Anna's Academics

Knowing what to and what not to write down from a textbook is a often an issue when studying. Should I include this or is that completely necessary? Hopefully these few tips will help anyone struggle to use their textbook!

Read the textbook prior to taking notes - This helps give you a solid understanding of the material so you can summarise and shorten your notes. Have a good understanding is great to help shorten your notes, since you can avoid copying the menial information.

Highlight some key points, terms and concepts before taking notes - Remember not to over-highlight, keep it brief and minimal; key words, facts, and statistics!

Have a colour coding system - This helps to visualise your notes when trying to memorise information and also makes your notes more effective material to learn from. Making sure you’re using the same colours for highlighting your textbook and writing your notes. My colour coding system can be found here.

Use the layout of the textbook to organise your notes - I found copying the headings and subheadings really helped simplify and ensure I was learning each section. It’s much easy to find information when you’re skimming through notes. This also ensures that you can remember what topic areas relate to others, meaning you can add more into your essays under exam conditions!

Include different ways to show the information - Use mindmaps, bullet points, graphs, flow chats, and post-it notes to help visualise the content. Breaking up your notes with graphics is a good way to avoid full pages of writing and great for memorising statistics or key elements of a topic.

Supplement your notes - Use other textbooks and your own research to expand the depth of your notes. This is highly important for subjects that can require evidence, statistics and evaluations. Making sure this information is embedded into your notes is great for writing essays.

Add your own personal touch - Add doodles, acronyms, and abbreviations to help your study. Little things that make important information unique and standout will help you recall it later!

Summarise each chapter - Make a final summary of each chapter using sticky notes or flash cards. Once you’ve read your textbook, you’ll have a collection of chapter summaries ready to study from.

If you’re studying any foreign language on your own (or without a course) you’re going to need to be extra organized. Your language study is in your own hands and so is how much you learn. There is no one holding you accountable or motivated either. So it’s entirely up to you to make sure you’re organized and planning enough material that your learning at a comfortable pace. There are roughly two ways to learn languages on your own. There are roughly two ways to go about planning your language study: intensively or casually. Here are my tips for intensive studying and I’ll post about casual studying soon:

It’s amazing how someone can teach themselves a whole new language by themselves. I self-studied Japanese and never used a textbook. There are so many resources for learning, online and free. You can learn just using the online or free resources listed here and beyond. But where do you start?

First, start with hiragana. There are many ways to learn it.

flashcards, or use quizlet to drill it into your head

Dr. Moku app ( has one for katakana too) I highly recommend this but $

hiragana quiz

hiragana alphabet game

hiragana writing sheet

tofugu hiragana

videos:

hiragana song

The Easiest Way To Learn Hiragana

Next, learn Katakana

Dr. Moku katakana app

katakana alphabet game

katakana writing sheet

tofugu katakana 

videos:

Japanese Alphabet Song - Study Hiragana katakana Chart - Learn to read japanese alphabet table

Learn ALL Katakana in 1 Hour - How to Write and Read Japanese

Next understand more about hiragana like long vowel sounds, muddied sounds, The Small や、ゆ、and よ, the small つ、the long vowel sound with Tae Kim.

Then more with katakana. Learn the long vowel sound and the small ア イ ウ エ オ with Tae Kim again.

Then additional sounds using whatever method helped you learn hiragana and katakana.

Done with all that?  Now, drop romaji. It’s dead to you. A little reluctant? Practice more.

Learn grammar next with vocab and kanji on the side. It’s hard to learn grammar without vocab and it’s hard to learn words without understanding some kanji. I know it’s tough but once you ride it out through grammar learning Japanese becomes much smoother and easier. It’s not as frustrating. It’s so fun.

Grammar

Tae Kims Guide to Learning Japanese

imabi

http://maggiesensei.com/

Vocab

memrise

JLPT N5 vocab list ( recommend learning other JLPT vocab later too)

learn the words in the grammar lessons too!

Write down new vocab you come across and make flash cards or quizlets to learn them

kanji

get a Japanese kanji book

tanoshiijapanese kanji lessons

my post on how I learn kanji

Tae kim’s kanji explanation 

Dictionaries

Dictionaries are helpful for vocab and kanji.

imiwa?

jisho

Japanese ( This is my main dictionary)

Download Japanese dictionary and Japanese-English dictionary on iPhone in settings, go to dictionary on settings

After all that just keep practicing. Go to your best free resource, your public library and find books in your level, watch videos in Japanese, read manga, watch a film in Japanese etc. 

