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Achieving Your Japanese Goals – February 2017 — 41 Comments

  1. Doing better after being hit by a car end of December but will be off work all February recovering so will try some ambitious goals with my free time
    1. 300 new J-J cards (would finish expert stage 2 and start stage 3)
    2. Watch 30 drama episodes
    3. Anki to 0 daily
    4. Read 3 mangas

    Will see if I can do them.

      • Ended up focusing more on new cards this month.
        1. Blew this away. Added a total of 580 new cards during the month. It did mean that I didn’t reach the other goals but happy to have added this many new cards.
        2. No, watched about 12.
        3. Yes
        4. Not, only nearly 2.

  2. 1. Anki reviews to 0 daily
    2. Read Graded Readers Level 3 book 1 and 2 (of volume 1).
    3. Continue progressing with Kanji Kingdom on NEXT, get to 350 added cards
    4. Continue playing Pokemon X, get that gym badge I missed in January

  3. 1. Finish 7 more lessons in my Korean grammar book written in Japanese.
    2. Make 100 J-J cards.
    3. Read volumes 2-5 of ダイヤのA Act II.
    4. Continue Korean listening immersion and add more Japanese listening immersion.

    • 1. I did not. I like the pace at which I am currently learning Korean, however, and so this is fine.
      2. I did not.
      3. I read volume 2 and am a little bit through volume 3, but I am getting a bit bored. I will read them eventually, though.
      4. I have been continuing Korean immersion but did not add any new Japanese immersion besides watching videos in Korean with Japanese subtitles instead of English ones.

  4. 1. Finish off Expert Stages 4 and 5. I estimate that I can add 20 cards a day on average so that should be doable.

    2. Minimum one hour active listening immersion per day. I’ll primarily use the ひいきぴい podcast – which is about films – and any other podcasts I find.

    3. Dial in some more grammar points, using various text books and Imabi.

    4. Supplementary reading practise, using some manga and comico.

    • 1. Looks like I’m about 40-50 cards shy of this goal, but near enough is good enough in this case.

      2. Success. Bam!

      3 + 4. Wow – I completely forgot that I officially wrote these down. I think I did a bit of both, but probably not as much as I had intended. Oooops.

  5. I want to get my reviews down to zero everyday
    I want to add 20 cards everyday (10 Anki Intermediate, 10 JalupNEXT Beginner)
    Read Some Japanese every morning
    Watch some Jdramas or Anime every night (without subtitles, my new norm)

    I will use Anki, Jalup Next, my Genki Textbook and Yotsubato as well as Crunchy Roll and Netflix. I will watch GTO, Naruto, DBZSuper, Ajin, and whatever else I happen to fancy in February.

    I will either read before even getting out of bed or on the bus on the way to school. I will watch anime as I lay in bed before I fall asleep/while doing dishes. I will do my anki reviews at lunch and add if I have time. I will finish up adding my cards in the evening when I get home and do my JalupNext reviews/adding.

    • Some nights I only watched part of an anime, but most nights I managed to watch a whole episode. There was one night when I was sick that I didn’t get my reviews down to zero or add any cards, or do Jalup NEXT. I managed to read some Japanese every morning except one day. That darn sick day again.

      I ended up shifting my Japanese studies to the evening when school work started to become more demanding and I needed to make sure I got it done so I did it during the day. So 1 day out of the entirety of the challenge isn’t so bad, so I would consider this challenge a successful one.

  6. 1. Go through at least half of “Japanese The Manga Way”
    2. Listen to Pimsleur Japanese Level II
    3. Read 2 volumes of Japanese Graded Readers Level 1
    4. Read 4 manga volumes

    • I changed my goals a little halfway through the month and decided to focus on finishing “Japanese The Manga Way” instead of reading more manga. I think it was more productive that way.

      1. Finished the whole book.
      2. Done
      3. Done
      4. Read 2,5 volumes, as I decided to focus on JTMW.

  7. Not be disappointed if/when my current streak of easyness ends. Right now it feels like I’ve leveled up but haven’t traveled to the next world yet.

