In previous years, we've always had a thread about reflections on the past year, as well as resolutions for the following year. E.g. the thread from the previous year can be found here. As one main goal of this forum is to facilitate the exchange of learning strategies between users, I thought I'd create another one for this year. Personally, I've always enjoyed reading about what has, and has not worked for other people.

Without further ado, here's my contribution. They're quite lackluster, but I still wanted to get this thread going 

2015 Reflections

Quote:2015 Japanese-related resolutions

My goals are mostly the same as last year: Try to improve my Japanese, rather than forgetting everything, using a modest amount of time and effort. Also, I'd like to get my skills a bit more balanced, which in my case means getting better at listening and speaking (I don't really care about writing for now). This leads me to the following resolutions:

1) Finish N1新完全文法, now including the exercises
2) Mix in some more 'concentrated study time', e.g. actively studying grammar and addressing my known weaknesses rather than just reading books, always having trouble understanding exactly the same grammatical constructions.
3) Create more opportunities to use Japanese. Either locally by making some new friends, or contacting my friends in Japan more regularly
4) Continue reading books and watching movies somewhat regularly.
5) Pass the N1 (assuming I failed in Dec14).

What basically happened is that I passed the JLPT N1 in Dec 14 suprisingly easily. While one might naively interpret this as a good turn of fortune, it has actually been detrimental for my Japanese. Instead of having a concrete goal to continue chasing, I rested on my laurels and have probably regressed to a point where I doubt I could pass N1 anymore. Because my connections to Japan have faded and my general interests have also changed, I don't mind very much (other than considering it もったいない).
So in conclusion, you'd better have a plan and concrete goals for what to do after N1...
Specifically, I guess I failed 1) to 4), while 5) is a draw (achieved, but already in 2014).

2016 Resolutions

Because I honestly can't really tell if I'll rediscover my interest in Japanese, I won't make resolutions related to it. However, this is a good opportunity to throw some other resolutions into the open and hopefully check them again next year.

1) Get more disciplined and procrastrinate less. This includes adopting a sensible sleep cycle and sticking with it.
2) Put more effort into cultivating meaningful relationships with people.

Sure, I'll bite.  

As far as reflection goes, 2015 was a big year for me in a lot of ways.  I found out I passed the N2, doubled down on my study of the language, and even finished my first novel in Japanese.  While my interest in Japanese has been a constant in my life these last few years, learning to stick with with major projects like that novel and passing the JLPT was a big lesson for me.  That being said, I've come to realize the power of positive habits through just that, and I'm hoping to push that forward into this year.  

Also, this was the year I found out about the glory of Rikaisama's Anki Export feature with Kenkyusha.  When I finally got the setup to work... it was almost like I could hear angels singing.  Now I get to spend even MORE time in my Sisyphus-style never-ending battle with Anki!

For upcoming resolutions, well...

1.  Pass the JLPT N1 (I'm going through a lesson each in two of the 新完全マスター books every day, which should hopefully have me finished with the series by April.  I'm going to 岡山大学 for a semester come April, so I'll be taking the test in good 'ole Japan.  Assuming I don't pass it this first time, I'll take the test again here in the States in December)

2.  Ace all my classes at 岡山大学.  I'm taking nothing but language courses, and hopefully the highest level available at that.  This is going to be the year I really buckle down and fill in all the gaps in my Japanese skills, and as such, I intend to suck every drop of knowledge I can from my classes.  That's not to say that I won't have fun while I'm in Japan, but rather, that my main priority is to work as hard as I can to set myself up for success with the language in the future.

3.  This last one's kind of personal, but it is Japanese-related.  One of the hardest things I dealt with last year was feeling the overwhelming need to berate myself for all of my mistakes over the years (starting from when I was a kid that didn't know any better, to be quite honest), and in the mix with all my perceived personal failures are linguistic slip-ups and mistakes that I've made.  Sure, I can laugh off getting 唖然 and 呆然 confused (seriously though, those two trip me up something awful), but if I mess up something I feel like I should've known, I can feel down for days on end.  As always, my solution for this has been to feel like an idiot and promise myself that I'll just work harder.  The same thing happens if I forget a word I've had plugged into Anki for a while, or fail to recognize a word on first sight, even though I actually know it.  I've reached the point where I can handle material I never dreamed I'd comprehend when I was first starting out, but even then, I feel like all my efforts will never be enough.  It's a twisted mindset, but it's far easier to call it out than to actually fix it, so this year, one of my biggest goals is to do the near-impossible: cut myself some slack.

