Wow, its already that time again?

Quote:Goals for 2010:
- Play through Chrono Trigger in Japanese at least twice.
- Complete book 1 of KO.2001
- Read a lot more of my manga
- Work on listening comprehension.
- Switch to a monolingual dictionary.

Non-language goals:
- Get my Rubik's cube speedsolve down to under 20 seconds.
- Learn to solve it blindfolded.

Well, let's see how I did.
I played through chrono trigger once, didn't understand much, and decided I didn't wanna play through again.
I finally gave up on KO.2001 because I decided I hated it.
I did read several volumes of manga (about 4, which is at least better than 1 from the previous year)
I didn't work much on my listening comprehension
I didn't switch to a monolingual dictionary.

But I do have SOME progress to report at least.
I was feeling rusty with RTK, so I went through the whole thing again with reversed cards (kanji to keyword).
I did Core2k.

As for my non-language goals, I only got my speedcubing time down to about 25 seconds, and I lost desire to learn to blindsolve.

Ok, so, time to set some new goals then.

MY GOALS FOR 2011

- Finish Core6k
- Read at least 5 volumes of manga
- Write my japanese friends in Japanese more often, instead of defaulting to english
- Watch more stuff in Japanese

Non-Language Goals
- Get a real job
- Get my rubik's cube speedsolve down to 20 seconds

I didn't post in last year's thread, but I did make goals for 2010. I'm satisfied with the progress I made, but it's both disappointing and motivating to know that I could've achieved what I set out to do if I had been more determined in the pursuit of my goals.

Japanese learning goals for 2010:
1. Complete Core2k (Done!)
2. Complete Core6k (Will be completed by 2011 for sure!)
3. Complete KM 2級 (Probably won't get finish it until next year)
4. Pass JLPT N2 (Haven't even taken a practice test yet!)

2010 Reflections
In terms of major accomplishments in 2010, I'll have finished both Core2k and 6k. Looking back, though, these achievements seem easily obtained. 6,000 new words averaged over a year is only 16 words/day. Considering that I've managed to initially review ~100 new words several times on the 1.5 hr train ride to my university, it's clear that I've been underachieving.

Reflecting on the past year, I'm urged to pick up the pace, especially due to the heightened pace of my graduate studies (MA 1.5yrs, PhD 2yrs). I need my Japanese abilities to match my scholarly abilities by the time I graduate for there to be any hope of finding employment in Japanese academia. This goal is already exceedingly difficult thanks to the Monbusho's complete disregard for foreign faculty. One thing is for certain, however. Dedication will be the key virtue in the upcoming years.

Japanese learning goals for 2011:
1. Reach a vocabulary of 20,000 words (avg. 38 new words daily)
2. Complete KM 2級 and 1級
3. Pass JLPT N2 in July (July 2011 marks the 2nd year of my Japanese learning)
4. After passing N2, start weekly posts on Lang-8 and maintain at least 3 hours of conversation a week
5. Spend the summer in a language school, focusing on listening and speaking
6. Take N1 practice tests in the fall of 2011

My goals for next year are:

1. Finish Core 6K (Currently on Step 4 on Core 2k)
2. Finish RTK1 hopefully around February.
3. Be able to read something like articles or manga.
4. Increase my listening skills and grammar.

I'll probably try something like Tae Kim and listen to more Japanese each day.

Okay, I usually dont make these kind of lists... but will give it a try this year and see how it goes:

- Retake and finish RtK1 (lots of reviews to do, am at 534 now after a 2 months break to finish graduation)
- Study harder to get a pos graduation in japan for free.
- Increase general vocabulary to around 4000 words... I think I have around 1500-2000 at the moment, not sure.
- Read something in full japanese, even if it takes me 2 hours in each sentence.
- Play all games next year in japanese, even if I dont understand well.
- Translate around 20 songs in japanese to portuguese
- Revise all Minna no nihongo lessons and the kanji books I have before the next semester begins

Ok, if I get at least half of this Im gonna be a very happy japanese student in 2012 ^^

My number one priority this year is to get better at conversation. I still freeze up and generally avoid speaking japanese whenever i can, which is not a recipe for improving. I could take a crack at N1, but i think i need to stop focusing on tests and try to improve my real-world ability.

"Try this one:

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/2236 … h27725.jpg

Works for me "

If I could only read Spanish. >.>' I am NOt going to start another language. *repeats*
Temptation fading, fading...gone XD

ta12121 Wrote:...read 100+ pages of japanese daily...

