Goals & Plans 2025 + Review 2024

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3/4 update!

  • 3/3 chapter books, 9/6 manga – Goal passed in second quarter update, 3 manga finished since. Stretch goal: Finish 1 more chapter book
  • 2/1 games finished – Goal passed in first quarter update, nothing else achieved since :pensive:
  • 123/100 days read – GOAL PASSED!!! :tada:
  • 0/1 bingo – uhhhh
  • 3/5 TV series - No progress since last update :grimacing:

This update’s a little disappointing, because I went back to work full-time immediately after the last update, so I haven’t been dedicating as much time to consuming Japanese content. I haven’t played the game I’ve been working through, Summon Night, at all, and I’ve watched maybe 2 episodes of Anne of Green Gables since last time.

I don’t think either of my remaining original goals are going to be met this year. I’m on episode 5 of 50 of my fourth series, and I just haven’t been making time for TV, so I probably won’t finish it this year, let alone a fifth series on top of that. I also got several novels as gifts over the summer, including the translation of a Discworld book I was covetting, so my priority has shifted to finishing that one by the end of the year – meaning that I’m not reading anything else to put on my bingo board until that one’s done, and it’s taking me forever, so my card will probably not be any fuller by the end of the year than it is now.

Passing my goal for 100 days read also feels like a bit of a cheat, because I’m counting any day with at least 1 page read, and I recently started trying to read 1-2 pages for 10 minutes every morning before I go to work. I’m certain I would have met this goal anyway with how I was trending before I started that routine, but doing this means I have a pathetic number of pages read to show for how many days I recorded reading in the last month :sweat_smile:

Already wanting this year to be over so I can focus on new goals for 2026!

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I don’t think I did a quarter or half year update, so I figured I should at least check in with my goals and see how I’m coming along…

I’m on pace for this at 6/16 orange out of the books I’ve finished so far this year. I even have a lot of L26s for the purples. I think I might even be close on the manga, tbh (that’s what the asterisk is talking about there). I might check at the end of the year just for fun.

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Even less comment

So far I’ve read every day, although I did fudge a day where I watched a subbed anime episode and counted that as reading. I decided that was in the spirit of my challenge and counted it. (And it would have been fine since it was a busy travel day anyway, and I didn’t have a lot of time to sit around and read).

at 268 as of Sep 30! :tada:

at 5,009 as of Sep 30! :tada:

I’m really pleasantly surprised. In all of the goals that matter for my Japanese, I’m on pace or have already beat them with 3 months left to go. There’s still time for the rest of them (but… we’ll see).

I’ve already decided that my next year’s goals will have a lot of tbr management included in it, because I really need to get through stuff that I already own…

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In July reading got more and more erratic. So I finished two novels i.e. non-manga books and 60% of a third one, then summer struck and I stopped almost completely at around July 20th.

Till Aug 5th I managed to read just one manga. Then, to get back into the mood, I started to read “some“ manga, so the plan, but actually till now never stopped reading them again. So in these last two month, instead of reading for the bingo card, I read 55 manga, so far, still continuing.

Well otoh hand, reading is reading no matter which type of books, so I am not that unhappy with finishing almost one manga per day during the last two months, though I can still not see an end for my current manga mode.

Watching TV ran smoothly as usual: 305 episodes and movies in the third season.

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Well, I have indeed finished all the books mentioned in that post, so that’s 3/10 at least.
I don’t think I read anything from my old TBR on here otherwise.

For my own reference (I’m going to allow manga for now):

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IMG_52211120×1907 214 KB

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Time for Hatoful? :thinking:

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I’m definitely considering it :rofl:

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I only joined a month ago, but I am making steady progress - picking back up with Russian and Spanish definitely eating into my Japanese time! But so glad I am doing this - I think when you go back and review things you (ostensibly) learned before, it can be eye opening! These language textbooks are DENSE - and I am finding when I know more, there are details I pick up on review that were too much for the first time around.

Japanese

  • Genki 2: Complete grammar notes and exercises for Chapter 16 (currently starting Ch 14 but still many leftovers from Chapters 12&13)
  • WaniKani: Level 20+ (currently still on Lvl 18, but there is hope for this)
  • Complete the Tadoku Level 0 readers, start Level 1 (forgot about this!)
  • Lookback: Review Genki 1 chapters - to complete up to Chapter 4 this year, 1 per month (currently on Chapter 1)
  • I have decided I just need to learn more grammar and vocabulary before I will be happy with attempting to read more than graded readers, though I have a few books and manga on deck

Russian

  • Review first year Russian (using Golosa textbook): complete at least first volume (currently starting Chapter 4 of 10 chapters)
  • Work though textbook “Verbs of Motion” over 4 years - book is made up of ~ 580 exercises, so goal is about 12 per month: complete 50 exercises before the end of the year (currently on Exercise # 12/50)
  • Find my old college textbooks in the basement (still searching)
  • Read a novel in Russian (will start after our Spanish group is done)- order arrived, choice is between an old Soviet children’s science fiction story or a modern YA novel that seems to be a slice of life style story

Spanish

  • Read along with the Spanish book club to improve my vocabulary (currently reading Esperanza renace, Chapter 6)

Korean
For next year - learn the alphabet so I can read the labels at the grocery store.

