Got a little too ambitious last year and seeing that this year, I have a lot of classes lined up, I’m just going to break last year’s goals into fit over the next few years.
Japanese
Extra Goals
Alright, as usual, I don’t really have much of a goal, but I guess I’ll try reducing my wishlist this year. (Last year, I did try to reduce my 積読, but that didn’t work at all, so I guess I’ll just ignore stuff that I bought but did not put in there 
)
I guess my goal would be to get it below 100, with a stretch goal of getting it below 50.
I already put a dent in it by reading a bunch of manga from there. It’s currently sitting at 144, including 51 manga, so the main goal seems trivially easy (if I do not add a bunch of stuff…)
I don’t have a concrete numerical goal, but I have this:
I intent to read more and focus on keeping up with ongoing series, finishing started series, and starting completed series.
Started series are:
I don’t expect to finish those novel series soon. But I think I’ll finish the managa series. At which point I’ll start a new one that is completed and where I own at least one volume.
My current goal is to read daily, with no concrete time goal (though it’s been about 45m average). I don’t have committed to this for the whole year, but I intend to keep a concrete goal of either minutes or days per week.
This also means I don’t intend to join any BC (though maybe for books or manga I already own?). I still think it would be nice to be active on this forum. Not sure how, if BC are out. Maybe I’ll try hanging out on the What are you reading today?-thread. Though when I set the thread to watching, the high traffic was a bit too much. So maybe I’ll just take a look once or twice a week?
Since I’ve been into analogue paper and stationary recently, I’ve made a goal tracker for those series I started (with one square per volume to read to physically mark off), and I’ve practiced writing hiragana. I have the vague idea to start KKLC (kodansha kanji learner’s course) again, though all analogue this time. It’s been ages since I actually studied japanese beyond just SRS and reading fiction. According to the bookmarks, it seems I got up to kanji 1024 (nice round number) first time, and 232 the second time. Though looking through the book, I recognize most kanji beyond the first 1024, presumably from my vocabulary studies. Not sure the effort would be worth it. Though it would be nice to feel more confident about kanji and looking up words.
Goal: stop setting goals 
Love making goals, but end up putting too much pressure on myself and getting burnt out. Just gonna read and watch what I want, when I want.
And I’m posting to this thread in February, that’s how chill I am. 
End of quarter check-in: how’s the bingo doing?
I made a digital version on my study log, so here’s the card:
Tasks:  |
Challenges:  |
Objectives:  |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentary |
grammar (7d) |
15 novel pages (7d) |
write regularly |
output + diverse grammar |
| grammar (7d) |
keep reading regularly |
1h listening (7d) |
drama start to finish |
non fiction book |
| audiobook |
voice note (7d) |
5.000 words |
grammar (7d) |
listening (30d) |
| writing (30d) |
15’ voice note |
listening is enjoyable |
5 easy novels |
grammar (7d) |
| finish book series |
write an essay |
grammar (7d) |
1h listening (7d) |
speak regularly |
Ticked off Tasks:
Lovestruck in the City, Summer Strike, and Yumi’s Cells. The first 2 were rewatches (first time with Korean subs).
노인의 꿈, done!Completed Challenges:
Overarching Objectives:
Wow, that time already… I say every three months in surprise.
Japanese
This is going decently well. I just finished my first pass of CD 3, so once I go over it a few more times to clean everything up I’ll likely put translating on hold so I can work on my website, then resume translating once I’m happy there.
Goal: Read 25 non-manga books: 4/25. I think I’m a touch behind here so far; March was basically dedicated to reading stuff I couldn’t track in Natively.
Goal: Achieve another bing(o) blackout: My bingo’s not doing well so far. 
I’ve still got plenty of time, at least.
Goal: Have 50% of current unread manga total finished. (Current as in time of checking, not me writing this post now.) : 20/165 as of checking right now. This is actually not too bad at the moment; manga tends to take a backseat to my other stuff, so 20 volumes three months in is pretty good for my usual pace. I’ve also been focusing on finishing series as I knock out books, which feels really satisfying.
I’ve put my listening to the side for now. :\ I was starting to burn out on it, I think. I’ll see if I can re-evalute once we get to mid-year.
Chinese
Goal: Get through all of the free beginner content in Du Chinese : Deleted. I read through a few, and didn’t want to put in the effort to have to dig through their app to find the scattered free stuff.
Goal: Get through some proportion of Little Fox Chinese stories. I really should add a number to this, but there’s like a bajillion stories : Hmm. I should probably delete this one as well; I was actively going through the stories for a bit, but their lower-leveled ones are pretty painful; they’re basically just vocab lists with voice acting. Only thing keeping me from crossing this off is I might go back to higher-leveled stories once I’ve improved my reading elsewhere. Will re-evaluate come June.
Goal: Once the above two are sufficiently finished, start looking at the Mandarin Companion books, maybe try one or two: I’ve already blown this one away. I’ve completed all 5 of the level 0 Mandarin Companion books, and will be starting my first level 1 one this weekend for the Natively readathon. My new goal is to finish all eight level 1 books by mid-year check-in.
This has fallen by the wayside alongside my Japanese listening. -.-; I’m at least listening along to all the Mandarin Companion books as I read them, so I’m not getting no listening input…
Goal: Finish learning/reviewing through all HelloChinese vocab : Pretty much done with this. There’s technically more I could learn/review, but I’m not too fussed about moving on for now.
Goal: Finish learning/reviewing through all 1k Refold deck : Still going strong. 436 cards left. Aiming to finish by the mid-year check-in.
