Quote:2013:
1. Complete my "divide and conquer" plan for Japanese. My currently planned path is to go through:
-Authentic Japanese (textbook) -> RTK 3 -> Core 6k -> Go "monolingual" with Japanese Level-Up's J-J guide Made good progress on this one, but I'm not quite done. I'm currently working on Core10k, plan to do The ２級 and １級 grammar books for 完全マスター, and still have yet to give branching a shot.
2. Read more... a lot more. I have been reading more (if video game text counts 笑), but I can definitely do better
3. Keep immersing and enjoying Japanese I feel like I'm doing well here. I do wish I had more time to watch Japanese TV, though.
4. Improve my (very weak) output ability I didn't do much for output at all. However, my priority is to understand the language, so I'm okay with this for now (though it still sucks not being able to communicate).

Goals for 2014:
・ Complete my projected Anki study plan: Core10k, ２級 and １級 of 完全マスター 文法 guides, Begin J-J branching
・ Read more manga - I have so many sitting on my shelf, and even more in digital form. It'd be nice to read through them and fill up my 読者メーター.
・ Play more (Japanese) video games - I definitely do enough of this already, but they've mostly been online games like PSO2 and FF14. I'd like to get away from those and increase my variety. I have several games to play (especially with Japanese PS Plus increasing my backlog every month) and would like to get around to them sometime.
・ Watch and listen to more Japanese - I was doing pretty well for a while: Watching Japanese TV all the time with the occasional drama, but at some point I kind of stopped doing it. I still get exposure from Youtube and the occasional podcast, but this is definitely something that needs to be increased.

Ultimately, what I'd like to get out of this year is a shift in focus from Anki to native media. I've been spending a lot of time with Anki, mostly with the core decks at 35 cards a day. Anki's been great, but native media is where the real learning happens. Also, I just want to spend more time watching anime and playing video games （笑）.

i'm pretty introverted, and anxiety prone, so I've been trying to challenge myself the last couple of years.
2013 Reflections of Japanese / personal challenges
- traveled twice around the world, spending time in 12 countries
- missed the deadline for signing up for the N2 in Thailand (0% chance of passing the test, but I wanted the challenge)
- participated in a toastmasters speech contest (won the club contest and then got last place in the area contest. it was a good experience)
- ran a 10k in Tokyo
- failed at keeping up with my anki reps while traveling
- volunteered once a week as an english tutor for refugees living in the US

2014 Resolutions

- shift more to reading / listening / italki lessons.. less anki
- take the N2
- run a half marathon in a foreign country
- climb mt. fuji
- participate more in toastmasters
- do more volunteer english tutoring

Accomplished:

- Over 2,200 characters and 6,000 accompanying words learned via Skritter. Missed only 12 days; studied character writings for a cumulative total of 187 hours.
- Began writing more by hand in Japanese, though not nearly enough.
- Began using italki between 1 and 2 hours per week to practice my conversation skills. My convo ability increased markedly as a result, to the point where a Japanese friend I had known for a year was taken aback when we met after not having seen one another for five months. So, win.
- Took N2. Realized my listening comp still sucked badly, even though my reading comp improved immensely.
- Read about six-seven manga and five novels, including キッチン and some great short-shorts by 赤川次郎。

Goals:

- Watch anime and/or drama daily, and keep listening to podcasts every week in order to bump up my listening comp.
- Read like a mother. Finishing 夏と花火と私の死体 now, and have a stack of 単行本 and 小説 waiting for me after that. Looking forward to this. I have enough kanji and vocab down now that reading in Japanese has actually become fun.
- Write more in my 日記。
- Make speaking two hours a week w/ italki teachers a consistent habit. I was pretty good this year, but could be better.
- Possibly take N1, assuming I didn't bomb the N2　聴解.
- Possibly go to Japan for a couple weeks later in the year, depending on finances and timing.