Wow! I would have a hard time keeping that up in English, much less Japanese. I`d love to set that as a goal for myself but there`s no way I could do it everyday. Have you been doing that already?

I`m not a real big fan of resolutions because they`re the easiest part of a goal and often the only part that gets done in the end. But as for what I did in 2010:

-passed N2
-finished 4 novels
-read two dozen manga
-100,000+ anki reviews
-finished a dozen N1 and N2 study books

For 2011, I hope to:

-pass N1
-finish 5 novels
-100,000+ anki reviews
-translate something and get money for it

Essentially what I did this year, but just keep the productivity going (the hardest part of any resolution).

This is totally unrelated to Japanese, but I passed my driving test for manual this morning!!! It was my fourth attempt, so I'm really stoked about it right now

About Japanese, I really want to finish JFE by the end of January/early February. Then, I want to tutor Japanese for high school students as a part time job, while continuing my BSc/MBBS.

2011 is looking up

vinniram Wrote:This is totally unrelated to Japanese, but I passed my driving test for manual this morning!!! ...

Manual? What's that, driving stick? You have different tests for stick shift and automatic?

Nomad Wrote:

vinniram Wrote:This is totally unrelated to Japanese, but I passed my driving test for manual this morning!!! ...

Manual? What's that, driving stick? You have different tests for stick shift and automatic?

Yeah, driving stick, it's called "manual" in australia. if you get manual license, you can drive auto and manual, but if you get auto license, you can only drive auto.

asriel Wrote:I did go to the Boston Career Forum, and am still continuing the interview process with Square Enix.

What kind of job are applying for? Graphics? business related? Software engineering?

Hmmm... reflections...

It's been an entire year of self-study, powered mostly by Anki. I'm actually surprised I made it this far, I'm usually one of those people who takes on new things, gets to an average level, and then quits... usually in the span of 3 months. Already in 2010, it happened with Street Fighter 4 and photography.

Only now did I get to kanji 700 in KO2001, despite starting last year. Those first kanji and sentences were really difficult, and it took me a long time to get through 20 or 30 cards a day. But now, my speed has increased, and I'm clearing 60-70 in that same period. As such, it's so much easier to learn and pick up stuff now. I really didn't account for that, how it's a struggle in the beginning and just eases up in the end. Still a struggle, but not so much.

I bought a number of manga and books, and downloaded a bunch of dramas and variety shows. You know, it's amazing how you thought you understood it before, then you read it again and you can understand it even more. Because of that, when I study or read, sometimes I just choose to blaze right through it when I don't understand it... other times, I'll methodically read it until I understand everything. It feels like a gift that keeps on giving!

I realized sometime in the middle of the year that speaking needs to be trained separately. I can't really classify them both as "output." For that matter, "input" is also separate. My uneducated, non-linguistical background theory was that because output has infinitely many answers, choosing one becomes a task. Not only do I have to process what they tell me, but I have to reply with what I want to say, and perhaps there are some nuances in it too. (Oh you Japanese, making me overuse the word "nuance.")

I've noticed my English slipping a little. It's not because "Oh, I'm so good that my Japanese makes me forget English," but rather, I keep thinking of multiple ways to express a single idea that I often say something completely incorrect or perhaps, even rude. It's uncharacteristically off, despite my favorite kind of humor being non sequitur, nonsensical type stuff.

I went to Japan in October to visit my cousin who teaches English. It was fun, and now I want to live there too. No, not because it's "Japanese," but because it's different. I've been pretty sheltered most of my life and have fallen into pattern that all Asians want their kids to go through: Don't do anything but study, then get a job, then make money... so my life has been pretty dry. It'd be cool to be displaced. The problem is, I don't want to teach English, I want to develop a real skill. I haven't decided what to do or what the best plan of action is, but I want to give it a try.

I can see how immersion helps. I have ご注意してください stuck in my head after riding the trains so many times. There's also situations that I found myself in that I didn't know what to do. You look at textbooks and they make it sound so easy to order food, but they're a bunch of liars! =) For a while I didn't know how to say "Yeah, that's all I wanted to order." I had to deal with things like getting my jeans cut at Uniqlo, ordering pizza on the phone and trying to understand the Japanese address system, forgetting where my coin locker was... etc. The first day I was in a hurry and forgot to get Yen, so I was stressing trying to figure out how to get my bus ticket to get to the station to get to wear my cousin was going to pick me up. All the textbooks and native material couldn't prepare me for that! Well, maybe the coin locker thing...