I made great progress in 2015, adding fluency to my kanji and improving vocabulary. My goal for 2016 is to continue to improve to the point where I can read books without too much effort and leave the manga behind. I believe that once I can read books future progress will be easier and I hope to take N1 eventually, perhaps in 2017.

[Zgarbas]

I actually had forgotten that I had made resolutions:

Quote:Japanese-related:
Get back into the habit of daily studying, at least do my anki reviews 3x/week.
Get into the Tadoku spirit. Try to read at least 20 novels this year.
Aside from the February admission I don't really have any benchmarks.

Not Japanese-related:
Get to a more decent level in my other languages. Say, a solid B1 level. Sorted by priority, Spanish,Portuguese, Mandarin, German.
Keep building up a solid foundation in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Get Derrida and Kristeva.
Lose the Freshman 15 (more like freshman 30).
Pass all my classes.
Think up a decent pitch for my Ph.D proposal.
Learn to stop being afraid of everything.
Mingle with the Nagoya Quiltbag community.
Become more involved with the local volunteering scene.
Participate in at least 1 academic conference and try to finish that journal article I had started.
Maybe actually get out of my prefecture more... been in Japan for 8 months now and I've only left it twice.

Passed the admission but continue to not learn any Japanese anymore.

Spanish: getting better, but I'm still at that point where if I have a native talking to me I'm all ぺらぺら, but I still don't know any actual Spanish. Gave up on Portuguese, but I have a month teaching Maths in Brazil to prove that I could if I wanted to, Mandarin is terrible ad concerning. German is entirely forgotten.
I've been ridiculously good at school. Got derrida and kristeva. Passed all my classes with straight As. Thought of multiple pitches but they're not solidifying. The people i was going to for advice on understanding stuff last year now come to me for advice. Eating books for breakfast has paid off.
The Freshman 30 is now Freshman 35.
I am still afraid of everything.
Still don't mingle that much, but I'm good.
Yeah, no volunteering for me.
No conferences in my field for some reason, and that journal article was stupid, but I wrote a different couple of articles so it counts.
Got out of my prefecture like, thrice. Good enough, right?

2016 Resolutions
Don't forget Japanese (!!!).
Conversational Mandarin. C1 Spanish.
Finish dissertation more than a week before the deadline.
Intellectually, just maintain the 2015 pace.
Try to suck at life less.

2015 Reflections

I don't think I had any New Year resolutions back then, because I just decided to learn Japanese at the Christmas Eve 2014.

I don't even remember how I got the idea in my head in the first place, aside from starting watching and enjoying a lot of anime and loving the sound of spoken Japanese. I was ... enthralled by it. Though you can argue that anime Japanese does not sound like real Japanese, that really does not bother me that much.

I browsed the web to find out a methodical approach to the study and I stumbled over the koohii website and Heisig's stuff. I ordered it from Amazon and in the mean time (delivery took like 3 weeks) started immediately from the free sample.

I did finish RTK1, but got lazy after that and for a few moths I did only reviews and nothing else. I started to do grammar and accompanied vocabulary from Tae Kim in late in the year.

2016 Resolutions

Finish Tae Kim grammar and get around 4k of vocab.

2015 Reflections

This was mostly a good year in terms of studying. I decided to take italki lessons for the first time and completed the italki challenge in June! It was hard specially because sometimes I didn't have any lessons scheduled and most of the teachers that I liked were unavailable. It was also hard because I was also trying out new teachers and some of them didn't give me what I needed (and I was still understanding what kind of class was the most helpful for me). But I did find someone which was a good fit for me and ended up, after the challenge, taking two lessons per week until August. This was definately something that cost a me a lot in terms of money, however I must say that after that I felt with a good direction, something I didn't quite have before the italki lessons.
After these lessons, I was able to understand that I'm better at following a textbook and doing the exercises then randomly reading grammar in the internet. I followed Genki and even though they were sometimes repetitive it really helped cement all the information from the lesson.
After that I took a little break from Japanese and restarted in the beginning of October full of strength, I studied almost everyday by myself. Sometimes my study consisted only in reading Yotsuba and that's okay, it was good to have something fun to do instead of exercises only.
I borrowed this book from the library and really enjoyed it, it also had exercises much like JLPT which helped in the last month of studying.

