It's not too early to start thinking of 2012 goals, right? According to me, as long as we're in the last quarter of the year, it's never too early! Let's reflect on how well we've been fulfilling our 2011 goals, and think about what we'd like to do in 2012. If you posted your 2011 goals in last year's resolution thread, you may want to look over them, or even better, paste them here and type out your impression of how you've been doing. The thread is here: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6877

Here's my assessment of my 2011 goals:

1. Write at least eight lang-8 entries a month. Total should be at least 96 entries in a year.　← Fulfilled so far. 83 out of 96 entries posted.
2. Shadow 10 shadow-able works of at least 10 minutes in length (audio books, drama, documentaries, etc -- preferably with JPN subs). ← Not fulfilled. I've only shadowed about 20 minutes, but I felt like I've gotten a lot out of that alone.
3. Read at least 10 books - aim for one book a month. ← Fulfilled. Reading book #14, thanks to the reading site 読書メーター。
4. Add no less than 50 new sentences a month but stay under 300. ← Fulfilled. I've added somewhere between 50 and 100 sentences per month so far.
5. Be able to understand 98-100% of an episode of the podcast ねえ、ねえ、聞いて！ that I haven't listened to before. ← Fufilled. After listening to the 15 minute newest episode「Vol. 317　泣くの力」I ended up with a tally of 18 words I didn't understand. Even though I reached my goal and understood most of it, I had to really, really focus. This is not something I would have needed to do in English. まだまだですね。

This year's Japanese goal workload will have to be scaled down a great deal since I'll be going back to school. Here's a short, tentative list for 2012's goals:

1. Write at least one lang-8 entry a month (2011's one-eighth?!（　ﾟ Дﾟ）). Aim for at least ten sentences per entry.
2. Read at least 7 Japanese books. (2011's one-half...)
3. Keep SRS workload low. Stay below 40 new cards per month. (strangely, this may be difficult for me... I come across too many good sentences when reading).

The reason why the above goals are nothing but low expectations?
Goal number four is to get straight A's. There's no way I could pull that off if I were replicate 2011's goals. I especially couldn't get straight A's if I were to repeat goal number #1... (any lang-8er's know how I feel?)

I'm looking forward to reading your goals! Let's all get some motivation and ideas from each other to use for the rest of 2011, and for 2012.

Nice, gonna check what I did this year!

- Retake and finish RtK1 (lots of reviews to do, am at 534 now after a 2 months break to finish graduation)
Success!! I finished it by the middle of the year and it really helped me see kanjis with a new eye

- Increase general vocabulary to around 4000 words... I think I have around 1500-2000 at the moment, not sure.
Success!! I have around 4k words now, but as it cant really be counted Im gonna say just that Im happy about it

- Read something in full japanese, even if it takes me 2 hours in each sentence.
Kind of a success... I did read some mangas chapters, some texts and even read a few キノの旅 pages, but didnt finish

- Play all games next year in japanese, even if I dont understand well.
Failure!! I tried but got bored of not understanding what was going on well enough.
but I did play yu-gi-oh in japanese and am now able to understand most of the cards description without trouble, which required quite a bit of work and dedicated time to learn the most common words like 発動　and 特集召還. Its good cuz now I can watch the anime and at least understand whats going on during the duel and the new cards (from the Zexal series).


- Translate around 20 songs in japanese to portuguese
Failure!! Well I never made a "translation", but I did read lots of lyrics in japanese singing along while reading it with kanji, which was very good experience imo

- Revise all Minna no nihongo lessons and the kanji books I have before the next semester begins
Success!! Nothing really big here, just took me 2 weeks or so, its amazing how I can read all texts in it without much effort, only a few sentences requires a bit more attention here and there, but was very pleased to see how much I had learnt

- Study harder to get a pos graduation in japan for free.
Partial Success!! I did study harder this year, but still havent applied for MEXT cuz I was sure of not passing it anyway due to my poor level. This will be kept for next year as well and untill I get it or get too old to actually get it

Anyway, Im really happy about my improvement of this year. And I never really studied that hard, just very often.