This is what I wrote in 2013 (http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=10333)
In 2013, I would like to:
1. Finish the book Kanji in Context by June 2013 Still not finished
2. Possibly take Kanken exam level 5 sometime in summer 2013 Canceled
3. Finally finish my professional exam by February 2013 Finished this in May instead
4. Work on public speaking by joining Toastmasters starting January 2013 Did not join until November 2013
5. Improve my social skills - I'm very reserved and need to meet new people. Maybe by joining meetups that fit my interests I joined Japanese food lovers meetup

Also in 2013 I lost my job. It was a nice break, but in 2014 I need to find a new job.
I passed N2 in 2012 and took N1 this December. Starting January 2013, I've been talking with native speakers once a week via Skype.

In 2014:
1. Finish KiC and IKnow
2. Find a new, well-paying job. Also, to supplement my zero income, get a tutoring job teaching middle school/high school students.
3. Look into programming and maybe take a certification exam useful in my field
4. Continue learning Japanese, this time focus more on speaking and writing. I'd like to deliver at least 5 speeches in Japanese in my Toastmaster club.
5. Still try to improve my social skills - will join French language meetup and also become member of an art museum.
6. Read more books - 4 books a month that includes 1 book in Japanese.

[s0apgun]

Reflections: Not much. Mainly focusing on my daily endeavours. So I'd rather not dwell on the past.

Goals: Pass N1 with flying colors by the end of 2014. Move to Japan soon after.

Daily habits-

SRS
Read 2 hours - 1 in manga - 1 in novels
Supplement with anime and games for listening
Meditation & Mindfulness

I don't even remember posting in the last thread, but I guess I did.

1. At least 10,000 new vocabulary words Check
2. Avoid getting a job or going to school Check
3. Try to not get fat Check

3 for 3.

As for this years goals:

1. Work on listening, be able to understand most anime by the end of the year.
2. 7k vocabulary (lowering it from last year because I'm trying to focus on other things in the language, like actually reading more).
3. Spend less time using English (realistically I want to get it down to under an hour a day including thinking in English).
4. Start some sort of consistent meditation / exercise to increase productivity

Quick question for the meditators in this thread - do you practice in a specific tradition? What meditation techniques do you use?

One of my resolutions this year is to resume my meditation practice, and begin studying with my Soto Zen teacher again in preparation for taking 受戒 toward the end of 2014.

[s0apgun]

I'd love to start another thread on the subject but I'll give you a basic rundown of what I have done.

I will do a 30 minute guided meditation doing a body scan or a 30 minute sitting meditation daily. Depends on how I'm feeling that day.

I use this site for the guided meditation. I prefer Dr. Locke's body scan because he has white noise in the background to cancel out other sounds in the room.

http://keltymentalhealth.ca/mindfulness-recordings

My sitting meditation varies but always I will sit on a cushion and put on a white noise recording. During the meditation I will do a body scan, breathing, or mindfulness meditation. Breathing meditation is usually just watching your breath or counting with the in and out breaths. Mindfulness meditation is where I focus more on acknowledging where my mind is wandering to in neither a positive or negative light and returning my attention to the meditation practice. I would really recommend the guided meditation for a while though, its gotten me back into it when I haven't done a sit for a while because its easier.

I took a mindfulness / meditation class this fall and it was a really great experience. I had some practice with meditation before this but it was nice to converse with others about our meditation experiences. We all took psychological examinations in the beginning and end of the course. 9/10 people including me and some close friends improved their scores in anxiety, depression, and stress levels which I think was a huge success for a 10 week class. I recommend everyone to give it a shot, its helped me immensely with anxiety and stress issues making them nearly disappear.

I think the biggest thing I took from the class was mindfulness practice throughout the day.

The book Power of the Now by Elkhart Tolle and Mindfulness in Plain English are often recommended to beginners of mindfulness. The Power of the Now as a nice audio book and the plain english pdf can be found easily online.

I enjoy this blog for daily zen inspirations.

http://lazyyogi.org/

I hope I answered what you were asking, unless you meant a specific field of meditation like Vipassana or Soto Zen because that I don't have an answer for... I just practice basic meditation techniques as psychotherapy for my personal well being.

Here's a nice video from an alan watts lecture that sums up the reason I practice.

I have been doing some meditation using the app 'binaural beats' on android. It plays sounds to emulate the neural wave patterns for certain states of mind and plays white noise which is adjustable. There are three different settings for meditation, two are 20 minutes and one is an hour. It also has a 20 minutes 'power nap' and a 2 hour 'studying and learning' setting which are very useful and not just placebo effect I don't think.