  8. Goal
    * 50 questions and answers translated from ‘Kimono Culture Exam’
    * read the corresponding page in the textbook
    * Start building anki deck for review regime new kanji and words

    Resources
    * Apps: Anki, Yomiwa & Jsho
    * Book: Kimono culture collected exam questions level 5-4
    * Book: Kimono culture examination official textbook 1

    Game plan
    * Translate 2 questions a day
    * read corresponding textbook page
    * put them in Anki
    * Review Anki

  9. First time committing to a goal so hoping this works.

    Goal:
    Finish Jalup Beginner deck

    Resources:
    JalupNEXT
    (for those not using it, please consider it, so much better than Anki)

    Game Plan:
    Need to add an average of 11 cards a day – this is the tough part, some days I’m really good, other days depending on how busy work is, and family events, I don’t add any cards at all. Hoping all the reviews don’t bog me down – not necessarily looking to get reviews all the way to 0 everyday, but it’ll help.

    • FAIL – Did very well the first half of the month or so. Work starting to get really busy and reviews started to pile up where I sometimes had up to 150 or 200 a day. I’m only 100 cards a way from finishing so I will definitely finish this month.

  10. I failed most of last month’s goals because I didn’t schedule enough time to finish them, so this month is focused on getting the hours in.

    ① Every day, wake up an hour earlier and spend that time clearing reviews.
    ② My phone is only to be used for studying and work. No web surfing while out and about, that’s a prime opportunity to study.
    ③ Finish Jalup Beginner. For real this time!
    ④ Let’s go for Level 19 (from Level 15).

    • I’m also trying to use my phone more productively. Been working so far as I’ve been doing a lot less Tetris and lot more news article reading in Jpn.

    • I decided I wasn’t going to return to Jalup in defeat a second time. It took longer than a month, but ultimately, I have succeeded. Time to set some new goals.

  11. 1. Restarted JALUP Intermediate and I would like to completely finish it ~35 cards a day.

    2. Getting Anki reviews down to 0 every day.

    3. 1 manga chapter a day.

    4. Every time I encounter a Kanji that I can’t recall the keyword for (either in JALUP Intermediate or in the wild), I’m going to reset the corresponding card in my Anki deck and relearn it from scratch.

    5. A lot more listening (specifically to non-music audio such as anime audio rips and podcasts and youtube videos)

  12. 1. 5 new J-J sentences per day.
    2. 5 new Jalup Immersion cards per day.
    3. Continue with 2 kanji per day. I should be able finish grade 5 and start up grade 6.
    4. Daily immersion. Passive listening and read manga every night.

    I am going skiing for a week in the middle of the month, so I plan to park all goals apart from number 2 during that time. I will however continue to complete all reviews every day. This should work out OK and allow my reviews to settle down a bit.

  13. 1. 200 new E-J vocabulary and phrases in Anki this month.
    2. Finish Ch. 3 in Genki 1.
    3. Anki to 0 everyday.

    My key points to be focused on are:
    1. getting to bed ontime since my studying time is primarily early morning.
    2. Studying even if I’m running late. (A little studying is better than none at all. I have to keep telling myself this.)
    3. Checking in daily with my language partners gives me a constant reminder of my goals and where I am at.

    Let the studying begin!

    • 1. Input something like 100 E-J vocabulary and phrases into Anki this month. Also learned 200 kanji and all of Katakana.
      2. Only made it through Ch. 1 of Genki. I switched to finishing studying Kanji halfway through the month.
      3. I did Anki to 0 everyday except for 1.

      I’m glad I made this committment here.

  14. 1. At least 5 Intermediate cards per day using NEXT.

    2. At least 5 Kanji cards per day using NEXT.

    The rate is a little slow but it’s what I can manage at this point in time.

    • 1. Mostly accomplished. I started out at 5 a day, went up to 10, only occasionally dropping to 5 but I missed a day here or there.

      2. Partially accomplished. Started out at 5, went up to 10, went back down to 5, skipped a couple of days. I’m probably gonna skip a couple more days just because I’ve ran into a couple of kanji that are so similar it’s maddening. I want to give them time to properly sink it.