Now for 2012
- Study harder to get a pos graduation in japan for free
- Finish KO2001
- Finish Core6k
- Study N2 grammar, vocab, kanji, reading and listening compreension books (probably either Kanzen master or Soumatome versions, still need more moneytivation for it
- Increase general vocabulary to around 8000 words (including all N2 words)
- Learn Kanji reading of all N2 Kanjis (kinda gets accomplished when I get lots of mature cards in KO)
- Read at least one light novel in japanese (probably finish Kino no tabi as its kinda easy for my level atm)
- Do more shadowing
- And finally: Pass N2 in december of 2012 (result will be only on 2013 however :X)


Omg so much expectation for next year, hope I can do it

2011 goals
-more and more doramas (with japanese subs of course, and study of the subs) watched Anego, Namae wo nakushita megami, Soredemo ikiteyuku, and still watch Ayu Ready (variety bangumi) on a daily basis
-more music and reading and studying the lyrics listened to music and did not study the lyrics, but can understand them most of the time
-more textbooks and listening to japanese learning CD's listened to podcasts and dramas, added grammar sentences from textbooks
-finish AIAIJ before 2011 (I'm finishing lesson 9) don't remember
-put all vocabulary from JLPT 3-1 into Anki added JLPT 3 and 2 vocab, I'm now adding from an 1kyuu list
-I also had the goal of goint to a japanese summer course in japan, but I think it's better if I save that money towards my masters degree. couldn't
-Take JLPT 2 in December Yes I will
-improve my speaking skills (I've come to find out that repeating out loud is good for this) SO much better now, I can't even believe it
-start reading japanese news not only the news but also random articles and books

My speaking and listening skills got SOOO much better. I can understand so much that I can't even believe it. Thanks to Hamasaki Ayumi and Ogura Yuuko, and dramas also helped ^^
I also have 2 japanese friends who are studying portuguese at my university.

2012 GOALS
- Pass N2
- Pass HSK 4
- Take JLPT 1 (have been adding vocab from tanosUK and grammar from somatome N1, will also add from Unicom 1Kyuu and donna toki)
- Take a masters degree in Japan
- Get a job using japanese (in Summer)
- Read more books, articles, watch more dramas and listen to more podcasts.
- Start doing some translations in order to get some practice

It's so awesome how my japanese improved just from listening and immersing myself during this year, it's unbelievable now that I thing about it.

2011 Goals:

Play a lot of Japanese Games: I played FF13,FF8, Parasite Eve, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 1+2,Naruto Ultimate Storm 2, Yakuza 3, Metal Gear Solid (All of these games are the jp versions). So in terms of immersion for games, I've pretty much got to my goal and will keep going for the next few years

Revamp my SRS pace+Decks. I've done this 3 times so far, one during the 1.5 year mark and then again just recently(wait that means I just did it for 2 times). I'm feeling now that all I need is around 20% of my studies to be from the SRS(Anki), instead of 30-40%+ of the time that I usual did. I've recently revamped it and have a pace of 30 new cards for my sentence deck(I haven't added anything to it yet but I've divided it into 10 production cards(monolingual+look ups when needed), 10 sentence for recognition(monolingual look-ups) and last is 10 MCD style cards+monolingual look-ups) (See a pattern? There all monolingual and contain no English, if I need to understand something in English, I just check it if I really need to).

Immersion via reading,listening,etc: I've gotten better at what to listen to and how to learn well but I've also learned a lot of my weaknesses along the way.

Speaking: It needs a lot of work, I still have to get a good flow going and still need to keep practicing until I get better and better. I have a strong feeling that this just needs more time, it won't happen fast but I can definitely get really good if I just keep going

Writing: I know a few ways of improving this and have tried cloze deletion for 1 vocab from a sentence (it works well, giving that the kanji isn't too hard but sometimes still enough to get you confused). I will start working through work books for improving writing and will have a goal of writing a few pages a day(still trying to find useful ways of implementing and optimizing how to improve this, as well as speaking)

Now this year has taught me I need to keep finding ways of optimizing study, improving how and time efficient ways of learning more during my days.

