Your wish is my command, more clubs!!
Let’s keep discussing the hows and what’s in here then:
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If you have a free trial Available for audible and you don’t mind not owning your audiobook, they apparently have some Korean audiobooks. Their site does let you search by language too. You can also purchase from Amazon direct and listen through the audible app without a subscription but the books may be costly.
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Have you checked your library? Mine doesn’t have a big selection but there seems to be a bit of everything (children’s stories, crime, literature, romance, …) available.
I am also tagging @bungakushoujo and @HopeWaterfall as the only 2 advanced Korean learners I know. Maybe they have come across good places for Korean audiobooks. 
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Also tagging @bibliothecary in case they have suggestions!
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Thanks everyone for the suggestions!!
I’d rather not use audible, but it seems like the most readily available option, if I decide to keep listening to audiobooks long-term…
They have no Korean books, let alone ebooks 
I’ve looked into other libraries back in France (I can always go and make an account), but I haven’t been able to find anything in Korean.
I ended up digging into Google books and I was able to find some audiobooks that are also on natively (to have an idea of the level), I think I’ll buy one from there to give it a try. Their search function and overall UI is pretty bad though, so if there is a better option out there I am all ears 
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Quarter done already? Time moves scary fast huh…
15k known words currently so I guess 20k might be realistic after all?
I stopped/paused using anki so I am not tracking this anymore. I am keeping the goal but, dunno what I’ll do about it specifically.
I know I say all manga here but I know in spirit I mainly mean my higurashi manga 
Which I have 2 volumes left, one of them I have 2 chapters left in, and the last 1 I will read after I am done with the last 2 arcs which I only own digitally.
for the “so I can buy more” I stopped doing my point system because my country keeps changing import laws to be more strict so it is not wholly impossible that I won’t be able to buy books at all in a few months. So I am just buying whatever I feel like while I can.
The rest of my manga is chainsaw man which I plan to reread (and read part2 for the first time). It recently ended and the last volume which is the only one I don’t own will come out in july, so I will start it soon. I look forward to it. I also have some short form content by Fujimoto, which I am reading through with friends.
tl;dr: on track, but might buy more physical manga soon. When I finish the last higurashi volume I will consider this done for my own purposes.
nothing yet! This feels one of the harder goals.
This is definitely the goal I did best in
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- Muv-Luv Extra → arguably done, but I want to finish all routes. 1 route left.
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- 魔法少女ノ魔女裁判 → done!
- 魔法少女ノ魔女裁判 → done!
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- 幻想牢獄のカレイドスコープ 2 → started!
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- 黒蝶のサイケデリカ or another otome game → I tried 黒蝶のサイケデリカ but had technical issues, I tried another indie otome which was fine but didn’t grab me enough to read for hours. I will give it another try with some other work. But if I bounce off it too I will consider this goal fulfilled as this was more about expanding my horizons than language learning.
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- FLOWERS -Le volume sur printemps- → done
- FLOWERS -Le volume sur printemps- → done
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- Little Witch Parfait → done
- Little Witch Parfait → done
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- チェンソーマン バディ・ストーリーズ
- チェンソーマン バディ・ストーリーズ
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- 永劫館超連続殺人事件魔女はXと死ぬことにした
- 永劫館超連続殺人事件魔女はXと死ぬことにした
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- 変な地図 → done!
- 変な地図 → done!
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- スキュラ＆カリュブディス―死の口吻― → dropped!
38/200 when I should be at 50
Not on track but far enough behind that I am concerned…yet
only 2 done! which means im “just” 1 behind but considering novels take me quite long, might be a problem.
on track with 3. I might expand that to just say any movie though. I mostly watch animation anyway.
I’ve been dabbling in it 
…I am not sure if I even opened it.
English:
I only read 6 physically owned books.
overall: my japanese goals are going decently well, especially considering I was aiming “too high” on purpose. My other language goals are faring…much worse but those aren’t that important to me, relatively.
updates on goals:
I don’t want to change things up too much in q1 but a few small adjustments
- JP → Finish grammar quiz book in Q2
- DE → Finish my current nonfiction book in Q2
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Google Play/Books seems to have the entire Storytel library available for purchase. 