I took the JLPT N5 in December and I'm not sure how it went...I nailed the vocabulary area but everything else not sure... But I'm really really happy to accomplish this. Even if I don't pass I was studying everyday which was huge for me and my japanese is much better than last year's. Last year I knew a lot of vocabulary and kanji but didn't know anything about grammar

In October I started to write, in a wall calendar, how I progressed everyday in my japanese study: read 40 pages of Yotsuba, finish chapter X, grammar exercises, Anki, etc.. I'll keep doing this in 2016 as this was very good for motivation, seeing my progress everyday, even if it was only doing Anki that day, was really good.

One thing that I'm still struggling very much is the listening...And particles. I always hesitate on what particle should go in the sentence. Basic exercises I'm able to do but more complicated ones still difficult for me.

2016 Resolutions
Anki - finish the 4k deck
Start and finish Genki II
Be better at particles - not exactly sure how I will accomplish this but maybe with all the exercises I might get a better hang at it.
Practice listening - I'll focus more on listening to JPOD101
Finish reading Yotsuba&!
Be faster at reading katakana - I'm already reading hiragana faster but still hesitate a lot in katakana

There is something else that I should do but probably won't this year - get a language partner or try to talk with Japanese people - I honestly don't have the confidence right now and still feel that my production skills are very far behind, I believe that I've to be comfortable enough with the language to have a language partner...otherwise it'll be a waste of time for the other person.

Much to my regret I haven't kept a diary for over 20 years, so these posts have become for me pretty much the only source of reflection on the past, hence the detail in this year's edition.

Last year's post.

2015 reflections:

Current active cards (37082 total, including a few scraps not listed below):
3360 kanji (reviewing kanji -> meaning)
6000 core6k (audio only)
3568 core10k (past first 6k)
2642 harry potter deck
1550  grammar dictionary deck (out of 8555)
465  names deck
249  minna no nihongo deck
768  toki wo kakeru shoujo deck
3320 self-made deck
1381 EZClips (audio only)
5643 JMdict complete
4862 Nayr's core5000 (audio only)
2664 Zero no Tsukaima deck

Anki stats

My main concern this year has been speeding up reviews, hence all the red blotches on the review count graph and the sharp downward shift on the review time graph. Now doing about 10/min on sentence cards, 15 - 20/min on kanji & single words, though a large number audio cards brings the overall average way down.

Kanjipeen (not much change since Nov):
The seen cards in this collection contain:
3215 total unique kanji.
Old jouyou: 1940 of 1940 (100.0%).
New jouyou: 196 of 196 (100.0%).
Jinmeiyou (regular): 467 of 641 (72.9%).
Jinmeiyou (variant): 6 of 145 (4.1%).
606 non-jouyou kanji.
Jouyou levels:

Grade 1: 80  of 80  (100.0%).
Grade 2: 160 of 160 (100.0%).
Grade 3: 200 of 200 (100.0%).
Grade 4: 200 of 200 (100.0%).
Grade 5: 185 of 185 (100.0%).
Grade 6: 181 of 181 (100.0%).
JuniorHS: 934 of 934 (100.0%).

> 3 light novels read: Zero no Tsukaima 1 - 3. Couldn't quite face vol 4 & stopped.
> 38 vols of mostly smutty manga read, including all of Prison School.
> Large number of wikipedia pages, news articles, etc read (haven't been keeping track of exact numbers)
> Read through 実力ウップ! grammar books 一級 and 二級, doing all exercises.
> All tests on japanesetest4you except audio done. Getting 80 - 90% on the N1 grammar now (weakest section), ~100% on the rest.
> Continued to watch ~1 ep of anime per day over dinner. Still leave the subs on but mostly don't even look at them now, though Gintama is pretty hard in places.

Re last year's resolutions:
Finish off all the 'common' words in EDICT.
Back in 2014 I used to say EDICT when I really meant JMdict, with which I became thoroughly acquainted while developing the 'JMdict complete' Anki deck. Nowhere near all of the 29.5k 'common' words are active, but that total includes a lot of overlap with other decks plus kana junk. Figuring out exactly how much Anki grinding remains to be done here has been on my todo list for quite some time, though I am constantly dismayed at how many unknown words turn out to be tagged 'common' even at this late stage. Need to do something about that.

Shore up the N1 grammar.
Pretty much nailed this one. Read through the 実力ウップ N1 and N2 grammar books, did the japanesetest4you tests etc. A strong pass in the grammar section is no longer in doubt, though there is still some work to be done to be in with a reasonable chance of a perfect score.

