We may meet them, we may exceed them, or we may fall short. Yet even then, setting goals and trying to achieve them often takes you farther than wandering without purpose.
Here's a few things I'd like to accomplish with my Japanese studies in 2009:

- Finish RTK3
- Pass JLPT 2
- Graduate from reading manga to novels
- Be able to watch at least a few movies when I can spend more time enjoying the story instead of figuring out what they are saying
- Spend three weeks in Japan speaking as little English as possible (that's my whole vacation, folks)
- Read a book on go and learn new *ideas* about the game, not just new vocabulary and grammar
- Pick up a cutie using Japanese (wait, that was a 2008 goal - I ROCK)

Fire away, guys and gals. Let's keep each other inspired.

Finish RTK 1 ( currently at 1183 )

Finish RTK 3

Pass JLPT 3 Practice exams easily

Read some native material ( manga, short young novel, whatever, SOMETHING to give me a sense of accomplishment )

Finish JFE

Finish Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese

My main Japanese goals are not to go insane and finish my リング novel before the end of January. I read over forty manga volumes this past month, I think, and I hope to get to the same rate with reading novels. Which to be honest is just a matter of finding interesting novels.

-Finish RtK 1805/3007 + move all cards into box 4
-Learn RtK2/3 Pure Groups
-Adapt the 'movie method' for use with 3007 and use it to learn the major groups
-Begin sentences (3000+ for the year)
-Finish all the Jpod Intermediate+ lessons

-To have all RTK in the 4th box

-To pass JLPT 2 without specificaly studying for it which i will have been doing Japanese from scratch for less than a year by this time.

-To keep up a good pace with the sentence method almost on 400 sentences after only 2 weeks, although i'm not sure if i will be able to keep up this pace with being back at work soon.

-To actually be able to watch and read things with a good understanding

-basically everything i can to be fluent by the time i'm 25 (2 years from now)

Finish all of RTK and start RTKIII
Be able to watch Dragon Ball with no aid whatsoever, and understand EVERYTHING!.

Passing JLPT1 is my only concrete goal. After that, it will just be more of the same. More vocabulary, more vocabulary. It's my only real weakness. I'm hoping to hit that sweet spot where I know pretty much every word used in everyday dramas sometime in 2009, but I doubt that will happen.

Be able to understand variety show/drama speech. Considering that I can understand a movie 95% when it has Japanese subtitles, I feel like it is just a little bit more of a stretch to get to the point where I can understand unscripted dialog without subtitles.... Just need more practice. It takes a long time to become familiar with vocabulary to the point that you can hear it in speech.

I'd like to finish RtK. Then I guess the rest of the year will be vocabulary and listening skill. I'm not aiming to pass a test (although I may some day)

I guess what I'd like by the end of 2009 is to understand enough of what I read or hear that I can figure out the parts I don't understand without much trouble.

1) Get fluency.

2) Be accepted in a doc program.

3) In Japan.

Great tread, it made me realize that I had fallen short of focused goals, and gave me a few ideas.
So, let's see:
-Be able to read a light novel in one day
-understand 97% of a drama
-learn how to speak at a reasonable pace
-find Japanese friends in my city (yeah sure...)

I'm going to achieve the following at a minimum:

6,000 word vocabulary using Anki/iKnow. 16 Anki cards per day.

Complete both volumes of Kanji Odyssey. 8 sentence cards per day.

Average at least 30 minutes per day of concentrated listening/shadowing from my Shadowing CD and book until I understand and can perfectly pronounce every bit of it front, backwards and sideways.

Spend the rest of my free time just doing whatever random thing I want to do that involves the language (trying to read Manga, watching movies, going over grammar, etc).

Finish RTK1.

Enjoy the Japanese language however I can.

Finish RTK1 + RTK3

4000 vocab using anki/iKnow

Play Chaos Seed in Japanese and understand the instructions (and maybe dialogue)

Watch some raw anime and understand most of it.

Be able to read the Baccano! light novels.

Finish mining RtK 2.
Reach 5000 cards in Anki, not counting pure kanji ones.
Read the 涼宮ハルヒ novels and 銀河ヒッチハイク・ガイド.
Finish reading all manga currently in my possession, especially さよなら絶望先生.
Try to spend way more time on spoken Japanese, as that is rapidly falling behind.

Edit:
Oh, and I have a pile of games I need to get through, too. ファイナルファンタジーⅨ is next, but I hope to finish, at the very least, the 幻想水滸伝 series and ペルソナ２ this year.

-Finish Kanji Odyssey.
-Convert all of those RTK keywords to Japanese vocab, then dump them into my anki deck.
-Keep working on grammar. Start using those fill in the blank cards in reviews.
-Find some language partners. (I've been really lazy about that.)
-Watch more TV-Japan (NHK), less US TV. Keep reading the books (LNs, manga). Read more websites, listen to more JP web radio.
-Be a sponge.
-Post less, study more.

3000 sentences by the end of December. I think this is doable considering I haven't finished RTK 1 yet.

Finish RTK2 completely:

onyomi section: heisig's method
kunyomi section: rote

-Pass JLPT1 this summer

-Stop posting at RTK once I get to 200 posts so I can use time I spend posting/reading here on more productive activiites

Finish RtK1 and be improve my comprehension enough to understand and participate in normal conversations.

My goals are pretty modest I think!

-I hope to read at least half a dozen light novels this year
-Read at least 1-2 popular novels
-Continue building vocab
-Develop listening to the point where I can follow a random non-news tv show
-Find a younger language partner my age so I can practice more casual speech

-Get through all of the current material on iKnow
-6,000+ sentences completed (with iKnow)
-employ movie method or alternative
-play through more Japanese video games

at least 漢字検定5, JLPT1, employment in Japan (not teaching)

Jarvik7 Wrote:at least 漢字検定5, JLPT1, employment in Japan (not teaching)

Now where's the fun in that.

timcampbell Wrote:- Spend three weeks in Japan speaking as little English as possible (that's my whole vacation, folks)

Here's a tip. Everybody will try to speak to you in English. Many going so far as to run away and find somebody who knows like 3 English words instead of trying to talk to you. Just KEEP TALKING in Japanese no matter what. Never give in. Eventually (1-3 min.) they will switch to Japanese subconsciously. Make sure you learn the natural phrases Japanese people use to ask for clarification because if you say the evil evil words "I don't understand" they will clam up like a .. well.. clam and look at you with these huge fearful eyes thinking "omg what do I do I'm too terrified to speak English and my cultural programming won't let me say any more words in Japanese!"

Never give in, never surrender! With basic Japanese, a dictionary, and adequate time you can do anything fully in Japanese with absolutely no English so no matter what don't give in.

I feel like I'm stressing this a little weakly so I'm going to shout now, "DONT LET THE JAPANESE FORCE YOU INTO ENGLISH!" They will do so automatically and you might start to feel guilty like "well this is probably the only chance they ever have to practice English now I feel bad". Bullocks, be selfish, they are lazy and can travel if they really want it that badly, stick with the language of the country you are in.

Sincerely,
Person-who-has-had-really-lame-experiences