I added a lot of the Storytel links manually a couple of years ago, so you can search Storytel in the Book Provider in browse to see a list of books on natively (thought there’s probably a lot more available now).
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Unfortunately the only platform I know of that has a good selection of Korean audiobooks is Storytel, and that’s subscription based. Naver audio clips used to be a good place to find them, but the site has since then closed. Some people have taken the time to download stuff from there before it went down though, so if you’re interested, we can talk over Discord because there’s at least one person on the Korean refold server who downloaded a bunch of those audio files before the site went down (all the 외국인 위한 한국어 clips). Sad that Naver stopped supporting the website though
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Oh that is very good to know! Thanks for adding all those links!
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Understandable. I’m not sure if they do audiobooks but apple books does have Korean e-books, some free. Not sure exactly what though
Audien seems to pop up for Korean audiobooks (apparently it’s one natives use but I can’t confirm that).
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First quarter check-in! 
- 2/5 books - On track!
- 0 games - No progress
- 0 TV series - No progress
- 67 days read - Ahead of schedule!
- 0 Bingos - Uhhh
- 65 grammar points - Ahead of schedule!
I’m about a third of the way through my prose reading goal, so slightly ahead, but I’m very quickly losing my lead and feeling a bit concerned about where I’ll be by the next check-in. I finished the chapter books I had planned already (きまぐれロボット | L22 and だれもが知ってる小さな国 | L28??), but now I’m onto my first novel for people over 12 (君の膵臓をたべたい | L30), and it’s kicking my ass a lot harder than I was expecting 
Makes me worried about the two novels I have planned after it, which are probably even more difficult.
I’m working full-time until May, so I wasn’t expecting to have time to touch any non-book media until after that anyway, and I’m not too scared yet about not making any progress on my game/TV goals. It wasn’t part of my goal, but technically I did finish a game this year: Tales of Destiny Director’s Cut, which I started back in like 2021-ish 
Hopefully my other games don’t also take 5 years to beat.
My grammar goal should be met by my mid-year check-in. I have 30 fewer grammar points to study than I thought I did to complete what’s available in Renshuu, so now I’m 2/3 of the way there. I was adding 1 new point a day for the first two months of the year, then took a grammar vacation in March to focus on review, and now I’m back to 1 new point a day. Once I finish adding them, the goal for the rest of the year will just be to feel more confident grasping them.
I read a couple of books confirmed in the early-20s level range, one prose and one manga, and am currently on an early-30s level novel. I don’t know how close this is bringing me to my goal of understanding Natively levels, though… the early-20s manga and prose books felt significantly different in difficulty, which I kind of expected just because they aren’t very comparable mediums, but it makes me think I’ll have to juggle two level systems in my mind for prose vs manga, which is more work for this goal than I was hoping. I’m also struggling a lot with the early-30s novel, to the point that it doesn’t feel like there are enough levels between 20 & 30 to fit the difficulty range of the rest of the things I’ve read.
I’m still not any more confident or expressive in my weekly language exchanges. I do think they’re helping, just that my rate of improvement is so slow that I can’t imagine being able to spontaneously say a full sentence in response to something any time in the foreseeable.
I’ve done 2 whole speaking drills in the last 3 months, so I can’t really say I’ve successfully formed a routine The first time I booked a karaoke room for an hour and just repeated shadowing phrases the whole time instead of singing; it actually felt ideal for what I want in terms of it being private and soundproof and not bothering anyone while I practice, but it was $30 for the session, so sadly not economical to do regularly. The second time I just happened to have my apartment to myself, but those occasions are too rare and unpredictable to make a routine out of.
I’m not doing bad, but I’m not feeling super impressed with myself yet this year, either. I’m looking at an extended period of unemployment starting next month, though, so hopefully I’ll have more time in the second half of the year for reading and focussing on improvement 
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First Quarter Check-in
- Spanish Listening: 300 hours listening (25 hrs/month to stay on track)
should be at 75 hrs, am at 51 hours and 33 minutes. Salvageable, but not great lol.
Reading: Finish reading something in Spanish
Ok haven’t started this
- Korean Reading: 20 books
should be at 1-2 books, am at 4 novels 2 manhwa. should really divert some of this time to Spanish…
Extras:
Read my physical books
I did read 2!!
