Adding context that I got back into studying this year so trying to set up good habits:
Japanese
2024:
2025:
Japanese:
2024 goals:
My goals going into 2025
I realised I lost a bit my habit of listening to podcasts, which is a bit unfortunate. My listening really improved when I was listening to them regularly. So I want to focus on that next year. I also want to read and listen further to content out of my comfort zone - be it non-fiction, or just genres I don’t usually read.
Finally, I have a tentative goal of trying for the N2 exam in December. This is very dependant on life/work events that may take place this year, so I will reconsider this depending on where I stand in the middle of the year. I might also add more goals later.
My goals tended to change over time, but some of my 2024 goals for Japanese throughout the year were:
(I can count the number of days that I missed on one hand.)
(On track, but haven’t quite passed the mark yet. Should hit this by the end of the year, but no guarantee.)
(Not even close. 
) (I can count the number of days that I missed on one hand.) (On track, but haven’t quite passed the mark yet. Fewer than 1,000 pages left. Definitely going to hit it by the end of the year.) (On track, but haven’t quite passed the mark yet. Just over 1,000 pages left. Definitely going to hit it by the end of the year.) (I only finished 1 light novel this year. I started another one as well as a children’s book, but haven’t touch those for a few months now.) (I can watch upper N3 content without too much trouble, but I still need English subtitles now and again on L25/L26 shows. I also struggle quite a bit with L25+ manga.) (I glanced through Genki I-II for a quick review and only looked at Tobira once or twice.)Overall, I’m pretty happy with my progress and goals for this year. I’ve made good progress and am ready to slow down a bit for next year and focus more on non-language learning things.
2025 Goals:
Gone are most of my big goals for next year. It’s mostly about keeping enough momentum and motivation to be able to do another big push at some point in the future.
Ohh me too! I’m a knitting type of person, but I’d like to diversify my art&craft skills! Love the extras. 
Wow, that seems so niche, I love it. I like trying different language lesson/exchange platforms, but none of them have stuck so far. (The problem is likely me.) Will try that one, too.
Well. I apparently didn’t set any hard goals last year? Or the one before that? Untypical for me. 
Let’s change that for 2025, since that’s a year with a lot of unusual happenings that are sure to ruin make any plan perfect! 
I’m going to move to a new appartment end of January, quit my job end of February, and then…
I’m going to Japan March to September, with a 3 week excursion to South Korea. I’m sure I’ll have lots of time to do stuff. 
If anyone else is there during that time and our intineraries happen to match, I wouldn’t say no to a meet up. 
So I have about half a year of a semi regular lifestyle during which I can realistically set goals.
Japanese first!
My 積読 is horrible (and likely to get worse in September, oops) and has been a(n unspoken??) goal of mine for a couple years now. Current state: 219 paper books, 819 e-books unread, so 1038 total. 629 of these are manga, at least.
I’d like to get those numbers down finally, next year. Not to zero, of course. 
I’m honestly not sure what’s feasible since my reading speed and amount is hugely affected by my mood. I’d like to get it to <1000 for sure and keep it there even after September. Ideally <900 or <800? If I read more manga, that’s definitely manageable. Problem is I’m not often in the mood for them recently. I guess I’ll do a chain of goals, sort of like stretch goals. Maybe like that they’ll feel more achievable.
I’d also like to focus on my other skills such as speaking and listening, but I figure that’ll take care of itself during those 6 months. Just gotta be a bit proactive about it. 
And then figure out a routine after September or something.
Numbers or specifications in (brackets) are stretchgoals, [square brackets] are specifications for the base goal.
? (at the end of 2025)
[71 manga, 1 LN]Other languages:
I started the Duolingo Hangeul course which is painful, at least at the start. I’d like to pick up some basics before summer next year. (3 weeks in South Korea). Might need to look into other resources for pronunciation though.
Keep up with the French Duolingo course, read! I’ve 2 graded readers and a couple regular books, children and adult. Read the graded readers and 1 regular book at least.