Goals for 2012:

Get speaking to a fluent level(This will happen for sure, if I play my cards right)
Improve my writing(I don't expect this to get "Fluent" but improve it well and hopefully gain a writing knowledge of at least 1000+ kanji and then the following year, get to 2000+ and beyond).
Take JLPT 1 and pass with 80%+ (A) (I would have taken it this year but I was broke during the month of October and I recently got another job, so I will be stable money-wise for next year)
Improve my SRS pace and see where it leads me
Immerse more and always watch a variety of material(Re-watch if needed).
Go through grammar books,JLPT books and any other JP books that interest me (manga,novels,light-novels,animation books,etc).

If things go well, I will be able to call myself fluent (with the exception of writing but most people say I shouldn't worry about that but I've found the key here is, go slowly and you will get there in a few years). I will be able to call myself fluent (reading,listening and speaking if things go right).

It all comes down to studying effectively,enjoyment (having fun) and just keep going!

2011 [hmm I don't really make resolutions at the beginning of the year, normally I just make goals randomly throughout the year and attempt to accomplish them. But I'll try to think of what could be possibly beginning of year stuff. All long term goals end in failure, where as short term goals yield more success for me. Its mainly cuz' I always goal to fit so much in one day, that I end up accidentally doing nothing or not much XD;]

Get a job - Failed so far
Learn 2 Kanji's a week - Fail [well I've been better at this the past two weeks though :3]
Study a chapter out of my text book every week - Fail
Learn Japanese - Fail-ishhhhh I've gotten better the past two weeks.
Get better at Drawing - Fail-ish

Now for 2012
1- Start Sticking with long term Goals.
2- Get a job.
3- Successfully do modified version of AJATT learning method.
4- Learn at least 2 Kanji's a day, 2 Vocabs, 2 sentences a day.
5- Translate at least 2 pages of manga per day to the best of my ability.
6- Get better at comprehending what I'm reading, hearing, speaking and writting. [to an at least intermediate level for all.]
7- Listen to KeyholeTV everyday, all day long, unless watching a drama.
8- Find a way to make money so that I could afford to go to a school in Japan by end of the year [maybe another country though for other languages I'm interested in learning.]
9- Continue only logging on msn once a week
10- Translate a Japanese song every week or every month.
11- When writting gets good enough, write an entry on lang-8 every other day.
12- Write a journal entry about my progress once a week [in both english and japanese, but starting with Japanese being written down before writting the english version.]
13- Use Anki everyday
14- Watch an episode of a drama everyday
15- Watch anime a few times a week
16- Play Japanese games a few times a week
17- Read something in Japanese everyday.
18- Do something for all my friends.
19- Watch several english movies I've watched before, but in Japanese.
20- Finish a full colored drawing at least once every week.
21- Brush my dogs everyday, and remember its Saturday on Saturday.

-----
Possibly could have left something out? Not sure, but that looks pretty complete. XD
Not aiming to pass any JLPT's as of now, maybe eventually I'll get to that point, but as of now it sounds like something that is probably unnecessary as of now.

You might wanna up the number of words and kanji you are learning a day. If something like 8,000 vocabulary words is what you need to start being fairly comfortable in Japanese, then if you are only learning two words a day that will take 11 years.

Learning two thousand kanji will also be just shy of three years at two a day.

Reference: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...#pid122253

2011 Goals
Japanese
-Go through Kanzen Master, Sou Matome, D*JG pick up loose ends
-Read 3 articles out of 朝日新聞 per week.
-Make it to 漢検２級 or 準２級 on KanKen DS
-Finish going through Core and pick up loose ends

Didn't do ANY of these. I read quite a bit of Japanese -- mostly news from livedoor.com and various sites online, watched a lot of TV, drama, variety, etc.. but didn't actually achieve any of these things. As a whole, I kind of gave up active study and just occasionally engage in native materials and add words to Anki, maybe once a week. My conversational skills have also decreased dramatically.

Life
-Graduate
-Find a job
-Get back to Japan

I've graduated with a BS in both Computer Science and Japanese. I'm currently a software developer at a nice little company making mobile applications and other stuff.
Now if only I could get back to Japan somehow. Anyone have any use of a software developer with JLPT N1 under their belt? Please?

Goals for 2012
-Get back to studying seriously
-Get a job in Japan. If I can't find one, see if I can't teach english for a while and look around for a computer job.

