I love the replies. This has turned into a trap to get you to study Korean.
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…or the other way round.
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Oh, I’m very much planning on taking a Japanese course in July. This forum is not good at keeping you in 1 language at a time.
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I’ve always loved the writing, it’s so cute 
. And I suppose there’s also some amount of gluttony for punishment after getting this far in Japanese, compared to European languages East Asian ones just hit differently.
I’m very not into kpop/manhwa because I don’t want to get tempted away into Korean, but I think at this point that ship has probably sailed…
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I’ve been distracted lately, but let’s see how I’m doing.
2/5 and I’ve got a couple planned for the Bingo challenge. Seems doable.
I have been reading some nonfiction, but mostly stuff I don’t track on Natively. No books so far, but there’s still plenty of time left.
Is anyone surprised that I am completely failing this one 
0/1 I have a few candidates, but none I’m really exited about yet.
9/25 and I’m halfway through two other books I can fit on the card. Now if only I could finish those without getting sidetracked all the time…
116/119, I’ve only missed 3 days so far 
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Alright, time for an almost 5/12 year check. 
Japanese up first.
This is a quote from my goals post
Soo those are quite some ambitious goals. 
But I have achieved some of them already! The lockdown on buying new things seems to be helping… I am officially below 1000 total owned unread things. The total as of right now is at 996. Easy peasy. 
The timed goal (less than 200 physical books before March since that’s when we left on our extended trip) I sort of achieved. The number did go below 200 - but then I changed how I counted stuff and it went up to 209 again… So effectively nope, not achieved. Here’s to hoping I don’t buy more than I can read in September so I can still make the end of year <200 goal.
What helped me get below 1000 were the ebooks. Accordingly, I have also hit my first mark of <800 for those.
I’m also making good headway on reading all my oldest ebooks. 25 manga and 1 LN down, 46 manga to go.
Like I mentioned before, I’m doing really well at not buying stuff I don’t intend to read right away. Right now my count of bought in 2025, unread kindle books is at 2. One’s a free aozora version for an upcoming bookclub, one’s a continuation of a manga series I’m actively reading, so I’ll be down to just the 1 again soon. 
Not doing so hot on my goals that aren’t related to reading though. 
Haven’t listened to a single Japanese audiobook so far, though I have watched some youtube.
Speaking is going so-so. Feels like I’m speaking the bare minimum for being in Japan.
Oh well. Onto my other languages!
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So, Korean! I feel like I’ve a good grasp of Hangul, at least. I haven’t looked into a mobile or desktop keyboard yet, but handwriting is going okay.
Other than that; Korean is hard! I don’t remember if Japanese also felt like this at the beginning? Sure doesn’t feel like it right now. I stopped Korean on Duolingo and am instead doing a mix of How To Study Korean and a textbook I picked up. Just gotta remember that it will get better. (It will, right?)
French! Still going with Duolingo, though the volume has gone way down since I started focusing Korean more. No progress other than that.
Spanish! Same as French. Volume has gone way up compared to before I set those goals though! (I was doing almost nothing before ) Oh, and I did finish one book, Nos llamaron enemigos.
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What language are you using to learn Korean? Because of the similarities in grammar, I’ve heard that it can be convenient to learn Korean through Japanese. Or are you learning through English/German?
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It’s a mix. I’m using a textbook in Japanese (独学でしっかり身につく 1人でわかる!韓国語(オヌルド韓国語) | L24) but the apps I’m using (HTSK and TEUIDA which I discovered just yesterday) are both teaching from English.
I’m already noticing that the grammar explanations in Japanese are much simpler. A lot of ‘this is equivalent to grammar construction x.’
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I was trying to figure out why your goals were “less than”. Surely, your goal would be instantly reached if it is to read less than 1000 books just by doing nothing, as 0 < 1000. But no, it’s your TBR pile you want to reduce. Not to TBR shame, but that’s an impressive number. That’s like half your total logged books, or double my total logged books. I thought for sure that was your goal of total reads, starting the year with 900 or so. I’m just appreciating how much higher your numbers are than mine.