Finally re-learn Spanish grammar, also more vocab. Maybe re-visit the Duolingo course for Spanish?
Also crafts! I’d like to draw & paint more (physically and digitally, knit more, learn to crochet (such a long time desire of mine), devote time to music. No bullet points for this.
Take this with a grain of salt as someone learning neither Korean nor Spanish, but I’ve heard that Spanish is a first class citizen in Duolingo with a very fleshed out course, and that’s not true for the majority of other languages besides maybe French and 1-2 others.
On the other hand, I’ve heard good things about Lingodeer for being a Duolingo-like app for learning Korean.
Yes, I’ve heard similar. I think the french course is very good, and I’ve heard the Spanish one should be too, which is why I’m thinking of re-visiting it. I got as far as Phase 3 on the Spanish course a couple years back and would rather just keep going from there than start anew. The Japanese course is… not that good (I did some of it, and my SO is using it as his starting point for Japanese) but still more fleshed out than the Korean one so far. Thanks for the tip with Lingodeer! I’ll check it out.
Japanese
I started the year with 45 books on my TBR, bought maybe 20 or so over the course of the year that increased that to 65, but then ended up with 35 so I feel like this was somewhat successful?
I just bought another 20+ physical books though so I can’t say it was a complete success. I won’t be attempting this goal again.
I read 9 books that were level 40+ and about 6-7 more that were level 36+, so I feel like I accomplished the spirit of what I set out to do and am happy with the results.
This was an insanely ambitious goal that I did not accomplish. I did get into the audiobooks and enjoy 4 more volumes though. Almost through the second arc!
Korean
Japanese
I am hoping 2025 can be a year of steady, sustained growth for my Japanese! I already have some general longterm goals that I am working on already, but I’d like to set the tone for the year by setting some loose “guideline” goals for myself rather than target-based ones.
Korean
Conversely, I am hoping 2025 will be a year of explosive growth for Korean! I’ve set some target based goals since I find those are really helpful when going for big gains.
Last but not least:
I really enjoyed and benefitted from LingoDeer when I used it, and even now wonder if it would be beneficial for my conversational abilities. Assuming it hasn’t substantially changed in the last year, I think it’s excellent for that format of app. Would certainly recommend. Edit: I didn’t read the whole conversation… I used LingoDeer for JP, but have also generally heard that it’s good for Korean.
Bunpro is another similar option (for JP) that is really excellent, in case it’s useful to anyone
So, your goals are getting comfortable with L27 material, but also read a L38 novel? Do you plan to uncomfortably read it, or improve you comprehension this year all the way from L27 to L38? Or are you just uncomfortable with manga?
Gosh. I haven’t actually studied (aside from a little SRS) in years. And I never set any goals for the year before.
My modest goals are:
My more ambitious goals / goals for 2026 are:
Why is that a holy grail for you? I like the anime a lot (haven’t watched season 3 yet), but the source material hasn’t appealed to me since it obviously wouldn’t include the actual music. So I’m just curious.
Different things here.
薬屋のひとりごと goal: For LNs I’m very comfortable up to ~L26, pretty comfortable with ~L29 (but more lookups than I’d like), and relatively comfortable up to ~L33 (many more lookups than I like, audiobooks are helpful, comprehension is acceptable or good).
薬屋のひとりごと is a huge stretch for me both for vocab and comprehension. Last time I tried it, in May 2024, I had to check the translation for almost every sentence, and there was a lot of confusing grammar. This time around I’ll pre-study, and it will probably still be fairly uncomfortable, but I suspect/hope I won’t have to check as much (or ideally at all)
L27+ Manga goal: With manga I’m very comfortable casually picking up anything up to L26 (and do so regularly), but almost all the L27+ stuff I’ve picked up is fantasy, or involves a lot of domain specific stuff (like 私の百合はお仕事です! | L27 or 陰キャギャルでもイキがりたい! | L29). So my challenge there is that the proportion of lookups is really high, and sometimes I’m lost on the grammar, plus some manga are just not that easy to understand b/c of stuff like font, art style, unclear who the speaker is, etc. Update: tho I’m rereading わたゆり rn, and it actually feels on the easier side (tho still occasional translation checks)
L30s fantasy LNs actually feel easier to me, bc the lookups are a smaller proportion of the page, and they often have audiobooks. When I’m lost in say Fate/kaleid liner プリズマ☆イリヤ ドライ!! | L27 I’m totally lost. Otoh if I get lost in 転生王女と天才令嬢の魔法革命 | L32 or ソードアート・オンライン | L33 I can get back on track soon enough
So I’d like to get to a point where I’ve read through enough L27+ fantasy/sci-fi manga that it doesn’t feel intimidating, or like it’s gonna be exhausting to pick up.