Also, here’s a good masterpost that also lists other good masterposts and more.

Here’s some miscellaneous advice I want to give beforehand I really hope you'll take:

Try using the Japanese dictionary the most, not the Japanese-English one but the completely in Japanese definitions of words one. Use Japanese-English when you can’t understand the Japanese definition to help yourself. I found English words given to define Japanese words seem to be similar words or/and words the Japanese word is usually translated in. It’s hard to really understand the word exactly. To really understand the word I find myself having to read the Japanese definitions. This is literally what I give the most credit for my progress in Japanese. ( some good ones are kotobank and goo辞書 as well as the iPhone one.)

Learn loan words. Sometimes they aren’t used like the language it originally came from uses it.

Understand what radicals are so you use them to look up kanji. Lots of Japanese dictionaries let you look up by radical.

Practice stroke order. I mean my handwriting is messy but a least it’s legible and not as messy as it could be.

learn Dialects!

Some words use a couple different kanjis. Learn the nuances of using those different kanjis in the word.

Read news in Japanese

learn the culture. It’s impossible to learn Japanese without understanding the culture.

learn kanji by learning how its used and vocab. Here’s a post I made about that. It’s the same one above.

Change your phone into Japanese.

follow Japanese people’s accounts on social media, whether that’s here on Tumblr, Twitter or Instagram.

And lastly, Don’t lose yourself to discouragement. Keep going. I can’t tell you how good it felt to watch Jdrama completely in Japanese or read a whole adult novel in Japanese. I could see anyone getting there too. It takes time but it’s very possible.

Followers, feel free to recommend any resource in the notes:)

- cigarette trousers, beige shirts and tweed blazers

- essay ideas, poetry and classic lit quotes all up my arms in smudged biro

- candle-lit room with books all over the floor, planning an intricate essay on why latin is not dead

- pouring redbull into coffee, telling myself that everything is fine

- leather notebooks full of notes

- adding another tablespoon of coffee for good measure

- deep cleaning my room and finding old trinkets and poems

- sitting in a tree with a book, whispering the words to the leaves

- danse macabre playing as i lie on the floor pretending i’m in a grand theatre

- stuffing torn out pages of poetry under my pillow in hopes it will make me more creative (and pretentious)

- another tablespoon of coffee?

- walking through a field until i find the perfect spot to sit and read

- ignoring the essays my professor asks me to write in favour of ones i find interesting (he doesn’t mind)

- emailing my professor telling him i’ve just finished this book and he has to read it

- reorganising my desk every few days until it has the right level of aesthetic

- wishing desperately to live near a majestic old library but making do with the crummy council one

- walking 50 minutes to go to the sweet little coffee shop with the pretty barista

- crying because of quarantine and the coffee shop is closed

- tattered sketchbooks filled with anatomy sketches

- finding the most awkward way to sit as i thumb through edgar allen poe

- candles

- walking at midnight, sharing poetry with the stars

- switching between strumming my guitar and playing loud, dramatic pieces of mozart on my piano

- hearing a word and scrabbling for a pen to write it on my arm because i must use this word every day for the rest of my life

Latin: Mel, tantum pone tuis dulcis labris in meis labris. Tantum basiemus sicut homines vera faciunt.

Greek: μέλι ἁπλῶς τίθει τὰ γλυκέα σοῦ χείλη ἐν τοῖς ἐμοῦ χείλεσῐ. διδοῖμεν ἁπλῶς τὰ φιλήματα ὁμοίως ὁ ἀληθινός λεώς διδόασιν.

 Most people, when they think of dark academia is books (that’s the whole point) and ancient languages such as Latin or Ancient Greek. I’m here to tell you that you all are SLEEPING on brown culture. Love that is conveyed in the languages of Persian and Urdu (my native language) crosses borders. Sure, Shakespeare and Sappho wrote great pieces of literature but the stories and poems of Rumi, Manto, Hafez and Iqbal have a special place in my heart. 

Some of my favourites are:- (all are translated)

Sit at my grave with wine and a minstrel in a trance, so your smell will raise me from the dead.

HAFEZ

My lover’s sadness lit a fire in my heart that burned my chest, there was a fire in his house that burned the nest.

HAFEZ

O the day turned night, what a shame, a gazelle of kindness a lion became, my partner and lover grew tired of my words and prayers too.

RUMI

These are my personal favourites. I can always make a longer post if you all want.

Female poets deserve a whole other post.