Do the core6k in listening mode, and make some decent listening cards from anime eps.
Switched Core6k to pure listening yonks ago. Turned out to be way easier than I thought it would be, given my early experience of trying it this way as a beginner. Reviews on this deck only take a couple of mins a day.

Wrote the EZClips Anki addon for the bulk creation of audio cards from subs. I had intended to transition all my Anki reviews to audio only using this, but the reviews on the JMdict deck have been so onerous that this got shifted to the back burner and stayed there.

Post regularly to lang8, and get some online speaking lessons, and be less passive in general. Yeah right.
I have no excuse for not posting to lang8 - didn't so much as log in for the entire year ffs. I did write a few sentences in Japanese though (without feedback), and lo and behold found myself scouring the dictionary for the mot juste, just as expected.

I had a serious look at getting some lessons with the JOI, but it turned out that they were all in the middle of the f*cking night for me. iTalki remains an option, and I still have a bunch of optimistically-bought-then-completely-unused credits on the site, but as I really want something structured / textbook-based to start with I haven't yet got round to sorting it out.

I was all geared up to register for the N1 in December before discovering that I would have to renew my passport first for ID purposes. Didn't want to register until I actually had the thing in my hand as I had no idea how long it would take, so ended up missing the deadline after some idiotic f*cking about with the application. Apparently my old passport predated their computer system so I had to change my application from a simple renewal to a 'first application', which entailed getting a long-form birth certificate from ... the passport office. So in the end I had to order a birth certificate from the passport office, copy the information from the certificate onto the form, then send the certificate and the form back to the passport office. The final irony was that my new passport arrived 1 day after the N1 signup deadline.

A welcome development in 2015 was getting further into running. I've attended the Parkrun without fail ever since a colleague at work mentioned it. Did #13 on Boxing Day. First time was 22:49, current PB is 21:16, which was a nice present for Christmas Day. I got a basic Garmin GPS watch 5 weeks ago (FR15, picked up for £50 on ebay), which I've been using to upload my runs to Strava. Also joined a running club. Gonna get me a FR225 very soon for the extra stats, at which point I will have got a cheap one on ebay to save money and then ... got the expensive one anyway

Running has taught me just what it means to be really fit, and how far it's possible to take it. It's also provided a new motivation to lose a few extra pounds, and unfortunately made me really feel my age for the first time (45 on 6th Jan).

Picked up a bad habbit in the last couple of months of watching too many Youtube vids. Every so often I seem to stumble into a new means of pissing away time and find myself having to keep it under control. This is the latest one.

Piano playing pretty much fell by the wayside in 2015, largely because I never got round to fixing my setup to make better Youtube vids. Made a tiny effort in that direction by digging out a couple of leads, but couldn't find the connector to fit them together and for months considered it lost, until one day noticing that it was ... on the end of one of the leads

Goals for 2016

- Do the N1 in Jul and ace the f*ck out of it. Will have been studying Japanese for a bit over 3.5 years at that point which is hardly precocious, so I'm going to need a very high score to maintain hope of any bragging rights.

- Put the final touches on the listening by working through these.

- Work through some exercise books and post my solutions to lang8 & places for feedback. Been meaning to do this for a while and ... never quite got round to it.

- Do some iTalki lessons. Sigh

- Post much-needed updates for the JMdict Complete deck and EZClips addon. These are currently a bit rough around the edges to put it mildly.

- Amalgamate all single-word reviews into the JMdict deck & get rid of the other decks.

- Write some better Anki stats graphs (or see if anyone else has written what I'm looking for). Been meaning to write a graph that gives a projection of future reviews based on past performance (instead of the useless scheduled cards graph).

- Find a way akin to SRS to schedule things like piano practice using a spreadsheet or something. Been meaning to do this for some time & never got round to it. There's probably some software out there for this sort of thing but I've never bothered to even look.

- Run a sub 20 min 5k at the Parkrun. After my latest PB this is looking feasible within the next few months.

- Participate in some club races. Maybe do a marathon (I hesitate to say 'run').

- Think up some more goals and then achieve them

I'd forgotten about this.

(2015-01-11, 5:48 pm)Splatted Wrote: 2015 resolution

Read at least 4 books - Reading has always been the main driving force behind my language study, both as a means and an end, so a reading goal seems a natural choice. I also want to encourage myself to read more in any language because it used to be my absolute favourite activity but I hardly do it anymore. This is intended to be quite an easy goal with the focus simply being on encouraging myself to read with some regularity rather than pushing myself to work hard.

