Learn a Language with Your Sketchbook

Combine two worthwhile activities into one!

A few years ago, I went to Italy…

…and I hoped to pick up a little Italian before I left. Just enough to order in restaurants and navigate a train station.

I love Coffee Break Languages, which started as a Spanish language podcast and has since expanded a broader teaching platform offering many languages. But I didn’t download the videos, the workbooks, or any of the other extras. All I did was listen to the free Coffee Break Italian podcast on my daily walks.

And I did pick up some Italian! It helped that I already knew Spanish. But I was, in fact, able to order in restaurants, get around on public transportation, and carry on very rudimentary conversations. I loved it.

What really helped, though was to make a sketchbook where I wrote out key vocabulary. Since I’d been listening to a podcast, it was very useful to sit down and write out words and phrases, just to get a handle on the written language, since I’d have to read signs and menus as well.

And I made little illustrations that not only kept me entertained, but also gave me some practice drawing the kinds of places I was likely to encounter in Italy. It was a pre-travel sketchbook and vocabulary cheat sheet combo platter.

I started and ended the book with greetings:

I worked on numbers and amounts, so that I could handle addresses, train schedules, and finances.

I made sure to learn a little about food and ordering in restaurants, particularly since we’re both vegetarian and need to know how to ask for something “without meat” or “without fish” and so on.

And I had pages on transportation, wayfinding, and directions.

There were lots of other pages. Days of the week and times of day. How to say I’m sorry, or excuse me. Useful little words like where/when/how. And an endless list of drinks I intended to order: Una granita al limone. Un vino spumante. Un caffe macchiato.

Some suggestions for a pre-trip sketchbook

If you don’t want to make art, you can still jazz it up. Drop in some collage! That takes nothing but a glue stick and either some magazines or a printer. Or go on a hunt for some stickers or stamps related to your trip! Even if you can’t find something very place-specific, you can always add general scenery (beaches, palm trees), food (like the lemons and artichokes I did here), and the like.

Fill an entire sketchbook like I did, or add these language pages to a sketchbook you’ll take with you. If you’re planning to take a sketchbook or diary on your trip, why not buy the sketchbook now and add vocabulary pages to your book? Either use the very front or back pages, or fill every fifth or tenth page, leaving lots of blank pages for writing and drawing during your trip. That way, you’ll have your language notes with you when you travel.

Don’t get hung up on making it look perfect. There’s tremendous value in writing things out by hand when you’re learning something new. Just use your own normal, possibly terrible handwriting, like I did here, and have fun.

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Paid subscribers are getting a mini-intensive on travel sketching

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to answer some of the questions that subscribers have been sending me about travel sketching. We’ll cover:

• Supplies and logistics (like how to avoid dropping your art supplies in the canal in Amsterdam.)

• Very simple approaches to decorative lettering, and ideas for incorporating more writing into a sketchbook

• Collage and other alternatives to painting and drawing

• Figuring out what to draw in the time you have

Subscriptions are cheap, you can sign up for just a month and cancel anytime, and you get access to the full archive. I also have a Founding Member tier (aka Patron of the Arts) where I’ll draw your vacation photo, make a lesson about how I did it, and send you the finished painting. Details here:

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The Bit at the End

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