For next December, I'm planning on taking the JLPT N1. I don't know if I'll be prepared. For sure, I'm probably marginally on the JLPT N3 level. But I don't mind... it's just great to have something to study for.

I know I posted in the last year resolution thread but I prefer not to go back and see how miserably I failed.

It was a pretty bad year for me, probably the worst I've had in my 23 years of existence.
I'm not gonna go into detail but the first 2-3 months started amazing both in terms of school and Japanese study, but the rest of the year was just failure after failure. I struggled with major depression most of the year (and still do, though its not as bad atm) and nothing really got done. I also lost a ton of interest in Japanese and only just recently started adding 5-10 new cards a day again. I still listen to the JP music and play JP games and pretty much live doing JP activities, but it's mostly just cuz I love it. I kinda started telling myself I'm probably never gonna understand most of it because I'm far too lazy to put any effort into it, so I didn't. I just listen to the music or play a game and don't bother trying to learn. Sad, really. I did all my Anki reviews every 2-3 days and kept up with that, but didn't add a new card for probably 2 months.

I'm not making resolutions for 2011 really since because I took a step backwards in nearly every aspect of my life in 2010, even a small step forward anywhere will be improvement enough.

Happy holidays folks!

nadiatims Wrote:What kind of job are applying for? Graphics? business related? Software engineering?

Square Enix Research Center.
Starts as a 3 month internship, and if they like me, continues into full employment. Basically doing research, developing things that will be used in 5 or so years...Not just in the game industry, but it's funded by SE, so that's kind of where the applications are focused.
At the first interview we talked a little bit about some of how they're doing like parallel computing, and a bunch of stuff, and I talked about how I'm in an AI class right now.

Got another interview sometime after the 20th, but I have no idea what they're going to ask me, or what I'm supposed to say...It's going to be absolutely horrible. Especially since I don't know any sort of 用語 when it comes to computers and technology.... :/
And oh yeah -- it'll be in Japanese...

kainzero,
"For next December, I'm planning on taking the JLPT N1. I don't know if I'll be prepared. For sure, I'm probably marginally on the JLPT N3 level. But I don't mind... it's just great to have something to study for."

Shoot for it! I may have not passed the N2, but I am glad I took it. It felt really good -- like I was proving all those nasty comments wrong.

Asirel, Those are some great goals! Isn't AI a huge part of gaming anyways? (-_-')


I decided to change my goals and then write an entry on Lang-8 about them.
(http://lang-8.com/23679/journals/726945/...8中日한Eng%29)

I'm thinking I deserve some books, CD's and movies! (:B) It's a great way to motivate yourself I think.

vileru Wrote:Reflecting on the past year, I'm urged to pick up the pace, especially due to the heightened pace of my graduate studies (MA 1.5yrs, PhD 2yrs). I need my Japanese abilities to match my scholarly abilities by the time I graduate for there to be any hope of finding employment in Japanese academia. This goal is already exceedingly difficult thanks to the Monbusho's complete disregard for foreign faculty. One thing is for certain, however. Dedication will be the key virtue in the upcoming years.

it's unfortunate that that's the way academia works. I know because I'm in the same boat as you. I don't want to compete with you but when they barely give us money to pay the bills and yet expect us to spend ALL our time in our work what can we expect?

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I accomplished all of my goals for 2010 except for one. That one was to finish a text book that I used in my unversity. The idea was if I finish will working here in Japan I could easily pass the class (or be exempt) and not have to worry about. But it was soo boring that I just said "*****" it and did.

RTK (check)
JLPT3 (check)
read magazines (check)
read japanese subtitles (check)
do Tae Kim (check)
do Japanese the manga way (check)
finish Japanese the spoken language (half way incomplete)

Goals for 2011
Pass N2 in July
learn 15000 words (or more)
possibly finish Japanese the Spoken Language
Feel fluent when speaking to japanese people (this is vague since I usually feel fluent, but I want to feel more fluent as in have no problems understanding or expressing what I want to say. I think vocab will help with this).
Continue reading magazines and fun stuff so that I don't get bored with studying.


Most of this is kind of vague but N2 is my main goal so that is where all my energy will be directed first.

2010 goals:

- Slowly add production cards, 5 a day
Did that for a couple of months. Reviews took ages, so I stopped doing that... Still review though.