But luckily I completed it anyway.

I definitely feel I made some progress in 2015 but inconsistency was a big problem. A reading goal was good but setting a single yearly target was probably a mistake in that I didn't have much cause to think about it on a day to day basis.

2015 Resolution:

Read 10 pages a day everyday.

The focus this time is definitely on daily consistency with reading remaining the primary activity. I've already started this one a few weeks early and it feels like an enjoyable and effective endeavor. Certainly if I stick with it I'll see significant improvement this year.

Quote:2015 Resolution:
-Get a Software Engineer Job in the US somewhere, pref in a metro-ish area. (Or Japan if I somehow get lucky)
-Take vacation to Japan during a Comiket
-Pay off my student loans
-Start saving money for returning to Japan

Got job, sort of. Freelance.
Nope.
Will be paying it off next month probably.
Then I can save.

2016 Goals
Keep trying for jobs in Japan. If I can save 4k, I might use it to go to Japan and hunt for jobs for 2-3 months.
Save more money.
Get a better paying job.
Clear 4k backlog in my core6k deck and keep it down.
Consider taking N2 in December, or July if I happen to be in Japan at that point.

(2014-12-28, 10:05 pm)RawrPk Wrote: Never did one of these before last year so I guess I'll do it now.

2015 Resolutions:

1) Finally finish RTK. As sad as it sounds, it's kinda disappointing having studied the language for 2 years at school and a year self study that I haven't even done this. That and I never got the copy of the book. That's changed lol xD
2) Cover Tae Kim deck. I have a decent grasp of grammar but since I haven't touched 日本語 in about a year, I need a refresher.
3) Improve my listening. This for me is a big deal because my listening sucks!
4) track my progress in either my blog or Onenote
5) Hit my Tadoku goal. (Thanks RawToast)  I never seem to hit my goal. Something always makes me lose momentum. I need to find a way to change that

(Life related)

- Study for the TEAS, an exam as part of the admission process in nursing school. I plan to apply for schools in the Fall semester.
- Find a job (again...all my previous jobs have been dirt)

I'm not at all very ambiguous it seems xD

1. Never finished RTK :/
   
2. Didn't do. Probably won't cover it at this point.
   
3. There has been minimal improvement. Small success?
   
4. Still hasn't happened.
   

With the life related list

-Took TEAS (twice) and did much better second time around so yay
- went through 3 jobs this year lol


2016 Goals

1. Study and pass N3
   
2. Hit Tadoku goal for once (I think I might this time since I will be practicing my reading skills)
   
3. Get into a nursing program and if not...
   
4. Apply again in sept plus to other schools I couldn't apply to this year
   
5. Finish building my gundam models 彼氏 bought me (poor things are still in the boxes lol)
   

Holy crap - forgot I had made these. 2015 resolution: 

Quote:- Go to Japan for a month. 

- Read at least 20 novels this year, and at least 30 manga. 
- Write two journal entries a week to iTalki. My entries tend to be rather long, so I think two/week is a decent goal.
- Study a couple of anime and drama closely every week, and close my listening gap wrt rapidly spoken Japanese. 
- Continue with two Japanese-only lessons a week on iTalki. 
- Study N1 reading material with a teacher in an attempt to bring my comprehension up to the next level.
- Do NOT take the N1, or, if I take it, make it strictly for benchmark purposes. I need to take a year off from that brutal monster.

Go to Japan - success! I not only went, but got engaged in the process; I'll be going back on January 15th, and coming home on the 30th with my bride-to-be. 

20 novels, 30 manga - Pfffft no. According to my stats on Bookmeter, I read 11 full length books and 12 manga. However, I did read news/articles almost every day, so I'm not too bummed about this one. 

Two journal entries a week - Also no. However, in the past month or so, I've gotten into the habit of journaling in Japanese. Additionally, I will take one entry a week and bring it to one of my lessons, where my teacher and I walk through it step by step and she helps me make corrections. I've started posting these edited results to my blog on Ameba. 

Close listening gap. Progress. I studied both 名探偵コナン and two seasons of 相棒; I'm watching season 13 of 相棒 now without subtitles. I've also started trying to watch a half-hour or so of Japanese TV a day. I continued my habit of listening to NHKジャーナル regularly.