Other than that, I read a book called 'The Art of Happiness' by Howard Cutler, who is very close to the Dalai Lama. He talks a lot about compassion, which is why I mentioned it, I've caught myself in certain moments interacting with other people where I could have chosen compassion and everyone would be happier as a result. Recently I've seen a lot about brain scans of people who meditate that is reassuring to a skeptic such as I.

I've found that my allergies calm down a little bit when I mediate, so that sort of self-hypnosis is important for me because I can't get anything done when I'm having allergies. Also if I have a lot to do I am able to focus on one thing at a time if I've done a little meditation, rather than repeating to myself all the things and never starting any of them, so I guess that's the anxiety s0apgun mentioned.

I'll be checking out those links that s0apgun provided when I get home for sure.

2013 reflections:

Started approx from scratch 19th Dec 2012. Current active cards:
3112 kanji (reviewing kanji -> meaning)
6000 core6k (99% mature)
1657 core10k (i.e. past first 6k)
180 harry potter deck
279 grammar dictionary deck (out of 8555)
40 names deck
249 minna no nihongo deck (too easy but good audio + some names)
333 toki wo kakeru shoujo deck
192 self-made deck (10d old)

Anki stats

>100 NHK News Easy articles read
~10 NHK normal news articles read
About half of To Love Ru Darkness manga :o read (currently reading + making cards)
35 pages of ねらわれた学園 read (currently reading + making cards ... many cards ... slowly)
~60 hukumusume.com stories read (TODO: reread & make cards)
RA Miller, A Japanese Reader part-read (stalled, too easy! TODO: finish anyway)
Tae Kim read x2 (TODO: read again)
2x beginners' dictionaries rendered totally redundant (~2k words in each ... pah!)
Ability to speak: none detected.

Time wasted playing computer games: 0 hours. Totally kicked the habbit.
Time wasted learning Japanese: 946 hours. Totally caught the habbit
Time wasted watching anime: ~600 hours. Another new habbit

100 pushups in a minute: *achieved*

2014 goals:

Make some (more) youtube vids showing off playing the piano.
Make some youtube vids showing off reading Japanese
Switch off anime subs permanently.
Read Neuromancer in Japanese.
Read some more grammar stuff & do some production exercises (currently hopeless)
Do some skype language exchanges & start talking (currently hopeless)
Slaughter the N1, maybe July more likely December.
Stricter pushups + maybe a vid to show off
Get round to installing Ubuntu 13.10 before 14.04 comes out

Anotherjohn, those are really impressive stats. Reading your stats is like reading the stats of some students applying to top schools like Harvard and Princeton to be honest. So you've been studying for about a year, so I'll compare myself to you in 7 months haha.

Nice stats~

anotherjohn Wrote:Ability to speak: none detected.

This made me laugh.

anotherjohn Wrote:Do some skype language exchanges & start talking (currently hopeless)

Yep, absolutely best thing you can do. You will HATE it for months (around 6 to 8, or more). More to the point, you'll hate yourself, and will feel like the world's most miserable Japanese failure. But you'll get better. The only way out is through.

s0apgun Wrote:I hope I answered what you were asking, unless you meant a specific field of meditation like Vipassana or Soto Zen because that I don't have an answer for... I just practice basic meditation techniques as psychotherapy for my personal well being.

Thanks for that. I was mainly just interested what others were doing. Sounds like you have a really great, thoughtful practice. My own practice is pretty straightforward, focusing on the intake and outtake of breath during a 30 minute meditation session. I do some prayers as part of my daily ritual - mainly liturgy from the American Soto Zen tradition, such as this Westernized version of the Metta Sutta (http://www.seattlesotozen.org/resources-1/metta-sutta). Also a few things from other Buddhist traditions, such as works by Pema Chodron and the Dalai Lama. (Ani Pema's NO TIME TO LOSE is one of my favorite Western Buddhist books.)