I assume you had your reads neatly logged somewhere before you started using natively? I did log many past reads when I started, but mostly by memory.
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I read volumes 6 and 7 of part 4, currently half way through volume 8. Then I’m only missing 9. I’m pretty confident I’ll manage to do this this year.
Seems like I only read volumes 8 and 9 this year. The newest volume is 18. I’ll probably not catch up this year. I think it’s the type of series that’s better when read slowly than binged anyway. Truthfully, I like the story, but I dread reading the kansai ben.
Already failed. I decided not to read Home Thread 毎月庭つき大家つき 1 - Week 6 as at the time I wanted to reduce book club activity and work on my own reading pile.
Well, didn’t manage that one yet. I tried スイレン・グラフティ わたしとあの娘のナイショの同居 スイレングラフティ | L31 and it was ok, but not the revelation I’m looking for.
As for me “My more ambitious goals / goals for 2026”, I don’t think I’ll archive any of them in 2025. Except:
I’m reading Home thread for クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった | L27 - Light Novel Club - Starting June 8 - #24 by 暁のルナ right now, so that’s pretty secure.
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Halfway through the year check-in!
- 3/3 chapter books, 6/6 manga – GOAL PASSED!
- 2/1 games finished – Goal passed in last update, nothing finished since
- 83/100 days read – on track!
- 0/1 bingo – uhhhh
- 3/5 TV series - on track!
I just finished the last of my physical Japanese books I’ve been sitting on the other day, and I’m pretty happy with myself for meeting that goal with 6 months to spare! I’m back to work after 5 months of unemployment next week, so I’ll inevitably slow down from the pace I’ve been going at so far, but thanks to all the spare time I had, I’ve already surpassed my page count and number of days read from all of 2024.
For the rest of the year I’ll be breaking into the massive library of free ebooks I’ve been amassing from Bookwalker. Nearly all of it is manga, so I’m not sure any more chapter books or novels are in my immediate future, and a lot of what I have is probably pretty mediocre considering they were in the free rotation, but the idea is just to have enough content at hand that I don’t break the habit of reading several times a week. I don’t have a specific stretch goal for a number of books I want to reach for, I just want to continue reading regularly for the rest of the year.
For games, I started Summon Night several months ago and am still only maybe halfway through. I’m actually really enjoying the story parts and finding the language to be a good level, but the battle gameplay is soooo slowww and most of the 50-some hours I’ve put in so far have just been grinding. I’d still like to finish it and Summon Night 2 at least by the end of the year, but at this pace I’m not confident enough that the grind will ever end to want to make that into an official stretch goal
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Concerning books I planned
- to read more books than I might buy - I already failed in April. At my current speed it might take me eight years to finish all books that I currently own
- 3/6 books at around L35 and above - on track .
- 13/25 bingo squares - on track. I also secretly planned to do actual bingos late
- 0/12 bingos on track.
Concerning watching TV, I planned to continue as last year i.e. watching about 20 episodes per week and one or the other movie on top: 314/260 episodes + movies in the second season - on track.
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First 1/2 of 2025:
I’m up to 49% (395/806 counting all media) - so making progress. Helps that I’m slowing down a bit on the buying now
39/42 novels (33 LNs, 4 pre-war shoujo novels… which are basically LNs, and 2 originally American novels (若草物語 1-2)). Next LN will be finished this weekend
I’ve stopped caring about this. I’ll read them when I read them
No additional progress, but I’ve been starting to venture into sci-fi anime lately, and doing SRS for that, so I think it will help with some of the 専門用語 (domain vocab). Probably doing SRS for 鋼の錬金術師 | L29 or 転生王女と天才令嬢の魔法革命 1 | L28 or 私の推しは悪役令嬢。 | L28 (which I read the monthly chapter) would go a long way towards this
- 薬屋のひとりごと | L37 - like 40-50% through, paused for now
- 裏世界ピクニック | L33 - no progress. If jpdb is any indication, I should SRS this in advance
- Fate/Stay Night - shrugs
No additional progress, but I’ve been watching stuff like シムーン S1 | L31 (audio only) and モーレツ宇宙海賊 S1 | L30 lately - which are not so far from this. Tbh “watch more L30+ anime” is probably a more productive goal - though really I’m probably gonna just watch whatever I feel like at any given moment
I dropped both of those goals
I’ve read a few more 吉屋信子 books.
