I have always had a romantic vision of the perfect workspace: piled up on a dick wooden table, dozens of books bought in used secondhand bookshops, a notebook lighted up by the dim and dusty glow of an old-fashioned lamp that isolates you from the rest of the world and let the rest of the room vanish into obscurity.

I studied in Paris, where some ancient libraries exactly give this sort of atmosphere that makes you feel unique, superior and inspired. If you have watched the film 「舟を編む」, I can say that Majime’s home is the perfect incarnation of what I try to describe. This is certainly one of the reasons why I loved this film (and the novel) so much.

But now, I just couldn’t work in a confined and dark space anymore… today it triggers anxiety more than the desire to study. I now like a clean desk with a simple, organised layout and a bright room. Space and light help me stay positive. But I may have cultivated a tendency to let the stationery occupy as much space as it pleases, and every time my desk gets messy, my motivation also tends to sink. This is why cleaning, not only my desk but the whole apartment too, though not an occupation that I enjoy, has proved to be necessary to help me stay motivated to self-study.

State of mind and environment

There are times when I don’t feel at all like learning Japanese or studying vocabulary. This loss of motivation has nothing to do with my target language: I still love Japanese, and I still want to read fluently in this language. It has to do with my own mental state, and I know that it is significantly influenced by my environment. For example, I always feel uneasy when the sun shines because I feel like I should go out instead of staying at home, but when the rain is pouring down, I feel serene because reading a book at home really is the best option for the day.

The weather is not the only element that influences my mental state: my desk, the whole room and even the whole apartment.

This is why I always clean my desk when I don’t feel the motivation to work. First, having a cleaned workspace makes me want to use it. Second, if I don’t feel like studying, it is best to do something useful like cleaning the house than just staring at my computer or lose time on the Internet. And finally, tidying up and cleaning bring a feeling of accomplishment that also helps feeling better.

To start the week with a fresh and positive state of mind, I try to clean my desk on Sunday evening. I put on the shelves the books and pens that I am not using at the moment, get rid of old memos and random notes that are not useful anymore, clean the numerous coffee stains and so on. The only things that are allowed to lie around are the ones I use on a daily basis. I have two small storage bags on my desk where I put the books and pens I use from time to time.

My Workspace

Things that lie on my desk vary depending on what or how I am studying. At the moment, there is:

• My laptop. I use it, among other things, to study Anki, write this blog and draw things to illustrate my posts. I started drawing when I got my Surface Pro 4 two years ago. I know that my drawing abilities are limited, but I enjoy drawing very much, I find it relaxing, I can do it while listening to a Japanese or English audiobook and it is a new way of expressing oneself.
• The book I am reading at the moment. I often read several books at the same time, but there is always one main novel. This is the one that lies on my desk, the others are neatly lined up in one storage bag. The main novel also has a book cover. Japanese book covers are an item that I like more than I can say, they are beautiful, protect your book from damage (and additionally, prevent other people to see what you read, in case), and usually comes with a ribbon bookmark.
• My Lamy fountain pen. I only use my fountain pen to write, so having just it on my desk is enough. I occasionally need colours or markers, for example, when I study the Asahi keywords book. That’s why they are all together in one of my storage bags.
• マイブック, an empty book published by 新潮文庫 where I write in Japanese. Sometimes, I am not motivated to write so I just head to some book reviews in Japanese and write down useful sentences or expressions that I could use myself one day, maybe.
• A new notebook that I use to collect Japanese names. I don’t use it every day, but as it is new, I want to make sure I go on with it. If I put it on a shelf, I might forget that I made this good resolution and stop it all together. If I see my notebook every time I sit at my desk, I remember that I have to write down the Japanese names I come across.
• My bullet journal. To be honest, I am slowly migrating to another system: using a simple agenda that shows the whole week on a double page, with enough space to write down my bullet list for each day. This agenda lies open on my desk the whole day. I still need to settle myself into one system.
• If I am studying textbooks, they are generally on my desk. Right now, I am with the Cambridge series for English learners (Idioms, Collocations and Phrasal Verbs).
• My Casio electronic dictionary, that I use to read novels in Japanese and write this blog in English. I bought it for the Japanese dictionaries, but I am using the whole Oxford series that is in it maybe even more than the Japanese ones. (I just want to mention it again, but if you are learning both Japanese and English, an electronic dictionary can become your best friend).
• My cat.