Two Japanese lessons a week/Study N1 material. Success. According to my last report card on iTalk, I've put in a total of 235 hours of Japanese practice on the service to date. I also feel my comprehension took another big step forward this year thanks to working with my teachers on difficult news/novel material. 

Don't take N1. Successfully avoided taking the N1. 

All in all, not a bad Japanese year.

Goals for 2016:

1. One iTalki lesson/week. I'm going to be living with a Japanese woman who currently speaks minimal English starting in 15 days, so these will become less important. I also expect I'll have less time as I help my wife assimilate to the states and integrate into our family. 
2. Accelerate my professional use of Japanese. I've had two good years at my current job, and it's opened up some opportunities. I've told my manager I eventually want to work in Japan, and she's helping me brainstorm some ways I can work toward that goal in 2016. It looks like I have a couple of speaking opportunities lined up in the coming year, so I need to work on increasing my technical (computer-related) Japanese. I'm going through my company's own Japanese documentation, and will be buying some technical books related to my work from Tsutaya or Book-Off when I go to Tokyo this month. 
3. Grow my conversational skills. They've gotten a lot better over the past year. A co-worker whom I saw in April came over to Seattle in November, and she commented that my conversational skills had grown even since I'd last saw her. I want to keep pushing in this area and get to the point where I can speak without too much hesitation on complex technical and political topics. 
4. Grow my Anki vocab decks. I have one deck that's just vocab that I restarted earlier this year; it's at 3,100. I also just started creating a deck of the names of places and famous people in order to fill in this massive gap in my Japanese knowledge; it's only at about 210 entries at the moment. I'm aiming to grow the vocab deck by at least 4,000 entries by the end of 2016, and to have the names deck filled out to 1,500 to 2,000 entries by year's end. 
5. (Non-Japanese) Work on my finances. I have one large debt left to pay off, after which I need to decide whether it's worth it to invest in property here, or just start saving up to invest in a place in Tokyo down the road. 
6. (Non-Japanese) Work on my novel. I've had the skeleton of an idea percolating for...years, frankly, and I need to push ahead with it.

Fun. It turns out that I participated in this thread last year but forgot. Here's what I wrote then.

The 2014 me Wrote:1. Continue to use Japanese to enrich my personal and professional life.
2. Use Anki and my JLPT prep books to make serious headway for the N3 vocab...
3. Use Anki and RtK Lite to learn to write all the N3 kanji from the Heisig keyword... Overall: 2,200 cards: 21% mature, 12% learning, 1% suspended...
4. Since grammar is my weakest area (at least according to the JLPT Smile), focus on this...
5. Study less. This year - especially the second half of the year - my Japanese studies crowded out other important areas of my life...

So I got most of 'em.

(1) is probably the trickiest because I was basically saying to myself "Dude, try and tie this skill into your life in some meaningful way." I'm not sure if I succeeded at that. My crowning achievements were acquiring the ability to read NHK Easy News and Yotsuba. So that was a big personal win. But when I look back at the relationships I built with Japanese people over the last year I feel that like they were mostly pretty ephemeral and not very deep. I think that because of this I stopped doing things like attending language meetups. 

(2) was a clear win

(3) Well, I gave up on RtK halfway thru the year and it was a great decision for me. Instead I just swapped the deck to be kanji -> definition. I'm now at 32% mature, 5% learning, 13% suspended. So a big increase, although I don't use "% mature" as a metric anymore.

(4) Yup, did that.

(5) Yup, did that.

Resolutions? Well, In a month or two I'll get my JLPT N3 score. I struggled thru vocab and grammar, and basically just guessed on reading and listening. I guess that I want a much higher score when I take it again in 2016. That shouldn't be hard. I seem to consistently make slow and steady progress, and that's probably all I need for that goal.

I guess that in an ideal world this year I'd find more interesting ways to interact with Japanese people despite not living in Japan. My language ability isn't enough to do things like participate fully on things like forums or the comment section on blogs (I'd actually have to be able to *read* the forums and blogs first :). So maybe that just doesn't happen this year. The way things are going I will probably see an exponential increase in the quantity and quality of things I can (and do!) read in 2016. That might be enough.

Maybe I should also set a goal of watching (and understanding!) my first anime or something in Japanese.

sholum Wrote:2015 Resolution:
1.) Don't let competitive spirit overcome me during Tadoku months. (properly study instead of reading all the time)
2.) Pass the N1 and study nearly every day for that goal.
3.) Make all 'A's in my college courses this year.
4.) Properly maintain a mileage record for easy, safe tax-deductions.