I'm starting to try and read some メールマガ and Web sites regarding Buddhism in Japanese, so that I can shift my interest over to my target language. I haven't finished it, but so far this seems like a good overall description of core Buddhist doctrine that hits the high points and exposes you to most of the technical terms: http://hachisu-net.com/issei/kiso.html

Anyway, don't mean to hijack this thread. But if others are interested in reading about Buddhism in Japanese, or talking about your practice, ping me.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:Anyway, don't mean to hijack this thread. But if others are interested in reading about Buddhism in Japanese, or talking about your practice, ping me.

You should probably just create a new thread.

Reflections:

School, Japanese input, a few thousand words, output (ja-min and close deletion),

(en) 4000+ entries : school/college/general reading
(jp) 9000+ morphemes recorded (aggregate), ~80% = nouns and verbs


Goals:

(jp) input and reading
(en) good books

So far i want to finish core 10k and reading/reviewing in anki adojg series this year. Failed core 6k once, but it's going better now.

2013 was so good! I decided to stay there. Today's date: 2013年13月4日.

Well 2013 was a pretty good year but I wouldn't want to stay there, personally.

Looking back.. I just did flashcards.. Lots and lots of flashcards. It was a bit dull.
Anki may be good for helping you memorize things, but ironically, its not all that great at helping you make good memories. Thus, I'm conflicted as to whether you could really call it a memorable experience.

Also finished my masters this December, so there's that. As for that experience well.. meh, it had its moments. Its not enough to make me want to come back for a PhD though. I'm an aspiring analog IC design engineer, so I want to just get out there and design already. Doing projects for the purposes of writing a report (and learning too, I guess) may have motivated me in the beginning, but now completion of that kind of work feels more and more like a hollow victory. Too much writing and too little doing, and it seems like that may be a general theme for academia. Maybe I'm wrong but hell if I'm going to stick around long enough to find out.

So now I gotta find a job.. probably move to a new city or maybe down to the states. Lot's of uncertainty, especially where Japanese will fit into it all. I still want to take JLPT1 in December, but I really gotta get serious with my study and really get into the whole immersion thing. Finishing the master's sort of threw me off for the last few months and there was a bit of stagnation in there. Ideally, now would be the time to get that moving, but there's also the whole job application process....

But hey, I guess I could always just become a NEET and start livin' the dream. I suppose my Japanese progress would probably skyrocket in that case.

Stuff I did in 2013:
-Lots of Flashcards
-got 2nd degree

Stuff to do in 2014:
-get job
-less flashcards, more actual stuff (I say that and yet I've already started on some Chinese stuff in anki. fml)
-say words at / listen to Japanese people in an attempt for formation of some sort of convivial bond (what's that called again? bluetoothing? idk, something like that)
-JLPT1 (if at all realistic)

thinking back this year was really productive...

2013:
-finished core10k
-spent 4 months in kyoto doing an artist's residency, where I diligently spoke japanese and gave several speeches/interviews in japanese in front of an audience.
-read 3.5 bunkobon-size books.
-started doing real translation work
-studied the hell out of N1 and N2 grammar.
-took N1 (probably failed)
-worked with a japanese company at two sales-related trade fairs (always unhappy with my teineigo being really stilted)

As for the new year, I don't really do resolutions but this is kind of the course I'm on anyway, so I'm just describing the direction and speed of my inertia... is a better way of thinking about it.
The biggest change will probably be that I stopped adding to anki in december last year, so the daily reps on those 17,000 cards will drop down to the single digits within 4-6 months. That should free up a lot of time for reading.

2014:
-read at least 10 bunkobon-size books
-find a way to spend the summer in japan again
-take and pass N1, in japan if need be
-deepen relationship with the trade-fair company
-find more serious translation work
-improve teineigo and get more familiar with sonkeigo/kenjogo
-picking up a japanese gallery would be awesome

The past year has been a very tough one for me, personally. I hit a wall where practically every aspect of my life had collapsed. Studying Japanese has really helped me rebuild my confidence, however, and things have been starting to look a little brighter.

2013 Reflections / personal challenges
- Despite my best efforts, failed my courses and had to drop out of technical college, again.
- Started taking my Japanese studies seriously back in July and started making meaningful progress.
- Became literate in Japanese.
- Learnt ~2200 words and most of the essential grammar in 6 months.
- Got seriously good at bass guitar.
- Moved to a better town. Would you look at that, people are actually nice here!
- Also lost another 5 pounds.