My goal from last year was: "Resume Japanese study/ anything productive."
Wow, I had such huge unachievable goals didn't I :p

Well, I've all but got the MEXT scholarship and I went on my trip, so that was productive. Picked up my Japanese learning again too, alas I've never regained the steel-focus I had 2 years ago.

Goals for 2012:
・Get to Japan on the scholarship.
・Go out drinking and having fun in Japan.
・Continue on with my Japanese learning.
・Write some songs and join a band.

2011
Spectacularly accomplished all 0 of my goals.

2012
Get Japanese up to advanced.
Get Korean & Vietnamese to at least low intermediate
Get a job
Graduate

vonPeterhof, December 2010 Wrote:At this time last year I didn't even like Japan, let alone consider learning its language. So I guess I made some progress in learning Japanese
As for my resolutions:
1 finish RtK1 (this counts as a 2010 resolution, since I am scheduled to finish it on New Year's Eve)
2 finish Core6k
3 finish RtK3
4 read at least one manga series that does not have furigana everywhere
5 read at least one light novel
6 start a Lang-8 account
7 study for and hopefully take the JLPT N3 (might not work out: they don't do the test in July in St Petersburg, in fact the only Russian city where they do is Vladivostok, which is further from St Petersburg than New York City; while in December I will most likely be on my semester abroad)
8 find a real life conversation partner (I am quite shy, so a shortage of Japanese speakers in my area is not the only problem)

1. Done
2. Epic fail - I only finished Core2k last week.
3. Not done, since I revised that goal. I decided not to rush to finish it, but to add kanji as I encounter them in the wild. Now I have added slightly more than half of the book.
4. About to be done - I will likely finish ヴィンランド･サガ and けいおん! by the end of the year.
5. Not done - 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 proved to be way out of my league for now, and after I gave up reading it I turned all my attention to manga. After reading this post I decided to try again, this time with ゼロの使い魔. Got the book last week, haven't started reading yet.
6. I guess it's done, although I only wrote three entries this year, with the last one posted in July. But there's still time to do some more, if the exams don't kill me.
7. Not done, for all the aforementioned reasons.
8. Done, I guess. I got to know quite a few Japanese people this year, but didn't really get much conversation practice with them, since we mostly talk in English.

I guess I need to set more specific goals this time. Here goes:

1. Finish Core6k
2. Read at least two novels, light or otherwise.
3. Write at least one Lang-8 entry per month.
4. Re-watch all the anime and movies I have already seen subbed or dubbed into English or Russian, this time in the original Japanese.
5. Have at least one conversation in Japanese per week.
6. Read at least three Japanese news articles per week.
7. Take the JLPT N3.

As for non-Japanese goals:
8. Take measures to sustain my level in German and Norwegian, as well as regain my level in Kazakh.
9. Graduate.
10. Finally make up my mind on what I want to do after graduating.

2012 Goals:

1. Get tons of vocab/grammar/sentences.
2. Reach lower intermediate on Japanesepod101.
3. Squat my own body weight (~145lbs, though that will be higher by the time I can do it).
4. Stop being a pussy at bench press.
5. 20 pull ups in a row.
6. Go to Japan for 2-4 weeks.

Tzadeck Wrote:You might wanna up the number of words and kanji you are learning a day. If something like 8,000 vocabulary words is what you need to start being fairly comfortable in Japanese, then if you are only learning two words a day that will take 11 years.

Or 30 years for reasonable fluency. (ﾟДﾟ)

For now I'll just focus on getting into graduate school in Japan, shouldn't be too hard... plus try and find some new games I like to play (Japanese or not) and read the untouched light novels I've accumulated. Maybe improve my writing abillity a bit. Will try and read the math textbook I got the other day this year too and sell the unused ones lying around.

Oh yeah, I passed JLPT 1 (barely) this year.