I wish you luck with this one. I honestly still feel exhausted reading several manga at or above level 27.
Here are some examples of my own struggles:
On the other hand, 紡ぐ乙女と大正の月 | L30 and うらら迷路帖 | L32 were enjoyable enough that the added difficulty didn’t bother me.
Thanks! And glad to know it’s not just me
Yeah, there’s so much niche stuff in it, and idk I wasn’t enjoying vol 3 as much as the previous ones. It’s the sorta thing I was glad to have a teacher to read through with (though I suppose scanlations with notes can fill much of that gap). I’ll pick it up again eventually, but probly Fate/kaleid liner プリズマ☆イリヤ ドライ!! | L27 and 真月譚 月姫 | L27 (which I’m almost done with) will be first.
Looking at my finished L27+ manga list, most of the L27 ones are things I’ve actually been eyeing rereading actually… so I guess I know where to start. Maybe the Class-S Reading Club will end up picking 私の百合はお仕事です! | L27 or 青い花 | L27 (not exactly Class-S, but clearly drawing on it)
Do you remember anything specific about what was challenging? That one has been on my wishlist for ages
These 2 are also on my my wishlist (tho I don’t remember うらら at all), so that’s good to hear
Just because I like the anime a lot. That’s all. I didn’t want to read it before because I wasn’t very good with novels and wanted to annually understand what I’m reading. And then I started reading 本好きの下剋上 and wanted to finish that first.
I gave volumes 1 and 2 five stars but gave volumes 3 and 4 only four stars, so yeah I agree. I already own volumes 5 and 6, so I’m sure I’ll continue eventually.
Not in particular, hence “oddly”. The setting is normal and shouldn’t really have much specialized vocab, so I don’t know. There’s a small chance I’ll go back to it if I desperately run out of 4-koma at some point, but for now I’m considering the series dropped, not paused.
I will say that うらら starts a bit slow, but I thought it improved a lot by volume 3. 紡ぐ is far better though (and has allusions to class-S stuff if you didn’t know).
Cool - will definitely be something to pay attention to. I just read through the Amazon preview for 紡ぐ, and I’m confused… Besides the random signs, it doesn’t seem that hard? Maybe just cuz it’s not far in? Idk I might give it a proper try soon
Using this to come back here hopefully in a year.
Textbooks / Grammar:
Tobira (chapter 5-15)
Sou-Matome N2
Shin Kanzen Grammar N2
Nihongo no Mori N2 playlist
Vocab+Kanji study:
13k unique words in Renshuu (current: 9.9k, ~10 new/day)
2.2k kanji (current: 1.9k, ~1 new/per day), learn new from vocab
Reading:
read 6 novels
20k pages read
200 days read
read 10 books/manga series from Owned pile
(for completionism) finish Tadoku graded readers (levels 13-21)
Watching:
watch more live action dramas (basically non-anime)
150 hrs watched (~0.5 hour every day or 1hr every 2 days)
Misc:
take N2 in December
download hellotalk or tandem
use SNS in Japanese (twitter/bsky, IG)
go to jp-ger meetup (once a month? depending on my social anxiety levels)
try to use monolingual dictionary more often
participate in 3+ bookclubs (estimating conservatively)
Edit: Editing in checkboxes so I can update my progress in real time
Everyone here has such concrete (but reasonable) goals… maybe I should do that as well.
