strive for greatness

Some things you can do in your target language that are fun and make you care more than when reading a textbook:

Cook a traditional recipe

Find a video in your target language on how to cook something you like from somewhere that speaks your target language. The motivation here is obvious- if you don't understand the recipe you won't be able to make the dish. Watch it once to find out what the ingredients are, and again when making the dish. Use your dictionary of choice to help out if needed.

2. Play a video game

I prefer turn-based games with RPG elements as I get a mix of dialogue and utility words like save, menu, attack, etc. Right now, I'm playing Dicey Dungeons in Chinese and Pokemon SoulSilver in Japanese (hiragana only). The consequence here is obvious, if you can't navigate menus or choose the wrong attack, the game will be harder.

Hard mode: Find a server with voice chat in your target language where teamwork or communication is important. Any MOBA or MMORPG comes to mind. You'll learn to communicate on the fly, and you'll learn a plethora of the foulest swear words imaginable.

3. Share your personal interests with others

Learn to talk about things that you do that are unique to you. Standard language courses teach you words that tend to be generally used: eat, sleep, drink, etc. What about things that are of special interest to you? Chances are, you will use this vocabulary more often than the average person, and you will be more passionate about the subject- this leads to higher motivation to retain this specialized vocabulary.

Then post it wherever you want, or in a diary, or talk about it to a native speaker.

4. Learn to tell a joke

Recite and rehearse jokes you find funny. Jokes in other languages reveal so much about the underlying culture that can't easily be translated. By understanding how to tell a joke in another language, you will gain more appreciation for the language itself. The upshot here is that telling a joke comes with social risk, so you will have to build the confidence before delivering the joke.

Bonus: Foreign language puns are hilarious.

5. Listen to a local radio station

Local radio stations have it all- interviews, ads, music, traffic updates, and more. Many of these are available online, so no need to move to the city and pull out your FM receiver! What's especially nice about this option is that radio hosts tend to enunciate and use proper language. Even if you don't understand every word, the grammar and structure of the language will slowly ingrain itself.

song lyrics for a specific mood

spotify codes for favourite songs

receipts from a trip

envelope for gifts from any small children you know

pages to press flowers in

ticket stubs

fortune cookie readings

daily three-card tarot pulls

watercolour paper for art

page cutouts

watercolours just in general

pressed flowers

other dried herbs

sketches (taped or glued in)

morning/evening routines

colour in the leftover paper backing from stickers and glue/tape it in

friendship bracelets that may have broken or come off

grocery lists or other shopping lists (glue in if written on other paper)

book quotes

block poetry (you'll have to take a page out of a book for this)

mental health goals

halloween: candy wrappers

fabric scraps

family recipes

different textured papers

stamps

• pressed autumn leaves

• postcards/cards from people you love or as a souvenir from a place you visited

• daily appreciation/gratification

• a few lines a day to journal about your day/any thoughts

• washi swatch

• any school/university study schedule with goals for the academic year/semester

• cinema tickets

• a reflection of favourites (write a list of topics (film, animal, etc) and what your current date is and write your favourites, then in 1 year or whenever you finish the journal, write your updated favourites)

(When I don't want to look at my textbooks)

I haven't wanted to work out of my textbooks the past couple of weeks (and I've wanted to do more natural practice that isn't generic textbook-speak), so here are the main 3 methods I've been using to give myself better practice than just using a workbook or a textbook!

If anybody decides to try any of this because of this post, let me know how you like them! I'm working in Japanese for all of these, so occasionally parts of my description are specific to working in Japanese, but of course you could do these in any language.

Audio Transcription: This one has by far been my favorite activity recently! Since I like video games, I choose a game I like to do this, but anything with speaking lines in it (anime, dramas, movies, plays, etc.) works well! I just pull up a voice line that I can repeat a few times (I've been using Project Sekai dialogue- specifically tapping on them on the character rank screens so I can't see the translated dialogue pop up), and play the audio a few times as I write down what I hear in hiragana and katakana (no kanji). After I've gotten the entire line transcribed based on what I hear, I go back through it with the English translation the game gives for the line pulled up and write the kanji for words and correct words that I can tell are wrong. I do my best to get it as completed and correct as possible just using my own knowledge and the English translation before doing a final check by pulling up the original written Japanese dialogue to see how I did. It's been incredibly fun and a huge confidence booster for me, as it's shown me my listening comprehension is better than I thought!

Journaling: I mentioned in a small update post that I wrote myself a python code that generated Japanese writing prompts with grammar points and vocab to use based on Genki 1 and 2, and I've been using it regularly to give me prompts! It generates three grammar points, and I try to incorporate all three grammar points into my journal entry somewhere as I talk about my day and what's on my mind. Sometimes I'll run the generator a couple of times to get a better suggestion that works better with things I know I want to write about, and it's been really effective in getting me to use a variety of grammar points instead of just using the ones I remember the best! I feel more confident producing things that use more complicated grammar structures the more I use them, so having this generate grammars that I skip or forget that I've learned helps me get more confident in more things! It's nice getting to write a little bit every day, too.

Looking at TL Websites: This is my lower-pressure version of reading books, haha. I find a Japan-only game or audio drama or something (or, if I can access it, view the Japanese website for a game I've played or can play) and just... Read it! I usually do this while in a call with my partner to give myself some pressure to prove my comprehension by translating it or roughly explaining what it says to my partner as I go. This one is nice because it leads to finding cool stuff! I've found some cool series/games/etc. that were only released in Japan that I can use to practice comprehension and practice translating so I can get my partner involved in it too. Searching for kanji can be difficult with this one sometimes, since a decent amount of the time the kanji I need to search is an image and not text that I can copy, so if it's difficult to recognize the radicals or how I'd write it... Difficult. But overall it's still fun! It's the slowest method of the three I've been using, so I have to be in the mood for searching for kanji, haha.

Cup of tea?