Third quarter check-in time? There’s just a few months left of the year; I should probably start thinking about ruminating on my 2026 goals. There’s a few floating around in my head, but nothing definite yet.
(The quoted updates are from July.)
- Translate (JP) : I haven’t taken the plunge to get my translation hosted anywhere yet, but I’m still steadily working on it; my excuse at the moment is I want to build up a good stock of already-translated material. I’ve hit a few roadbumps with it, but that’s more due to inexperience on my side than anything; I’ve still been making consistent forward progress, slow as it may be. Going well.
- 50 physical manga from TBR : 29/50. I had a good bump in August when I dedicated most of that month solely to reading manga, but I’m still behind and generally unwilling to put aside novels in favor of manga at the moment. I’m going to have to dedicate my winter readathon to manga for sure at this rate, but that’ll give me like 4-6 volumes at max when I need 21… I need to figure out a plan for this.
- 25 non-manga from TBR : 21/25. I’m wondering if I made a mistake somewhere and miscounted and/or used/didn’t use consistent criteria with past counts, because a jump of 8 novels since the last update definitely isn’t right, but I can’t figure out how I calculated that 13 number.
Was I only counting physical books for some reason? But those aren’t my only TBR…
I am participating in the current Spanish book club, and’ve been working on the Refold 1k Spanish deck, but I’m not gonna lie: it’s looking a bit dire in terms of me continuing Spanish too much farther past this year. The effort involved in learning it hasn’t really motivated in terms of what books it’ll give me access to. My current goal is to finish the book club, finish the Refold deck, then pick one book from my goal list of Spanish books and see how that book goes. There’s a good chance that any of the books I pick will be too hard for me, but if something’s sufficiently interesting I know I can push through from past experience.
If by the end of all that I still feel like I’m just learning Spanish due to the sunk cost fallacy, then I think that’s my cue to stop beating myself up over constantly neglecting it and set it free.
Mandarin’s actually been going pretty well since, though I think I’m hitting another “I need a break” periods my brain goes through with new languages. I’d been hoping to finish the HelloChinese course before my sub expired, and when that didn’t pan out I re-subbed for just 3 months, sure that I could finish it by then, and now I’m too scared to tally up my remaining days vs. lessons. 
I decided some time back to try to view any new languages I may be interested in dabbling in solely as “hobby” languages, mostly to try to give myself a sense of perspective that it’s okay not integrate every single new passing fancy into my daily schedule. Mandarin’s still pretty firmly in this hobby section, and will likely remain that way until I ever theoretically become good enough to read ~L25 content or so. No clue if I’ll ever reach that point or if I’ll drop it before then, so in the meantime I’ll do my best to learn, and if I have a week where I don’t feel like it, then I don’t feel like it.
1 hr of JP listening/day : I’ve definitely noticed that as the year moves on, it’s gotten easier and easier to just not listen for a span of days, then frantically try to make that up later in the month. I believe I’ve been successful in hitting my base 30 hour goal each month, but it’s been a hot minute since I’ve hit any of my stretch goals. What I want to do for listening in the new year is still a hot topic in my mind, and one I’ve come to no firm conclusion on yet. Perhaps I’ll make an audiobook goal to work towards, and any extra listening is just bonus? We’ll see.
