something new, to instead review something I've already learned. Or only focus on three words that week. Whatever, as long as I'm learning then I'm making progress. And at the end of the week, if I played more video games then I did studying, or just binged on a tv show, I penalize myself on my progress bar.

The Key
You don't need a super complicated key. I use four symbols for mine. X, O, >, #
I use X is for things I've completed, and feel I remember pretty well.
and O is for the things I'm working on.
then > for things I've moved to work on next month, either because it's complicated and I'm too busy that month to give it the time it needs to be learned, or because I felt I needed to learn something else first to better understand it.
finally # is for the things I need/want to revisit. This one is really important, and brings me to

A Revisit Page

Just like when taking tests, or learning any other skill, there are going to be things that you struggle to wrap your head around. And if you focus too much on it, you're not going to focus enough on the other stuff which are just as important. So this is where the Revisit page comes in to play. Just skip the damn thing you're struggling with, and mark it for a revisit. You can go back to it when you've got extra time, come across something that turns a light bulb on in your head, or when you don't feel as frustrated with it. I HIGHLY recommend this.

Other Pages & Final Notes

From here, it's really all up to you and what you need. I have a Core Word List, so it's easy for me to mark off what I've learned, and pick the next ones I want to learn. But if you're learning in a school environment, then you may not need that page. With my page setup, my main goals and progress log are on the same page, and my rules on making my goals makes the idea of a monthly log for each individual month seem tedious and unnecessary to me. But maybe you'd also like to use your bullet journal as your general everyday planner too, which in that case you might want those pages.

The pages, tools, and tips I've listed here in this guide are just my opinion of what the basic tools and necessary pages are to promote language learning. But ultimately, a bullet journal is an extension of you. So you don't need to follow my guide, or anyone else's on how to make your bullet journal. Just do whatever the hell you feel like that works for you. However, with that said, I still hope you were able to find something useful here to help you in the making of it. Because despite my lack of fucks given about my language, I do like to help people however I can.