- Mine 30 sentences every day until September, around 7k sentences.
Check! I have added 8600+ cards into Anki since January! =)
That totals to around 13-14000 cards added in 16 months (excluding RTK). Pretty happy with that!

- Finish Kanzen master 2
Check!

2011 goals:

- Up vocab with 7000-8000 words. (Vocab deck - 15k)
- Understand what the heck my Kansai-friends are saying.
- Understand what the local bakerman is saying. Sigh...
- Read 3-4 books in Japanese. (Currently enjoying ノルウェイの森）
- Never, EVER ask a random, Japanese girl for the 読み方 and meaning of "膣" on the train again. >_<
- Never ask my friend's mother for the meaning of 産道 ever again. Oh, awkwardness! >_<

Non-Japanese related:
- Figure out what the heck I'm going to do next year
- Be able to sit 40min + in 正座
- Write more songs, practise more Ocarina / Drum-set =)

Zorlee Wrote:2010 goals:
- Never, EVER ask a random, Japanese girl for the 読み方 and meaning of "膣" on the train again. >_<

Wow. Just Wow.

Srsly keep up the good work though!!

Zorlee Wrote:- Never, EVER ask a random, Japanese girl for the 読み方 and meaning of "膣" on the train again. >_<

Hilarious I'm guessing the look of shock horror was enough to let you know that was a bad question to ask.

Zorlee Wrote:- Never, EVER ask a random, Japanese girl for the 読み方 and meaning of "膣" on the train again. >_<
- Never ask my friend's mother for the meaning of 産道 ever again. Oh, awkwardness! >_<

I think I have found just the thread for you

From the 2009 thread, here were my 2010 resolutions, and the outcomes:

2010 Resolutions
Language-related
- Finish 2001KO - NO (gave up too boring)
- Get good enough to play through a full DS game in Japanese (Zelda maybe?) NO
- Visit Japan NO (couldn't afford it)

Non-language
- Find a video game related job SORT OF (had one, now unemployed again
-Travel more NO
- Get fit NO
- Learnt to cook NO

2011 Resolutions
Language:
- Finish Core 2000
- Start Core 6000
- Watch more Japanese shows (anime, J-dramas)
- Start learning Mandarin (for girlfriend)

Non-language
- Release iPhone game(s)
- Get decent job
- Travel more
- Get fit

Zorlee Wrote:- Never, EVER ask a random, Japanese girl for the 読み方 and meaning of "膣" on the train again. >_<

Why not, seems fun to me.
But really, you shouldn't be reading that kind of literature on the train in the first place.

Evil_Dragon Wrote:

Zorlee Wrote:- Never, EVER ask a random, Japanese girl for the 読み方 and meaning of "膣" on the train again. >_<

Why not, seems fun to me.
But really, you shouldn't be reading that kind of literature on the train in the first place.

Had to look this one up, but..

膣 = part of body + hole + climax = vagina?!!

Damn, this is proof that Heisig is an amazing system!

Okay, here we go...
I didn't really have any goals for 2010, I didn't want anything. It's changed now though.

Since I've started working, I've stop studying Japanese, which is really stupid because I had a nice momentum going over the summer. So one of my resolutions is to watch less anime and study a little more regularly. I also plan to make a 11k vocab deck from "Kanji & Kana" for the French bunch. Good pre-learning. Finish core 2k, start the 6K, and pass the N3 next year. Start reading novels in Japanese. Start to watch raw or Japanese subbed anime. Do RTK3 next summer (this one is easy).

Non Japanese: I've seen a fellow rubicker, and I'm 20 algorithms away from finishing to learn my pll, so I'll try to complete that; work out a bit (more than 3 months)(I feel for the guy that has 3 months spams, pretty much the same here); keep praticing my yidaki daily (this one's easy). Save some money perhaps (for a J trip). Be nicer to my fellow humans ? I don't know...

Anyway, happy Xmas/holidays/New Year to you all, and looking forward to thousands of other interesting threads!!!

I wanted to finish RTK this year and BEFORE christmas (after giving up last year):
- finished rtk lite earlier this year
- (almost - 40 to go) finished RTK 1, so that's a yes

Wanted to finish Core2000, but slacked so that'll be for 2011

/non jap:
lose some weight again... gained 6kg that's what happens when you change jobs, have more work and less time to sport ooh I hate that blob of fat. aaargh male tities...