That's about it for the (mostly) measurable things. Otherwise I'm just going to work on my health (finish rehabilitating my knee, for example), learn/improve some skills, try to be as profitable as is practical, then usual.
I'm usually pretty happy with the year, as long as I can constantly improve myself.

1.) Success. Though it had less to do with self-control and more to do with being busy...
2.) Don't know yet; studied nearly everyday.
3.) ... Nope, even managed a D in the last one (which should have been an easy class, except that taking lab courses in seven weeks is bs; no time to study properly for the lecture tests; D's are basically F's at my school, you can't advance with a D); made A's and B's in most of them though.
4.) Nope; get to pay taxes that a logical system wouldn't make me pay again, because I'm a 'business' despite making less than two grand from those jobs... The lack of a mileage log is still my fault though...

I still can't jog without aggravating my knee (doctor said I probably had tendinitis, but I never really had it checked to be sure; seems like it wouldn't keep hurting me if it were that though), so I switched to cycling and haven't had any problems from it.
I put back on a little weight (while losing muscle) from all the sitting and studying I was doing, but I did managed to keep myself mostly in shape.

2016 Goals:
1.) Practice conversation skills in Japanese
2.) Practice writing in Japanese
3.) Work on my reading speed (will figure out someway to quantify this later)
4.) Take the N1 again (if I failed this time)
5.) Work ahead of all my classes to ensure that something like that stupid D doesn't happen again. And by 'ahead' I mean 'before the class even starts'.

(2016-01-01, 2:39 pm)gaiaslastlaug Wrote:

Quote:- Go to Japan for a month. 

Go to Japan - success! I not only went, but got engaged in the process; I'll be going back on January 15th, and coming home on the 30th with my bride-to-be. 

...
1. One iTalki lesson/week. I'm going to be living with a Japanese woman who currently speaks minimal English starting in 15 days, so these will become less important. I also expect I'll have less time as I help my wife assimilate to the states and integrate into our family.

 
How did you manage to within one month find a girl to marry and willing to move to the US even though she has minimal English.
Teach me

2016 New Year Resolutions!

Japanese:
1. study and pass N2
2. read 10 novels
3. translate Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows
4. write 2 times / week on lang-8
5. speak Japanese more frequently

Non-japanese:
1. finish the PhD and find a real job
2. complete 2 triathlons and 2 marathons
3. gain confidence to swim in open waters
4. start designing and crafting toys

(2016-01-02, 3:09 am)Dudeist Wrote:

(2016-01-01, 2:39 pm)gaiaslastlaug Wrote:

Quote:- Go to Japan for a month. 

Go to Japan - success! I not only went, but got engaged in the process; I'll be going back on January 15th, and coming home on the 30th with my bride-to-be. 

...
1. One iTalki lesson/week. I'm going to be living with a Japanese woman who currently speaks minimal English starting in 15 days, so these will become less important. I also expect I'll have less time as I help my wife assimilate to the states and integrate into our family.

 
How did you manage to within one month find a girl to marry and willing to move to the US even though she has minimal English.
Teach me

LOL. We met about four months ahead of time online before I went to the country. She was looking for a change and also looking to live abroad for a while. No special wisdom I can pass on, I guess; it all just happened to work out.

2015 Resolutions

Quote:

1. Consistently study. I finally work at a full-time job which is looking to expand into the Asian market in the next 1-3 years. My bosses know I study Japanese, and if I play my cards right I'll be the guy who gets to live/work in Japan on behalf of the company to get our foot in the door. The best part about my job is my bosses actually care and want me to succeed. It's up to me to make sure I'm prepared. Now's the time.
   
2. Move closer to work and become more independent.
   
3. Go to Japan in April and make the most of it. Meet everyone I can, make friends, etc. Don't squander half the trip like I did last time simply because I don't always have someone to adventure with me.
   
4. When I move closer to work, start exercising again. Will improve my physical and mental well-being which I severely need in terms of my mental state.
   
5. Depending on the state of my company's expansion into Japan consider beginning a MBA program. If moving to Japan proves to be faster than expected, postpone MBA until I live in Japan. Potentially pursue it at that time.
   
6. Overall just keep learning what I love: Japanese. The fact I graduated in March and was able to find a job by August, albeit at the very bottom, made 2014 worthwhile. I started as an Office Admin and will be getting a promotion as soon as my replacement is found. I'll be dealing with Accounts Payable but will be able to transition into a role later on that suits my dreams of Japan.
   