Conclusion

I don’t like spending time cleaning the room because I could spend this time learning Japanese or doing other things for self-improvement. But I can’t deny that I work better in an organised, clean workspace. This being said, everyone is different, and I can well imagine that some of us are working better on a busy desk, as I once did. But, if you feel that you are not particularly motivated to study today, why not try to give your desk a minimalist touch?

My English notebook

The rain pours down or the rain comes down in sheets or sheets of rain come pouring down or it pours down with rain…?  😮 Maybe I should just write “when it rains”…

Still mixing those two, but somehow, Japanese is helping:

• Lie (lies, lying), lay, lain: 横になる
• Lay, laid, laid: 横にする

This week’s good resolution is to stop procrastinating and finally start learning Japanese names!

In fact, this is something I should have done much earlier. Last week, when I studied an article about ice hockey, I was both pleasantly surprised to see that I could understand it well and frustrated to not be able to read out loud the several names that were in it: 久保英恵、大澤ちほ、小野粧子、小池詩織、浮田留衣、山中武司 😵

To be honest, I have always tried to avoid remembering names. Even when I read a novel, I sometimes satisfy myself with being able to associate 2 or more kanji with a character, even if I have forgotten how they are pronounced. I think that I have a good visual memory of kanji, if you tell me at the beginning of a book that “正木藤次郎” is this character, I will remember it until the end. But it will be arduous to me to remember the pronunciation (まさき・とうじろう) of these kanji, and I will have to go back several times to their first occurrence (the only time they appear with furigana) before I remember it for good.

But at least, they appear with furigana once in novels… In most articles I read online, names are given without furigana (exception is made for キラキラネーム, names which pronunciation even Japanese cannot guess). Not being able to read a name is frustrating and finding the pronunciation can sometimes be a hassle.

I often ask myself how Japanese can know how to pronounce family names and first names when they see them. I think that they simply came across so many names in their life that they are used to them and can recognise them easily. Unless there is a secret method that I don’t know, I guess that the only thing we can do is pay attention every time we see a name and try to remember its pronunciation.

As I have a feeling that doing this will not be enough, I have decided to write down the names I come across, no matter if it is a real person’s name or a fictive one. I won’t really try to remember them or study them like standard vocabulary. But writing helps me to remember, and whenever I come across a new name, I will go through my list to see if I have already “collected” it or not.

I know that it will take a long time before I can start recognising names. I have been so lazy with that until now, that you could say that I start from scratch (I mean, I know how to pronounce 田中 and 山本, 😅but that’s about it…). I certainly should have started sooner, but better late than never!

I don’t know if it will work or not, but this is how I plan to work: I will note the name (family name and first name) and the pronunciation on a notebook. I will also write things concerning this person or fictional character because context helps to remember!  For example:

if it is a real person,

平野歩夢：ひらの・あゆむ: HIRANO Ayumu: wins the silver medal at the men’s snowboarding halfpipe (Winter Olympics 2018). He was ranked first until Shaun White made his incredible run!

if it is a fictional character,

北原十和子：きたはら・とわこ: KITAHARA Towako: the female protagonist of 「彼女がその名を知らない鳥たち」. Haunted by the ghostly presence of her former lover, she takes her frustrations out on her disgusting, simple-minded boyfriend.

Even if I know exactly who are these persons (or characters) now, I may have forgotten next year, and these names will be lost in a (hopefully) substantial list. This is why adding as much context as possible will help me to print these names in my memory. Months later, if I see the first names 歩夢 or 十和子 again, I may be able to pronounce them!

