How to learn a new language with a Second Brain in Obsidian — Part 1

Have you ever thought of learning a language with a Second Brain?

There are huge amount of apps available for language learning, but most of them are bloated with unnecessary features. To me, they are there just to justify their subscription fee rather than providing actual value. That’s why I decided to try a new approach using Obsidian, a great note-taking app.

I chose Obsidian because it’s super fast, I own my data and it’s distraction-free. Although I can see the same method working in other popular choices like Notion or Tana (maybe even Apple Notes after the update that introduced links), I’ll focus here on Obsidian only.

I plan to make a series of articles about the topic, but this guide is will be more than enough to get started if you want to try it out. For the examples, I’ll use the language I’m currently learning: Japanese.

Step 1: Add Comprehensible Inputs In Your Second Brain

It doesn’t matter how pretty an app is, if it has revision and streak features, nice images and so on. They are distractions. Language learning needs motivation, effort and patience, same as any other skill worth learning. Moreover, it needs comprehensible input.

These are texts where you already know most of the words, but have new ones in it.

The idea is that through such inputs, you can learn new words without necessarily needing to translate them, inferring their meaning through their context. If the text also happens to be in a topic you like or is familiar with, even better.

But what do you do when you are starting from no previous knowledge?

Well, you will need a base text book. My favorite series are Assimil and Pimsleur, old school, but works great. You can use any book, just choose the ones that focus more on vocabulary learning rather than grammar explanations and exercises. I won’t dive into resources now, so let’s assume you got your base text in hands.

To start, type your text into a new note.

Yes, type it manually, it will be a good exercise even if you don’t know what the words mean yet. It won’t take long, usually base texts have few words, specially at the beginning. What is important is to learn vocabulary.

Step 2: Create Vocabulary Lists

When you add a new text, make a list of unfamiliar words below it.

Unfamiliar words might be totally new or simply words that you forgot what they mean. Read the text and type the words you don’t understand below it. For each word, create a link to it (not in the text, just in the list)

The idea is to have one note for each word. You will add the meaning and context of the word to its note, and every time you encounter it again you have the possibility to add more context to it. If you already learned the word before but just forgot it, the link will show you already have a note for it, like in the image below:

This is one example of what note containing a new text looks like for me:

Step 3: Add Pronunciation, Meaning And Context To New Words

This is one of the great advantages of using your Second Brain to learn a language.

It’s a simple concept. Saving the context in which you learn a new word can really help when recalling it’s meaning without recurring to translation. Some language learning apps automatically do that, but not all automation is beneficial.

By taking ownership of the process, you will have the feeling that you OWN the word. You don’t have to add a new context every time you see the it, I aim for 2 to 3, but just when I don’t remember it’s meaning. The important thing is to be active in trying to recall them without translating all the time.

Here is one example from one of my words:

Step 4: Re-read old texts and add new ones as often as possible

It’s not easy, but it is simple.

When reading old texts, go over the word list first and try to recall their meaning without using the links. If you can’t, go over the links but check first the additional contexts, and only check the translation if you really don’t have any idea of its meaning. Consistency is the key, but by pushing yourself a bit harder upfront will make so you don’t have revise the same material all the time.

By keeping a constant influx of texts, you will have a lot of fresh material to keep increasing your vocabulary and revising old words.

As a result, your word lists will get smaller and smaller. This will mean you should increase your level and look for harder material. The best part: if you ever decide to drop your learning, you can get back to where you left of much easier in the future, because everything will be there, in your Second Brain!

Coming Next

These are the next topics I’ll cover: (not in any particular order)

• Using Spaced Repetition with a Second Brain in Obsidian
• Grammar and special cases when learning a new language in with a Second Brain in Obsidian
• Using ChatGPT and word lists to generate comprehensible input

Curious to see how this process looks like in detail? I recently started learning Japanese and plan to cover at least the first 50 lessons until the end of the year. You can check it all, including notes and documentation in my Minimalist Second Brain!

Anything else you would like to know? Leave a comment!