1. Still working at the same place. We've been acquired by Salesforce which has a pretty good presence in Japan. The acquisition is still very fresh but looking to explore internal job tracks to go to Japan once I learn more.
   
2. Moved within walking distance to work. It's closer but I don't cook for myself, barely clean, etc. Not really independent and going to move back once the lease is up in May. Refer to this year's resolutions to learn why.
   
3. Went to Japan in April but did squander part of the trip. I'm not much of a sightseer so if I don't have friends to hang out with I just walk around. Need to be more outgoing.
   
4. Did start to exercise again very regularly, although I need to mix up my routine. Also began to climb and have gone about 15 times since June.
   
5. MBA not being pursued nor considered a the moment.
   
6. Kept learning Japanese but got lazy I would say. Didn't take advantage of all the time I have. I did get promoted to Accounts Payable, and then to Customer Success which is where I am now. The career is looking good, just need to make sure I'm always improving.
   

2016 Resolutions

1. Live and work in Japan. This is by far my most focused goal of the year as I look to finally make the switch. I'm done waiting. Whether it's thanks to my current company via an internal track as a result of the recent acquisition, or me job searching on my own, I'm looking to move mid-year at the latest. As an American I need to figure out the job so I can get a visa first.
   
2. Focus on Japanese overall. I don't usually create goals in terms of "Read # books", but I have everyday goals I like to shoot for. This past week I've been starting to read at least an hour a day, listen to an hour of Japanese, do my Anki, read the daily opinion pieces in Japanese, etc. I've also started talking to some girl which is giving me lots of practice at least these past 2 days. I had planned to go to Japan soon and it sounds like March is good because she's graduating and will start work in April so she'll have lots of free time. Will see where it goes.
   
3. Improve myself. A broad goal that consists of some very standard resolutions: keep exercising, be more social, etc. Some pieces are pending #1 of my move to Japan, such as getting a driver's license (want to ride a motorcycle in Japan so this is the first step), practice comedy in Japan (improv if possible), get a girlfriend (no point getting one here if I plan to move), and some other things here and there.
   

In general my outlook for this year is to get myself in a good place before 2017. It's all about consistently to improve myself and my Japanese proficiency, then a bit of extra work on the side in terms of creating a long-term opportunity in Japan. Interested and excited to see where I'll be in a few months.

(2016-01-02, 11:58 am)TheVinster Wrote:

1. Improve myself. A broad goal that consists of some very standard resolutions: keep exercising, be more social, etc. Some pieces are pending #1 of my move to Japan, such as getting a driver's license (want to ride a motorcycle in Japan so this is the first step), practice comedy in Japan (improv if possible), get a girlfriend (no point getting one here if I plan to move), and some other things here and there.

Japanese improv - damn, that's a nice goal! You'll be the next 厚切りジェイソン (^^)/

I've had this secret goal of wanting to write short stories/novels in Japanese. I guess I should just be less wussy, put it out there, and shoot for the moon.

(2016-01-02, 4:40 pm)gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

(2016-01-02, 11:58 am)TheVinster Wrote:

1. Improve myself. A broad goal that consists of some very standard resolutions: keep exercising, be more social, etc. Some pieces are pending #1 of my move to Japan, such as getting a driver's license (want to ride a motorcycle in Japan so this is the first step), practice comedy in Japan (improv if possible), get a girlfriend (no point getting one here if I plan to move), and some other things here and there.

Japanese improv - damn, that's a nice goal! You'll be the next 厚切りジェイソン (^^)/

Haha, I would rather not. He's well known at my work because he used to work together with a handful of my current colleagues at a previous company. Many people compare me to him at work. He seems like a nice guy but he's like most Japanese comedians who rely on one act then drive it into the ground until they lose popularity and become irrelevant. 

What Jason does isn't improv, which I'm sure you know. That being said it will take a lot of work to get to the level of being funny in Japanese; however, it would rapidly improve my skills. The following isn't improv of course, but this would also be fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kisaYX_utwg.

Mine is simple: fluency in spoken Japanese. That's the biggest payoff, when it comes to studying a language, and, if I focus on listening comprehension, and nothing else, I think it's within reach. I've been at this for a while, mostly just on the side, while focusing on other things, slowly getting closer and closer, but I think this year it's finally time to set some time aside to immerse myself in Japanese full time, and get it done.