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Looks like you are making great progress! What are “orange” level books?

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Books of level 27-33, for more details, cf. here Our Grading System | Natively

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As noted above, I dropped Swedish for French in May. I have a pretty simple goal which is 500 hours of study. I’m currently at 266 so rough but doable.
I’ve currently read 2 children/young adult books and am working on another one which I hope to finish this weekend, and have another 3 lined up before I crack into books for adults. It’d be really neat if I do 5 books before the end of the year, but I’m not going to hold myself to that.

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Original goals for 2025:

  • Read more,

  • Continue with my language exchanges and lessons, alongside the shadowing to help improve my speaking and pronunciation

  • Review the grammar I’m stumbling over as well as making progress with Tobira

  • Listening more

  • Continue practicing Kanji and writing in Japanese

  • Try to form a better habit for studying so I am more consistent with my time and manage to get more done within that.

Progress:

  • I did manage to read more, 17 books this year so far (not textbook or graded readers) and I had a stretch goal of 18 so should be able to complete that without issue.

  • Language exchanges are going well for one, the others have kind of fallen off a bit but life has got in the way.
    Lessons are going well, a challenge but I’m seeing improvements, and I’m been shadowing from the audio Flashcards which is helping me improve both reading speed and speech.

  • Tobira fell away but I’ve been slowly working on my grammar both through lessons as well as through reading.

  • definitely been listening more recently, though most of this weeks has been watching anime, I’ve been trying to do listening daily even if it’s just the audio Flashcards.

  • Kanji recognition is going well but writing has fallen away again since I swapped my study time for listening and reading time across the last few months.

  • I have found that with my shift change and the new way I’ve been trying to study, that things have become more consistent, even managing daily practice with the audio Flashcards for the last 40 odd days alongside almost daily reading and my regular exchange and lessons, so interaction time with Japanese has become more consistent which in turn is making things stick better.
    I’m also less stressed as a result because the reading and listening doesn’t seem like study and I can do it even when I’m low on tolerance.

Biggest challenge I’ve found this year so far was becoming more consistent again and also getting over the burnout I felt after forcing myself to finish 坊っちん when I now realise I wasn’t quite at the stage I should have gone down that route since it did make it more difficult to get back to enjoying reading (not that there was an issue with the book, just that I don’t think it was the best way to go about finishing it when I couldn’t properly understand or focus on it by that point).

I would like to finish my bingo card for this year, and know that I should be able to get most of it done but I think 2 tiles are going to be more difficult for me to fill. At least if I’ve made the effort, I can be content knowing it’s still an improvement on last year.

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looks at 2025 goals that I set for myself

Oh, it’s bad. Real bad. :sob:

I might be able to accomplish ONE of my goals, but that might be it for me. This year has been… difficult. Actually, no, it’s been complete trash. Between multiple family emergencies (and a death just a week ago) and doing way more doom scrolling than I ever meant to do, I’ve been nearly completely emotionally and physically drained. I’m trying to get myself to do stuff again just so I can stop thinking so much about all the things I can’t control. I CAN control getting better at languages and bettering myself in general. I CANNOT control what’s going on around me and I can’t stop my country going down the drain either.

Sorry about all that! I just needed to vent a little. The point is that I had high hopes for this year, but this year had other plans.

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Well, since everyone else has been doing their checkins, I guess I should do one too!

:white_check_mark: Done
:green_square: On Track
:orange_square: Behind target
:red_square: Looking unlikely
:x: Failed/Abandoned

Read 52 manga volumes (again) :orange_square:

So I’m on 33 volumes of manga read. It’s week 40, so that means I’m trending a little behind, but also like it takes me 1-1.5 hours per volume, so it’s not like it’ll be hard to catch up. Probably I’ll read a bunch next readathon and hit the target.

Read 10 novels :green_square:

I’m on 7/10 complete and have two in progress at the moment, between 本好きの下剋上第二部２ in my personal reading, and 魔女の宅急便 with the reread club on Wanikani. Technically I’ll be finishing Kiki before the club to get it done in the year, but I’ll read along with the club until December then finish it out in December I think.

Write a weekly diary in Japanese :green_square: :arrow_heading_up:

This one slightly morphed from how it started as I got pretty into LangCorrect and have a 277 day streak so far. Technically that’s not a diary, but daily is 7 times more than weekly, so I’m giving myself the win here :stuck_out_tongue:

Listen to 250 hours of Japanese :white_check_mark:

So I actually just passed the 250 hour target this week, so a few months ahead of schedule even. I’m not stopping here, so it will continue to go up, but rather than set a stretch goal I’m going to focus on achieving other goals.