Goal: Finish learning/reviewing my Elementary Chinese Grammar book by end of June : Still truckin’ along. I don’t have my book on me atm to check what page I’m on, but should still be very much within my reach.
…No comment. 
Overall things are going really well, especially with Mandarin! I was a bit afraid I was overreaching when I set those goals, but in certain aspects I may have actually not set high enough ones.
Japanese: I’m a bit sad I’ve had to drop listening for the moment, mostly because all the audiobooks I listened to last year really boosted my book numbers. 
I’ve been contemplating how I could ease audiobooks back in, but so far all I’ve really come back to is that I would need to institute a daily/every other day habit to be consistent, because it’s just not going to happen naturally.
I’ve had a secret goal for a while to get my novel-reading to a point where I could consistently be able to read novels in around two weeks (accounting for not reading every day in that period and not including extenuating circumstances that have me push all hobbies to the side for a bit), and while I’m still reading pretty much every day one way or another, I haven’t been happy with numbers not going up recently (in terms of completed books). 
I need to be more patient and forgiving of myself and my time.
One thing I’ve been considering is why I might feel unfulfilled after a reading session, and I’m wondering if my brain is really just craving being able to read for an hour and a half to two hours per session (for a single book), instead of the thirty minutes to one hour I think I more typically do. I prefer to read for longer periods in English, at least, and it’s probably just readathons where I’m able to read continuously for at least that long. (Though readathons backfire because I’m often spending too much time with a single book and then feel frustrated I didn’t finish it during that time.) My current problem is is that I’m just honestly not sure how to arrange that kind of time for reading even semi-consistently; the weekends I could probably do so, but weekdays… It would mean giving up having time for doing other things, which I’m also not sure I’m entirely okay with.
That swings back around into my thoughts for listening, and how I feel pressured for time. I’m hoping step one, at least, is just knowing why I haven’t been feeling happy with my reading lately. I might see if I can arrange a “trial week” for myself see if I can gauge my mood and thoughts about my reading if I do set aside at least an hour and a half for, say, every other day… (Might be a good chance to set up my own study log; I’ve been pondering doing so for a while, but I can’t imagine many would be interested in reading my pessimistic thoughts… 
)
Anyway, onto how it’s going for Chinese. I’ve honestly been really surprised with my progress so far; I didn’t anticipate starting reading until much later in the year. I’m hoping I can keep the momentum going and read my first webnovel before the year’s end; I’ve gotten some great recommendations from folks here on the forum, and I’m itching to start one. Only thing keeping me from trying is not wanting my first webnovel reading experience to be a complete disaster because I, an L12 learner, thought an L25 book might be reasonable. 
There’s definitely arguments to be made for “read it if it interests you, not because you’re supposed to”, but I do want to give myself every chance for webnovels to not completely annihilate me first thing, and I have been enjoying my graded readers so far.
I’ve also recently re-configured my Pleco settings so they’re more Anki-like, which I’m really enjoying; my retention feels much higher than using the defaults they were set to.
I’m not even going to start thinking about listening comprehension; I’m just going to have to accept the fact that it’s going to be terrible like my Japanese. If I were more inclined to relax with audio then that’d be one thing, but I’m really generally not (at least not to a degree to consistently improve my listening), so I’m not going to torture myself over it.
Anyway, that’s all for now. See you all in another three months! 
I would be very interested, pessimistic study log when
Looks like your Mandarin reading is going very well, that’s so exciting 
わかる！ 
I wasn’t originally planning on setting goals, cuz things were crazy… But I’m thinking I might want to now.
| Reading Goal | Progress (vols) |
|---|---|
| ソードアート・オンライン プログレッシブ | L34 | 2/9 |
| ソードアート・オンライン | L33 | 10/28 |
| マリア様がみてる | 0/37 |
| 暁のヨナ | 0/47 |
| 80 LNs/novels | 3/80 |
| Fate/Stay Night - Saber Route | early |
Are you going to be re-reading the full series?
That’s the intent, yeah. Tho マリみて I’m allowed to stop at 34 like I did the first time
I’m a bit torn with マリみて tho bc maybe it’s better to read more new things… But there’s some stuff in there I really wanna re-experience
I’m realizing it wouldn’t show in my stats either. Maybe this will be the year I start a spreadsheet 
I definitely feel that. I feel like once I finish Flesh&Blood I’m going to want to start from the beginning at some point; my Japanese level is so different from when I started, and I’m sure there are details I missed originally or got lost in the flood.
Yeah I’m really looking forward to going back through Yona, now that the series is over! It was my first JP manga (reading along with English)
マリみて I suppose would have some places where I missed nuances or understand it better now.
It’s so cool coming back to stuff. I am worried my LNs goal is unrealistic though, given that my time is being split with Korean… But we’ll see how it goes I guess
Bought the full Yona series when it was on sale, I also want to get to it soonish 
Same!
It’s now sitting on my kindle app. Starting at me with all of its pretty covers and promises of plot past the point to which I read translations years ago.
Is it just me or is something whispering Informal book club here 
I might be tempted to join if you guys do. I picked up volumes 1-5 a while ago for free/extremely cheap that I haven’t gotten around to yet.
I will happily lurk in the thread! It’s one of my absolute favorite series.
One fourth* into the year already, wow.
Good moment to reflect on my goals!
Progress is slow but steady.
(Edit: 1/4th, not 1/3rd, I can’t Maths)
I can certainly start a thread!! I’ll try to do that today or tomorrow. Edit: someone beat me to it. This is like my happiest day on the forums!!