2014 Resolutions

- Read through my first Japanese novel, a copy of 狼と香辛料.
- Finally play the copy of 『戦場のヴァルキュリア III』 I bought back in 2012.
- Build a vocabulary of over 10k words.
- Read, read, read lots of more.
- Fill my bookshelves with a respectable number of interesting Japanese books.
- Find a job that doesn't make me feel utterly miserable inside.
- Make new friends. <3

皆、頑張りましょう！

Let me join in on the fun.

2013:
- improved my reading ability in Japanese (by reading NHK news web easy and 8 manga volumes)
- forgot how to write by hand elementary kanji (I made the mistake of downloading this app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...rill&hl=ja and found out after 1st grade I pretty much suck at remembering the kanji, though I can read them if I encounter them)
- wrote 8 entries on lang-8 (which is a nice progress, since I did 1 in 2011 and 2 in 2013)
- started taking JPN conversation classes (Zgarbas recommended a pretty neat school, and I've been trying to take one lesson per week since July)
- learned basic cooking
- ran two 10k, one 5k and walked a 21k (in the mountains!!!)
- kept my job
- got certified in a new field (which will come in handy for my planned career change)
- learned some basic coding
- went out with my friends more (I'm a bit antisocial, so it was a progress for me)

2014:
- improve my reading skills (read more NHK news web easy, try to read more NHK normal news, get to 12 manga volumes this year)
- relearn how to write kanji (though this time I'm not going back to filling notebooks of kanji, I plan to do some actual writing for it, and more drills)
- improve my writing skills (I am for 24 lang-8 entries)
- improve my conversation skills (keep taking conversation classes, work up the courage to get a Japanese friend/conversation partner on Skype)
- learn to cook some delicious meals (7 delicious meals as someone advised, and be the absolute master of those meals)
- run a couple of 5k, 10k races and one 21k
- switch careers (this is actually the most important thing on my list)
- improve my programming skills (actually build something like an app or a website)
- go out more with people, be more friendly/sociable


Fingers absolutely crossed!!

2013:
- Learned 3-4k words in Core6k. ~500 to go for this year.
- Started to play FFXIV:ARR (English and Japanese). My first serious attempt at tackling native materials. Lots of new words added to Anki for post-6k learning. The goal is to learn Japanese to a fluent stage the way I learned English ten years ago.
- Let go of grammar decks + canned material for studying grammar. I only refer to the dictionaries once in a while.
- Learned Italian to roughly A2+ level during the Spring (1,2k words studied in Anki too). Stopped studying in the Summer, will pick it up again sometime soon.
- Re-learned Swedish to A2 level during the Autumn because I was forced to. Will continue learning until I get to somewhere between B1-B2 level.
- Studied in Italy which halted my school progress of the Spring semester as the result. Good experience otherwise.
- Moved to a new apartment with the girlfriend, started making a research study for my Bachelor's degree.
- Worked as a bank advisor in the Summer. Good experience, but too stressful to do for one's life...

Revised Resolutions 2014


1. Finish Core 6k
2. Finish RtK (might not do this)
3. Finish Tae Kim
4. Start mining words from native materials (Reach 10-12000 including Core 6k)
5. Start reading (Read at least 5 novels before the end of the year)
6. Stop wasting so much time on Japanese forums (no offense guys :p)
7. Pass N2 in December 2014 (Currently ~N4)
8. Come to terms with the fact that, yes, someday I will die and all my experiences, skills and knowledge will disappear. Failing that, try to put this fact out of my mind while doing Anki reviews.
9. Have less freaking panic attacks

Hirakana Wrote:8. Come to terms with the fact that, yes, someday I will die and all my experiences, skills and knowledge will disappear. Failing that, try to put this fact out of my mind while doing Anki reviews.

True but we need an illusion to go forward. That is japanese or something else

Gaijinme Wrote:

Hirakana Wrote:8. Come to terms with the fact that, yes, someday I will die and all my experiences, skills and knowledge will disappear. Failing that, try to put this fact out of my mind while doing Anki reviews.

True but we need an illusion to go forward. That is japanese or something else

Exactly, it's so much easier with a project to look forward to and work at.