Find a tutor and do some speaking practice :red_square:

I’ve had trouble fitting this into my schedule really. I’ve done some speaking practice, but it’s really basic shadowing stuff to try get my pronounciation better. And I mean, it’s improved from “horrifically non-native” to merely “bad”, so that’s kind of a win? I guess my plan for this one is to try find a tutor available in the time when I currently have driving lessons, after I get my license, but that really pushes this into next year.

Learn Hangul :x:

Ehh, I started this. But then I got distracted by new shinies of drawing and piano, and I think I’ll probably try focus on them more. I mean, I did learn kana in a week and there’s less hangul than there are kana, so it’s not entirely impossible that I get inspired one week and do it, but I’m marking this as abandoned for now.

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I’m sorry to hear about what you’ve been going through, and condolences :slightly_frowning_face:

I do think you have a good attitude about what you can control vs what you can’t. The world may be burning around us, but you could also learn Japanese :sweat_smile:

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I’ve sort of avoided coming back here to make an update. I’m quite disappointed at my lack of progress this year. I’m really not sure why progress slowed so much in the middle of the year. My job does get incredibly busy May-August so I’m sure that’s part of it, but I think I may have also just been going through some depression. I really lost interest in doing a lot of things. That interest is recently coming back more. I just wish I had any idea why that actually happened though.

That said, I did manage to finish N2 grammar, but then had such a hard time with N1 that I reset my N2 grammar to solidify it more.

I’ve also finished 3/7 games I’d planned to play. I may still squeeze Chibi Robo in there, but that will probably be it. Even with just these 3 games, that’s over 70 hours of japanese gaming. Probably still something to be proud of.

My reading list…hasn’t faired great this year. Compared to previous years I’ve read barely anything. :confounded:

The japanese youtube thing has been on and off throughout the year. I did recently get back into the Comprehensible Japanese site though, so maybe I’ll be able to keep up with that.

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It’s been a fairly stressful year for a lot of people and even if you’re not directly impacted there’s ambient stress from the news/talking to friends and family/etc.

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Ambient stress is definitely right. My brother went through something in the middle of the year and was very hush hush about it, but it was pretty clear he was very depressed. I did wonder if this wasn’t what affected me also.

and worse (no one has to respond to this)

Also I work at a middle school and we recently lost a student…“suddenly”. The day they announced it to the students all I heard in the media center all day was children crying. They had counselors set up for the kids to help them through the day. I didn’t personally know the student, but it’s all very sad. It’s been over a week and we’re still flying our flag at half mast.

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Last time I set goals, I was in the middle of a move and kind of lowballed it, but then it took way more time to return to normalcy than I expected and the lowballs might actually end up being what I can do. But then I decided to stop tracking due to stress and burnout (mostly related to non-jp stuff) and that’s where I am at right now.

Anyway let’s do a check in.
JP

  • reach level 45 on wanikani deck : was 40 last time I checked in, since then changed my kanji learning approach and enjoying it more.
  • manga: 100 volumes. Not sure where I am at exactly (since I stopped tracking weekly) but I know I haven’t read much lately. I could get to this goal but I don’t think it’s that important to read manga specifically.
  • books 12: same as above , I think I read 10?
  • vns 2: I am almost done with another vn so basically complete. I’ll probably keep focusing on vns rest of the year since that’s what I am in the mood for currently
  • physical manga: I would like to get to this but not a big deal if I don’t.

German:

  • Stopped tracking here as well. My real issue is that I want to read my physical german books. I realized my german goals were not really well thoguht out: most of my german books are not novels but reference books that I won’t finish quickly but read over a long time. So going by x amount of books makes me instead try novels that I don’t own physically. Which is counterintuitive.
  • Another perhaps unsaid goal was to watch more tv shows movies in german. Honestly this was…half a german goal and half “catch up with stuff people want you to watch/is in popular consciousness” goal. I tried plenty of stuff but most of it didn’t stick.

Basically both goals I’m kind of whatever about now. I continue to read and watch in german at the end of the day which is whats important to me. If I make goals in the future

CN

Oh wow forgot I said until autumn. I guess I failed this one :smiley: I do want to get back to it but no promises right now

New fun stress free goals for the end of the year:

  • Drop stuff I don’t enjoy. Even if they’re good and I feel like I should read them. I can read them later if necessary.
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My goal is to read 64 Korean books in 2025, and I’ve read 48! I’m reading #49 right now and I will finish my bingo blackout with that. If people in that thread want to see me update to 64, I will have to move my bingo into a formatted Google spreadsheet or something, because the bingo generator I’m using only supports up to 7x7.

Also, I’ve been listening to a lot of music with all Japanese titles recently, and I don’t know Japanese, so I just had this random thought that maybe I should learn hiragana, at least so that I can pronounce some parts of the song titles and more easily remember which song is which :sweat_smile: . Do any of you sage Japanese learners remember what you used to learn hiragana?

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I used this Learn Hiragana: Tofugu's Ultimate Guide , from the same people that built Wanikani, so it has nice mnemonics

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