Not much of any progress on these. Well I’m like 63% through トーマの心臓 | L30 which is Year 24 group
Watching more of the flowers playthrough sounds appealing rn
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That’s such a mood! I feel that.
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I almost forgot that I posted my goals for this year here. Let’s see how I’m doi—
Oh, oh NO.
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I haven’t set any goals for French beyond a minimum 1 hour a day which I’ve missed 3 times since I started in May. I have certain resources I’m trying to use in a certain time frame (ex: Alice Ayel’s platform subscription renews at the end of this month, so it’d be nice to finish the resources on there) but to keep my sanity I’m not setting any firm goals beyond ‘minimum 1 hour a day, show up and do it’.
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I wanted to check on my progress, as we are basically done with half of the year… already. My (tentative) goals are:
- Once again, read 10 books => 5/10
- Listen more, at least 2 podcasts a week )
- Finish the SKM 2 vocabulary and grammar books )
- Once again: read and listen to more news/non-fiction content, and just content out of my comfort zone in general
- Tentative goal: N2 exam in December
- Tentative goal: Complete the Bingo card here in Natively
I’m really happy with my reading goal for now. It’s the only one I’m actually doing well in. I’ve finished 5 books by now (風立ちぬ, 嵐のピクニック, 日本人の心がわかる日本語, Silent Witch and 変な家 2) and have red by far my hardest book by now (風立ちぬ). I’m also reading other genres I usually don’t (such as 日本人の心がわかる日本語), which I am happy about. I’m not sure if I’ll make it to 10 by December, but lets see.
Podcasts are going a bit eh. I think I’m just not in the mindset for them recently. Tbh, I’ve never really liked podcasts that much, and it just felt as a chore sometimes. This year I’m also hoping to do things less from a feeling of obligation and more from enjoyment, so I’m fine with this.
I actually tried to register for N2 in July, but registration was a sh*it show here. I won’t be able to do December, so I just gave up for now and also lost my motivation to force myself to go through the SKM books, so I’m dropping these goals for now. On the other hand, I’ve been enjoying the Natively bingo and hope to complete that one.
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Halfway through the year already? If feels like I was just checking in on my goals yesterday… The quoted updates are from April.
- Translate: I’ve semi-officially started a new project; once I get a certain amount translated I’m going to see if I can get it hosted on a group’s website, so I’ll need to submit an application for that. I’m going to try to wait until I have a chunk translated, though, so that’ll likely come at the end of the month. Doing good so far.
- 50 physical manga from TBR : 14/50. A few more taken care of, but I’m now officially behind
. - 15 books from TBR : 13/15
Oh my gosh, I’m so close and we’re only halfway through the year! 
I’ve been really trying to focus on novels this year, so I’m really excited to see my efforts pay off. Maybe it’s time to extend my goal? 
Let’s go ahead and bump that goal up to 25 books from TBR for this year.
Spanish has unfortunately taken a hit in recent months. I’m trying to angle myself back into it, but I didn’t even finish our (super short) previous book club book…
Other languages have once again taken a hit, mostly due to work. Pretty much both are on hold at the moment; I’d like to carve out some time to get back on Mandarin, but we’ll see how July goes…
So this is going not too bad; I believe I’ve hit my minimum 30-hour goal for most months at this point, so I’m feeling pretty confident I’ll be able to check this off confidently at the end of the year. I’ve already started pondering whether I want to do a similar listening challenge next year, and I’m not sure. One one hand my listening has definitely improved by leaps and bounds, but on the other, having at least one hour back every day would be really nice…
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This is why I sneak a lot of my listening in during other activities. Doing chores? Doing a workout? Walking to a store? etc etc
Of course, this mostly only works for audiobooks (or podcasts, I suppose)
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25 novels for 2025 would be a catchy title for your end of year recap
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