I have been lurking here for more than a year already but never posted.
So here's my 2012 language goal:

1. Finish RTK 1 in January 2012
2. Use the book Kanji in Context and finish 2 chapters a week
3. Work on my French (listening and speaking)
4. Get a job
5. Go to Japan in summer 2012 (intensive class if still without job )

Goals 2011:

1) Finishing core6k - Done
2) Understanding what they say (JLPT2) - Not yet, and probably never.
3) Reading a book - Soon.
4) Getting in touch with people through Lang8 - And not only that! I even write a lot at some point when I am not busy! I got lots of friends there and with most of them I write via email because it's more comfortable!
5) Having a chat at skype... - I guess I cannot simply get over this mental block; being embarrassed of silence, mistakes and misunderstandings. Or a complete blackout.

Nagareboshi Wrote:My big goals for 2011:

- Finishing RTK 1 in January
- Reviewing the Kanji
- Working through げんき2 and the workbook
- Working through An Integrated approach of Intermediate Japanese and the workbook
- Working through DBJG, DIJG, DAJG
- Preparing for JLPT
- Taking my first JLPT test which i think will be N3

- Going on a trip to Japan for some time as reward for doing all this. Jumping in the cold water, head first. *haha*

My other goals for 2011:

- Starting to read ドラエモン and other Manga
- Reading on the web
- Sentence mining

Reached Goals:
- Finishing RTK 1 in January
- Reviewing the Kanji I was doing this until August but then started with the Basic Kanji Books and stopped with RTK Reviews.
- Working through げんき2 and the workbook
- Reading on the web
- Working on my shadowing technique to improve on my speaking abilities

Other unplanned and unforeseen but reached Goals:
- Finishing Kanji Odyssey 2001
- Reading through
- - みんなの日本語・漢字映画版
- - An Introduction to Japanese Grammar
- - 13 Secrets of Japanese
- - Basic Japanese Sentence Patterns
- - ムーミン谷の水星 (Kometen kommer)
- - Writing my first book Which, I think, I am most proud of all the goals small or big that I reached. It was not exactly the book I was planning to write, but well. My other book is stalling at chapter 1 (still. *sigh*) but I will get it there.

- Working through
- - Prepare for N3 with 日本語総まとめ3級
- - Basic Kanji Books

- Watching
- Anime and Drama series in full without subs or if available with Japanese ones
-- [〇] 双恋
-- [〇] だめっこどうぶつ
-- [〇] ドン キホーテ
-- [〇] アタックNo.1
... to name but two series and drama ...

Goals in progress
- Working through An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese I am at chapter 7 right now and will finish it by the end of next week.
- Read through A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
- Working on my shadowing technique to improve on my speaking abilities

Goals definitely not reached 2011
- Taking N3 I did some 模擬試験 and passed them with high 80s, time taking and so on, and decided to start studying for N2 instead. But I have not started studying yet, my books are still on the way.
- Working with, or at least reading through, A Dictionary of Intermediate and Advanced Japanese Grammar.
- Going to Japan
- Sentence mining I think I have missed that goal, even though I did it with KO.2001 but not with other sources. So, in case of doubt, I count that goal as missed.
- Starting to read ドラエモン and other Manga When I started, I gave up soon after that, too difficult, and too time consuming to look everything up.

Planned but not reached goals listed above
- Work through A Handbook of Japanese Adverbs and Adjectives
- Start with L3 of KO2001 Maybe I start doing it sometime soon.

2012 Resolutions
- Take the JLPT 2級 either in the summer or winter
- Output, Output, Output
- Reading, Watching, Listening to native media even more
- Start and Finish 総まとめ２級 books, どんなとき使う ５００、表現 and other books
- Continue with Kanji in Context at least with the workbooks
- Maybe going for a trip to Japan
- Going back to school to prepare myself for going to Uni [i]Which will take at least 2 years or more, so it will not be reached by the end of 2012. But I still list it here, because the first step is always the hardest. But it's my dream, and I am going to fulfil it.

Looking at all that I have accomplished ... no ... that I have been able to accomplish, thanks to invaluable tips I found on here, the people at CosCom who created such wonderful software as KO.2001, and the constant motivation by seeing how others have reached their goals, I reached and surpassed my own expectations of what I could get done in one year. So part of my success is thanks to you people out there.

my goal for 2012 is to finish RTK (get at least 95% of them to the fourth+ column) and to start something like core2000 or kanji odyssey or whatever you call it (i started RTK in september, and am up to 1200); i had no japanese-learning language goals at the start of 2011 because i wasn't actively studying japanese at that time

I generally try to keep these sorts of things simple, so I don't get too confused. (Because I can get sidetracked pretty easily, I've discovered.)

