Evil_Dragon Wrote:Grow a beard

I wish you the best of luck with this endeavour.

I want to be good at Japanese and maybe visit Japan and see the samurai and geisha and robots. Did someone already say this?? I don't care, I'm doing it.

thecite Wrote:

Evil_Dragon Wrote:Grow a beard

I wish you the best of luck with this endeavour.

Your support is much appreciated

I want to pass the 五段 kanji test, I think there's only 25 people who've passed it in the country. Too bad it doesn't exist anymore. >: http://blog.zaq.ne.jp/kanken/article/35/

My girlfriend's dad says he has 初段, which is higher than 漢検１級 apparently, but I'm finding it hard to research this system... maybe it was higher than the old 1級 but not the new one? Who knows.

mizunooto Wrote:The subject of this thread is: post your ambitious goal here. If you have a goal/dream/wish that you want to achieve, but you think it's a bit too much to realistically entertain, post it here. If you want to do something but you're scared of being laughed at, now's the time. If you are an acorn but you like the idea of being an oak, go for it!

TLDR: you-want-do-big-thing? write-here![/color]

I am going to take over the world and then I will place Japan right between the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii by 2020.

For a slightly less enthralling goal: Start reading in Japanese and finish a book. And work my Japanese skills up to JLPT Level 4, 3, 2 then 1.

-finish up my double major in Computer and Electrical Engineering and minor in Mathematics
-study abroad for a year in Japan (and pass the 2 kyu by the end)
-get into a top 10 school for my MBA
-get a job somewhere that I at least partially enjoy
-learn Spanish and possibly Arabic
-have a wife and family in a good neighborhood with great schools
-retire early by earning lots of money on the stock market
-travel the world after retirement
-die and find out that life somehow is more than just a infinitesimal speck in time that means nothing in the greater scheme of things.


I think the last one is a bit ambitious ;P but other than that I truly believe all of these can come true with continued effort.

Ｈａｖｅ　ａ　ｓｏｌｉｄ　２級　Ｌｅｖｅｌ　ｂｙ　ｔｈｅ　ｅｎｄ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｙｅａｒ．
Ｇｒａｄｕａｔｅ　(ｎｅｘｔ　ｙｅａｒ、Ｊｕｎｅ)，　ｇｏ　ｔｏ　Ｊａｐａｎ　ｆｏｒ　ｏｎｅ　ｙｅａｒ　ｔｏ　ｓｔｕｄｙ　ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ、ａｐｌｙ　ｔｏ　ａ　ｍａｓｔｅｒｓ　ｄｅｇｒｅｅ　ｔｈｅｒｅ，ｔｈｅｎ　ｓｅｎｄ　ｍｙ　ｒｅｓｕｍｅ　ｔｏ　ｔｒａｎｓｌａｔｉｏｎ　ｅｎｔｅｒｐｒｉｓｅｓ　ｏｒ　ｏｔｈｅｒ　ｊｏｂｓ．

translation sounds like it would be so much fun. Oh, except the part where you have to write out English -.-

I'll write my goals in the order I intend to achieve them.
-Pass the 文部科学省 exam (31 days left).
-Go there (you know where) and find a nice place to live with my girlfriend for a year.
-Come back, graduate and leave Italy for a reasonable amount of time (30±5 yrs)
-Work as an Italian Teacher in Japan (I'm already doing internship here and I've already done one there. I'm not in the "dreaming" phase, I'm already making effort to make it real)
-Achieve native level in Japanese
-Achieve native level in written English and reach fluency in spoken English (I still haven't heard any dialect / regional variance worth the hassle of aiming for the native level. Hey! Don't take it personally )
-Rise another step in the language ladder learning German through Japanese (I'd like to read "Dune" in its original language and speak enough German to travel in that part of Europe without using English)
- Obtain 1級 of Kanji Kentei (This is a very long term goal, even 10 yrs. I just need to prove to a half Japanese friend that nationality doesn't have ANY influence on this kind of stuff)
Those should keep me occupied for the next 10 years, probably even more

Shakunatz Wrote:I'd like to read "Dune" in its original language

Do you mean Dune by Frank Herbert? I am pretty sure that that one was originally in English, not German.

It seems the name "Frank" tricked me very well (^.^;)
So... I'll set Goethe's Faust as my new goal.
Thank you for pointing it out to me :D
You just gave me the best news I've read in the last 2 months heheh.
*Runs on bookdepository.co.uk*

edit: typo

I'm going to write a Japanese novel about Nanking Massacre, because the Japanese haven't done it yet.

I want to sit in a coffee shop, sip on a latte macchiato, and read 1Q84 by Murakami Haruki by next summer. In Japanese of course.

Oh - please make it happen!

Go f**k around in Japan =).

Explore Asian architecture & culture AND chill around～ :p

Develop my own style of architecture or decide on my own professional path from then on.

Make a commune of creative people who like to create things by themselves(art, food, dance, songs, everyday things...etc).
Be the architect of an intriguing and astonishing building for the commune.
...and ideally create a new culture which embraces the beauty and mysticism of our strange reality.

Make the world come to a mature enough approach towards mind-altering substances.

Make people think more with their own head rather than spend their life on consuming mass media and obeying the rules of authorities.

Find a way to make my life as close to a life without pain and suffering as I can. Or find out whether it actually IS possible.
In case it's possible...share this method with my friends.


No matter what the field, I want to be a genius of my own work.

Goals:
reading jp fluently (seriously this will probably happen by the end of this year).
Listening fluently (coming a long, really well actually)
Improve writing/speaking skills (I'm currently going to invest in books designed for natives to improve writing skills. Get books for writing emails,letters,speech,etc. To help work even more outside my srs).
Reach 30,000 vocab cards by the end of this year (i'm around 20,000+ no duplicates! YEA!, I actually deleted all my duplicates throughout all my decks, so it feels awesome).