Don’t forget about Korean bingo (1 bingo)
Am working on it!!
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Quarter Check-In
Status Legend
ahead of schedule
meeting schedule
behind schedule
Read 12 novels (6/12)
Read 200 days (69/200)
Watch 12 non-anime movies or series (5/12)
Learn 3000 new words (1476/3000)
Finish 常用 kanji (+46, 130 left)
Finish 新完全N1 Grammar (24%)
Complete 6 Tobira chapters (1 chapter)
Yeah, I slacked on grammar. Need to dig into the depths of my brain to find some motivation for it
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Oh, I like the colored dots.
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But apparently, I can’t count. Editing real quick before people notice it’s not 10/12er groups
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Goal check-in:
Easy goals:
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acquire ski-related vocab and go on a ski trip with Koreans
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Play board games in Korean 75% of weekends, learn 20 new games in Korean (already learned 20 new games, on track for the first part)
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Do another escape room in Korean
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Write a cool blog post about my 2025 in Korean (mostly written, not yet posted…)
Medium goals:
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hit 200 total books in Korean (currently 139) (VERY behind on this)
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Read 20,000 more pages in Korean (very behind – 2500 pages of complete books)
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Read more Korean books than in 2025 (69 books) WHILE reading more in English (1 book last year) (read 2 books in English, very behind on Korean)
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Read at least 2 of: 소년이 온다, 눈물 마시는 새, 7년의 밤 (read 7년의 밤)
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Read the two sci-fi short story collections I own in physical that I haven’t read (will do one of these for the next book club)
Hard goals:
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read 바람과 별 무리 (not started)
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Read at least half of the books I own in physical that I still haven’t read (almost finished with one physical book, at least?)
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Listen to an audiobook in Korean (I have never listened to an audiobook, ever) (no progress here)
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Get a 한강 book to 99% comprehension (I have one at 98.65 so I think this is doable)
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Reach an average of 99.6% comprehension of Higashino Keigo books (currently 99.53% comp, up from 99.4%, so I think this is easily doable)
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Hit 45000 known words in kimchi reader (I am only at 34000 words lol I think this is cooked)
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Find a way to actively study Hanja and finish both Hanja puzzle books I own (no progress here)
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Re-build the habit of doing pronunciation drills and finish both pronunciation books I own (no progress here)
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Take an accent reduction class in Korea (this is still unlikely to happen)
Extremely hard goals that probably aren’t happening
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Read 100 books in Korean this year (no)
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Mine an average of 10 times a day (probably not)
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Write something (composition) in Korean once a week (I have been writing unhinged memos in Korean semi-frequently, but I don’t think it’s once a week)
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Casual Q1 update
Got to 700 and burned out lmao.
151/347 and burned out, but less than with KKLC
This means I did about 80 units in Q1, so I’m quite on track. If I can keep up
(If I just archive all kanji even though I don’t know them, will I progress better? I know people do that)
Something about the concept of “learning” is making me feel a rainbow of negative emotions instead of excitement. I’m not proud of it. It’s probably still the whole uni-as-a-fresh-immigrant PTSD from X years ago 
131/300, so this has solid chances of happening
11/25 squares now, but I keep adding volumes to it (so “Read vol 1-2 because I own them” turns into “Well, I bought 20 more, so I should read everything I have in the series”) and I’m not sure I’d want to commit to going that far. Even if it’s just manga, 20 volumes of this, 20 volumes of that, 10 more here and boom, burnout “out of nowhere” /sign
This was supposed to be something I’d carefully measure and add, but it happens naturally. Possibly a bad fit for a goal (or maybe I need a stricter format, maybe manga-only, no copy function?)
^ It’s all I needed to say to start using it extensively, apparently.
Yeah, cheap entertainment won (see Slayers)
Yeah, cheap entertainment won here too (see: that one romance novel in two parts I listened to instead)
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So apparently I’ve low-balled my goals too much. Even excluding audiobook read-alongs and audiobooks, as long as full-furigana is counted, I’m done 
I’ve significantly increased the expected bingo volume by creating two separate boards for manga and ranobe. …Added a crazy amount of manga volumes to read for some of the manga cells, so now it should last me until the end of the year.