Goal for 2011: Pass N2: Done.

Then I realized that all that effort in prepping for an exam that only really tests reading, listening, and a very vague application of grammar doesn't really measure anything at all, and it left me with weakened Japanese language skills, and a functionally useless knowledge of grammar. I could spot grammar points on a multiple choice exam, but couldn't put it to actual use if I was facing someone coming at me with a gun, a knife and a dog.

And since I was always prepping for the exam, or reviewing things that were going to be on the exam, I never had any time to do things that were really more important, like learn things in depth.

Goal for 2012: Get better in Japanese overall, and stop worrying about tests. I'm taking the December 2011 N1, but I don't even care if I pass it or not at this point. Right now, it's just something to do on a Sunday afternoon.

My main focus is going to be on improving my business Japanese. I've been taking a class at Yamasa for the last 8 weeks (4 more to go) on business Japanese, on top of the AIJP classes, and it's been a real eye-opener. I've learned a lot, but there's more to learn. (I even learned how to write a resume. Very useful.)

So yeah, the focus for the rest of 2011 and 2012 is for functional Japanese.

Nooooo!...

I didn't bother to write anything in the last year's thread. I would so like to have wanted to see that now.

Anyway I hope that I will write something this time.

i failed my 2011 goals so spectacularly that i'm not even going to think about it.

2012:

*read Mishima's 金閣寺
*give up Japanese
*reread a ton of my favourite english books and some more greats, and think about the language, re-up my english vocab & grammar skills.
*write a book.

Nice topic.

I didn't want to organize a 忘年会 this year because I wasn't really looking forward to looking back.

But 2012 is going to be a good year.
Resolutions
Work harder, study harder,Learn more !
Read some Japanese literature...

I figure its best to keep the resolutions general - that I can keep them ! Haha

2011 Goals:

Vocab acquisition
Finish 6 novels (Will finish 7 by end of year).

2012 Goals:

Vocab acquisition
Finish 15 novels

2011 goals:

- Up vocab with 7000-8000 words. (Vocab deck - 15k) Did pretty well. By the end of December I'll have 14k+ cards in my vocab deck.
- Understand what the heck my Kansai-friends are saying. Done!
- Understand what the local bakerman is saying. Sigh...Well, I understood a lot of it by the end of my stay in Japan, but man... I've never heard so fast kansai-ben in my entire life!
- Read 3-4 books in Japanese. (Currently enjoying ノルウェイの森）Done! I've read around 6-7 books
- Never, EVER ask a random, Japanese girl for the 読み方 and meaning of "膣" on the train again. >_< Done! Lol!
- Never ask my friend's mother for the meaning of 産道 ever again. Oh, awkwardness! >_< Yeah... Didn't do this either

Non-Japanese related:
- Figure out what the heck I'm going to do next year Pretty much. I think I'll study to become a teacher in Norwegian for foreigners.
- Be able to sit 40min + in 正座 FAIL!!!
- Write more songs, practise more Ocarina / Drum-set smile Fail

2012 goals:

- Pass JLPT N1
- Reach 20000+ cards in my vocab deck
- Read 10+ books in Japanese
- Learn basic Mandarin Chinese

Zorlee Wrote:- Never, EVER ask a random, Japanese girl for the 読み方 and meaning of "膣" on the train again. >_< Done! Lol!
- Never ask my friend's mother for the meaning of 産道 ever again. Oh, awkwardness! >_< Yeah... Didn't do this either

Haha, can you elaborate a bit on those?

Rayath Wrote:

Zorlee Wrote:- Never, EVER ask a random, Japanese girl for the 読み方 and meaning of "膣" on the train again. >_< Done! Lol!
- Never ask my friend's mother for the meaning of 産道 ever again. Oh, awkwardness! >_< Yeah... Didn't do this either

Haha, can you elaborate a bit on those?

LOL you actually asked that?

ta12121 Wrote:LOL you actually asked that?

Oh yes...