Gain expectational Japanese skills.

vinniram Wrote:translation sounds like it would be so much fun. Oh, except the part where you have to write out English -.-

Try getting transcription jobs. All you do is type what you hear in jp. Sometimes they do require you to translate it though.

vileru Wrote:I don't think these ambitions are too much to realistically entertain, but they're certainly not easy to achieve. Anyway, on to my goals:

1. Obtain PhD before or at 25-years-old (I'm 21 now and I'll finish my MA next semester).
2. Find a tenure-track university position in Japan.

Cool! Hope it works out for you... although technically there are still no tenure-track positions except for in a handful of universities, among them 上智大学, but not the really prestigious schools. Many departments are reluctant to hire foreigners and offer only fixed-term contracts (the old story... what if he doesn't understand our culture and doesn't fit in?) at an awfully low salary, and then wonder why only mediocre people apply.

I do know of two guys, though, who did post-docs around the same time as I did and who got nice, permanent positions in Japan straight after that. It seems you'll have to be able to convince them that your Japanese is good enough to perform all administrative and teaching functions in the department.

vileru Wrote:The mistake in most of these cases lies in the belief that happiness is something hiding in the future that must be toiled over in order to achieve. On the contrary, happiness is something that is readily waiting to be found at every moment. Approaching goals with this in mind, I think, creates goals that we enjoy pursuing rather than goals that we dread.

I find that if you can be happy with the nothing you have now, it's easier to get ahead to the something you'd like to do in the future.

Splatted Wrote:I'll also need to look in to getting a double bass to play there.

Well, this is why it's good to say things out loud (one of the reasons why). There are lots of double basses in Japan. Do you know Duncan McTier? If not PM me and I'll get you some good info about the bass in Japan. He knows things!

buonaparte Wrote:I'm going to write a Japanese novel about Nanking Massacre, because the Japanese haven't done it yet.

Wow. In a good way, wow!



I'm enjoying reading your goals. It's nice to know there are ambitious goals out there. It makes me feel less freakish. Also because some of them are the same as my own.

What's also nice is that every time i read the thread, it seems to have changed. Are you constantly changing your goals? Or maybe there are so many good ones that i can't take it all in at once.

*learn Japanese
*graduate university
*move to Japan
*chill there and find a full time permanent job
*perhaps take up Korean as a hobby.

This will happen. It's my destiny!

Right now my biggest goal is to try and make it through Remembering the Kanji 1! I still haven't decided if I want to work through RtK 3 as well before moving on to the sentence phase of my study. Khatz recommends it, so we shall see...

As far as long term goals go, my dream is to get a degree in art and then move to Japan (speaking fluent Japanese and passing the JLPT 1 to prove it), and try to make it as a mangaka. I'm not kidding around, either... I know it's a difficult goal to achieve, and it's like that with anybody who wants to make a living off of their art, so I'd also like to receive the education to be either a translator or an English teacher in Japan in case things fall through.

Just imagining the day I get off a plane in Japan...it's going to make me the happiest girl in the world, I swear. 私、がんばります！

Move to Japan, reach native-speaker level in Japanese, naturalize and enter politics in order to reform Japan from the inside out and save its society from the imminent collapse!

That's what my dream would have been, if I wasn't such a self-indulgently cynical self-hating libertarian anarcho-pessimist. I'd like to see that guy try it though.
As for real goals, I really cannot think of anything more specific than "I want my Japanese to be just as good as my English is right now". Speaking of which, I also kinda wanna finally make the effort to expunge all traces of a Russian accent from my English.

Besides all the usual stuff (pwnage level Japanese) I would like to live my life like David Choe AKA become an artist who travels around the world and draws 24/7.

And learn a ton of languages...

可能性かもしれない。

Irixmark Wrote:

vileru Wrote:I don't think these ambitions are too much to realistically entertain, but they're certainly not easy to achieve. Anyway, on to my goals:

1. Obtain PhD before or at 25-years-old (I'm 21 now and I'll finish my MA next semester).
2. Find a tenure-track university position in Japan.

Cool! Hope it works out for you... although technically there are still no tenure-track positions except for in a handful of universities, among them 上智大学, but not the really prestigious schools. Many departments are reluctant to hire foreigners and offer only fixed-term contracts (the old story... what if he doesn't understand our culture and doesn't fit in?) at an awfully low salary, and then wonder why only mediocre people apply.

I do know of two guys, though, who did post-docs around the same time as I did and who got nice, permanent positions in Japan straight after that. It seems you'll have to be able to convince them that your Japanese is good enough to perform all administrative and teaching functions in the department.

My outlook definitely isn't optimistic. The job market for PhDs is dismal, and especially for those with PhDs in the humanities (philosophy in my case). I'm hoping that my academic pedigree will help boost my chances. Where did those two guys you know of earn their degrees from? Anyway, thanks for sharing. It was definitely reassuring to hear their stories.

Get this Japanese thing out the way and then move to Japan and work as an actor and singer. Be known worldwide and have blond hair.

Don't care about the money because more money just means I'll spend more. But I want to be famous, immortal.

Eh to be honest I feel like these kind of threads are useless. Sure its been found that writing your goals makes them more likely to happen but half the time I see people put up ambitious goals but aren't even making an effort anywhere near the goal.

Anyway, stuff that, my goal is to become a bloody sage in Japanese, and then transition into Chinese as well. Then hopefully every other major language on Earth, because i'll probably never stop studying languages.