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Well, here we go again, halfway update!
Scary to think about goals when I haven’t been doing much, but bingo is fun 
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 / Ongoing Tasks:
- Watch 1 full drama: 도시남녀의 사랑법 (January), 아무것도 하고 싶지 않아 (March) 유미의 세포들 s1 (March), 유미의 세포들 s2 (April)
- Read 5 easy novels: 열세 살 우리는 (January), 시간 고양이 1 (March). I didn’t end up counting 소여동의 빛 because of the number of lookups I had to do, so no progress here.
- Finish a book series: 노인의 꿈 (January)
- Listening to an audiobook I’m 3/4 of the way in, and I plan on finishing it this weekend, so I’m counting it!! I was starting to worry I would never listen to an audiobook
너의 유니버스
Completed Challenges:
- 7-day 1h listening (twice): January and March
- 30-day listening: March
Overarching Objectives:
- Keep reading: Getting back into it!
- Listening is enjoyable: I haven’t done much listening these past couple of weeks, but the little I have done has been enjoyable, so all good here
- Write regularly: I’m trying a new approach, let’s see if it sticks.
- Speak regularly: Stopped taking classes for almost 2 months, but I have one scheduled tomorrow
- Output more diverse grammar: I guess it has been naturally happening, yes. My attempts at making it intentional have all failed though, so I’ll just let my brain do its thing and stop trying to interfere
- 5.000 known words: Still not doing this
I don’t want to even think about Anki lol
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It’s that time again. 
Japanese
So I’ve gotten a bit distracted by things since; CD3 is done, but the website isn’t. I need to refocus for the second half of the year if I want to get everything in… Perhaps I need to consider where I could host the translations if building my website continues to drag on.
Goal: Read 25 non-manga books: 11/25. I’ve done a good job increasing my # of books read since the March update, but I’m still just under half. I’m 80% through my current book and on track to finish it by the end of the month, so that’ll bring me up to 12/25, almost half. Doing surprisingly well so far, given that I don’t have audiobook read-alongs to boost my numbers too much this year so far.
Goal: Achieve another bing(o) blackout: No bingos thus far, even including the book I just finished and haven’t added to my bingo card yet. I realized back in April/May how empty the Bing was, though, so I’m trying to put renewed focus on it. 3(5)/16 slots filled so far. (The 5 in parentheses is for my two current books.)
Goal: Have 50% of current unread manga total finished. (Current as in time of checking, not from my original beginning of year goal post.) : 26/151 as of checking right now. You’ll notice my total volume count went down since last check-in; I’ve decided to donate one of my series, which helps me out a bit. I’m at…17% finished. 
Uh. So I’ve been considering doing another manga-only August, and I should probably start heavily considering it. 
So I think I’m pretty well-rested listening-wise, and I would like to insert it back into my schedule, the only problem is actually doing it, haha. I might see if I can aim for 30m a day in July and see how consistently I can keep to that.
Chinese
So I need to re-configure these for easier copy-pasting in future updates, given that my goals have shifted a good bit since the beginning of the year.
Goal: Finish all Mandarin Companion graded readers -
- Breakthrough: 5/5
- Level 1: 3/8
- Level 2: 0/5
Goal: Read one webnovel - I plan to attempt 来自未来的日记 for the upcoming July Natively readathon; only time will tell whether that’s a wise decision or not. I really need something other than graded readers to focus on, though.
Goal: Read 2 comics in Chinese - Rephrased from ‘2 manhua’, as the books I’m eyeing are translated manga. Unstarted.
Still no real progress.
While both of these goals won’t be finished by end of June, I’m on track to finish them by the Natively readathon, which is close enough for me.
Hidden thoughts because this post is already long enough
So everything’s actually going fairly well (sans reading my manga), so I’m a bit suspicious. Mandarin we’ll see come the next readathon, and I’m praying I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew. This more aggressive approach is the opposite of my Japanese one, which was “let’s just review Anki cards for years until I somehow figure out how to read!”, which, in hindsight, was a stupid idea. Can’t fault myself for not knowing what I was doing, though.
I’m looking forward to where I’ll be come end of September!
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