To conclude, I really think it would be cool to be able to read out loud Japanese names and avoid a situation when I don’t understand who we are talking about just because I didn’t know that this person’s kanji. I don’t know if there is another way to get better at reading names (maybe I am missing something obvious to other Japanese learners…), so if you have some tips or secret method, please tell me! 😊

My English notebook

(Some personal notes about English expressions, collocations, idioms and phrasal verbs I have learned to write this post)

better late than never: mieux vaut tard que jamais

take sth out on sb: “you shouldn’t take your frustrations out on the kids.”

I got my first 「マイブック」, an empty book published by 新潮文庫 that offers you a page a day to write your own story, notes and thoughts.

「マイブック」has the exact same appearance than any other book published by 新潮文庫. I like the beautiful cover and the paper that may not be the best support to use a fountain pen but undeniably gives authenticity to “my book”. The inside is not totally empty, it comes with a table of contents, each new month being a new chapter. You will find the date on each page and a ribbon mark (that fascinates my cat) makes it easy to use.

I bought 「マイブック」too late to write anything in January and, therefore, just started the day I got it. Writing a little every day is something that I want to do since high school but never did. Our ancient Greek teacher made us see the importance of writing every day, our own thoughts and the ones of others. Although taking notes when we read literature can be used for further inspiration, the idea was not as much to record things that could be useful later than improve ourselves through writing. When I understood that, it was an inspiring moment, but I have never been able to write regularly.

When seeing that writing in my own language is difficult, no surprise that writing in Japanese looks like a far-away ideal.

Will 「マイブック」help me write in Japanese on a daily basis?

Every time I failed to keep a dairy or any other form of notebooks, I blamed the support or the method. But of course, if you don’t go jogging every morning like you promised yourself you would, it is rarely your shoes’ fault.

Therefore, using「マイブック」will does not transform me into an assiduous writer but it somehow makes it easier.

First, as any other Japanese novel published by 新潮文庫 or other Japanese publishers, it is small and light, which makes it very easy to carry. I always thought of a diary as something that would be placed on one’s desk and opened once a day, before going to bed, to record the events of the day. Because it is so light and easy to carry, 「マイブック」opened new possibilities to me. Instead of writing at a given time every day and wonder what I should write about when facing the blank page, I simply open my book every time I want to write something, no matter the time of the day. Sometimes, my page is already full and the day has not even really started yet. Having a small and light notebook is a good way to make the best of inspired moments.

It’s easier to open your notebook when you want to write than wanting to write when you open your notebook.

A small size also has the advantage that I don’t feel under the pressure to write a lot. The paper quality is the same as most novels, very thin and most of the pens that I use will create ghosting on the reverse. Also, being a book and not a specialised notebook, it won’t lie completely flat and is not lined, making it hard to write straight or near the binding. The result is that I have given up any attempt to make it look nice. I almost see it as a draft of my day, my blog or my Japanese study. The advantage is that I can write and draw more freely without thinking of the result.  It is not as much the contents that count that the act of writing, and, at the end, the physical object in itself will not have as much value as what it brought me.

Don’t try to make your notebook look pretty or clever, try to get better by using it.

Finally, Japanese books are one of the reasons why I learned Japanese. Of course, the main reason is that I wanted to read Japanese literature, but I have always liked the small size books that look so even and cute on a bookshelf and are so handy to carry about with you. I remember the first time I set foot in a Japanese bookshop (in Paris) and saw for the first time hundreds of these books piled or lined up. I think that this triggered my desire to learn Japanese, even though I concretised it only much later. It may sound strange, but those small books really fascinated me and I have always wanted to buy one. This is why I particularly appreciate that my notebook should be a “real” book!

Conclusion

I love 「マイブック」 because it is small, light, easy to carry and because it is an object that I have been eager to possess for a long time. For all these reasons, it does help me to write in Japanese every day, but of course, it will take some time before I can safely say that I got into the habit of writing on a daily basis. We will see, I will make updates of how I am doing on this blog or twitter!