Benefits of keeping a notebook in Chinese learning

Why you should always keep a notebook with you

There are several reasons why you should keep a notebook:

You won't forget to learn cool/interesting/important words – When I encounter a word I think I really should know or an expression that I want to learn, the first thing I do is to write it down in my notebook. It's seldom enough simply to hear it once and if I want to learn it, I need to write it down. Most learners are like me, we might pick up words automatically sometimes, but actually writing them down and studying is they way to go.

You don't risk losing important insights – Insights into language learning or language usage seldom comes when sitting in front of the computer. Rather, they tend to pop up randomly, often when it's inconvenient or inappropriate to directly discuss or ask someone else. I typically have dozens of new ideas each lecture/lesson/seminar I attend, but it's neither the right time nor the right place to bring up all of them immediately. I write most things down for later.

You never miss an opportunity to ask questions – If you keep a notebook with you at all times, you will never miss an opportunity to ask questions. Back in the days when I didn't use a notebook or when I forget to bring the one I use now, I often encounter situations where I can ask a teacher or a friend a few questions, but I can't up with any. It's hard to remembering words, grammar or pronunciation you think is tricky, but if you have them written down, you will never miss an opportunity to ask a question.

You free your mind to do other things – I'm convinced that having a lot of things to remember burdens the mind and makes us feel stressed. Keeping a notebook is an excellent way of relieving our minds and thus freeing us to accomplish other things. This means that I don't only write down words, ideas or insights in my notebook, I also write down anything else I think I ought to remember. That means that I'm free to focus on other things.

Now that we have a general idea of why keeping a notebook with you is useful, let's look at the practical details.

What should you record and how should you record it?

This is probably highly individual and I don't expect this to be the best way for everybody, but in order to provide an example, I will explain how I take notes.

Use a basic category system – In order to make it easier to find things later, use a very simple category system. For instance, I write "+" in front of new words I want to add, "?" in front of things I need to discuss with someone, "HC" in front of ideas related to Hacking Chinese, "R" before references (books or articles) I should record for future references. And so on. The details aren't important, but the principle is.

Record anything that sticks out – As discussed above, there are many reasons why you want to record ideas, words and other things. In short, anything that sticks out in the flow of Chinese I'm exposed to gets written down. This is related to the idea of mental models; I jot down most things that suggest that a change in my mental model of Chinese is necessary, especially if I think that I might have been wrong about something and need to verify this somehow.

Provide context and/or explanations – When I first started using a notebook to learn Chinese, I often made the mistake of not giving enough context or explanation of what an idea meant. Perhaps I felt that I would surely remember the context, but that was seldom the case. When I went through the list of things I'd written during the week, I often stumbled on notes that sounded cool and interesting, but that I had basically no idea what they meant. So, provide context, provide explanations. Rather write a few words too many than too few.

Managing your Chinese notebook

Keeping a notebook without ever going through it is next to useless. Thus, before I round off this article, let's a have a brief look at what I actually do with my notebook after I've recorded things in it.

Typically, I go through the notebook once a week, usually on Sundays. This is what I do:

Solve whatever problems I can solve on my own. If I can't solve the problems myself, I look if someone is available to help me, perhaps through social media or on online forums.

Mark the remaining questions with colours indicating when they can be solved. For example,yellow might mean "ask teacher A", green might mean "discuss with native speaker friend B", blue might mean "consult advanced second language learner C". This means that next time I meet A, B or C, I can easily see which questions I want to ask or what interesting topics I want to discuss. Also, these questions are out of the way and won't bother me until I have a chance to actually resolve them.

Sort ideas, insights and other notes. Most of the things I write down aren't questions as such.These notes should be transferred to the appropriate place. I keep a fairly complex system of notes for Hacking Chinese, a much simpler one for teaching and learning Chinese in general and just a text file for the rest. Consider if the idea is worth saving, and if it is, store it where you can find it later.

Cross out resolved questions, highlight forgotten ones. This might sound obvious, but it's essential to mark clearly which notes are already taken care of, otherwise you will soon be overwhelmed. Similarly, you will probably forget or overlook questions, so if you find old questions you haven't resolved yet, highlight them in some way so you won't forget them.

Conclusion

I think keeping a notebook is essential. It increases productivity, makes sure you don't forget important things and just makes life easier in general. I didn't really notice how many cool/interesting/important things I forgot before I started writing everything down and went from having a fair number of ideas to having more ideas than I can possibly carry out.

I'm also much better at following up language-related questions nowadays. If I find words or grammar I'm not familiar with or can't use, they are seldom overlooked. This not only feels better, but it also makes my Chinese more solid by gradually plugging holes.