      JJ is feeling more and more natural for me. The biggest reason I think is because of NEXT. I don’t have to use the anki browse/search feature anymore, which was something that always sapped my energy. It’s so much more convenient to just click on the piece of sentence/definition I don’t understand.

      There is still some memorizing involved, like readings, but I find that just by concentrating on trying to understand the definition, I end up memorizing the meaning of the new word (after a couple viewings) without even really trying to brute force memorize it (readings of kanji still require me to brute force it).

      There’s such a huge difference between translating in my head, and understanding. I’m not there 100% but I’m starting to understand the power of JJ (instead of just reading what others have to say about it).

      This is my 3rd attempt to finish 1000 sentences of JJ, and this attempt just feels very natural.

  15. I basically took a month off learning Japanese. Got addicted to reading… but in English :( and work is nuts right now!

    I just want to take it slow, but I did book a trip to Japan in May so I’ve got to get going!

    1) Catch up on Anki reviews
    2) Read at least 8 volumes of manga (2/week)
    3) Do at least 15 minutes of anything Japanese daily

    Need to go slow as I’m transferring jobs this month and I’m kind of going insane getting ready for that.

  16. As I have tons of stuff to do for my wedding this month, including a mandatory 3-day weekend talking with strangers about the concept of ”marriage”, and there’s also my Bday (a big one) I don’t have much hope to do better this month than in December.

    So:
    1) Reviews to zero every day
    2) Read 2 volumes of manga
    3) Finish Expert 4

    Happy “Chandeleur” by the way, in my country we eat crêpes today(Feb 2nd), I don’t know if it’s the same where you are.

    • So this month was kind of a disaster.
      1) FAIL: I’ve never had so many days with many reviews left at the end of the day
      2)FAIL: Still didn’t find the courage to read
      3)WIN : Finished Expert 4 (Finally a win)

      My biggest challenges were lack of motivation, a big schedule and I’m still scared of the “whole kanji page”. Every time I see a big block of Japanese, I still run away. I know I have to familiarize myself with it, but I have trouble doing that. I think it stems from a lack of confidence. I just have to dive in…at some point. Maybe tomorrow? ;-)

      I’m also kind of tired of Anki everyday. I wish there was a “day off” scheduled from time fo time, so you can take just one day off Anki without having a mountain of reviews to come back to !
      I probably need to have more fun in Japanese to reward myself for all the effort spent on anki, grammar…

      On a brighter note, I discovered 5時から9時まで(5-ji Kara 9-ji Made) and 花より男子(Hana Yori Dango) that I really liked.
      I’m currently looking for my next jdrama. Any recommandation?

      • I know it’s going to be far above your level, but I highly recommend Yotsubato! If you haven’t already read it. There aren’t that many kanji and the stories are funny and sweet and easy to get sucked into (in fact they rely a lot on visual humour so the reading is minimal). I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I am.

        It’s been an easy way in for me to start reading manga and maybe it will help you too. Begone intimidating pages of kanji! I still look at novels and quake but I can tackle Yotsubato!

        • I am almost done with Jalup Intermediate. I have been reading Yotsubato all throughout studying Jalup Intermediate, and there is definitely a lot that I don’t understand, but you might be surprised at just how much you can understand of Yotsubato with just the Jalup Beginner under your belt. I also highly recommend Yotsubato for getting starting with reading. It is enjoyable despite not being able to understand everything and there will be moments when you understand everything someone is saying in it which feels really good.

  17. This month I have plans to visit Japan between the 13th and the 21st. So my goals are split into PreJapan and AfterJapan:

    PreJapan:
    1. Maintain all Anki reviews each day (Core10K, Kanji Kingdom, JALUP Beginner and Intermediate)
    2. Unsuspend all Genki II vocabulary from Core10K
    3. Add 3-5 new cards from JALUP Intermediate per day
    4. Continue listening practice 1hr per day

    AfterJapan:
    1. Maintain all reviews
    2. Add 3-5 new cards from JALUP Intermediate per day
    3. Begin unsuspending and relearning Tobira vocabulary in Core10K
    4. Continue listening practice 1hr per day

    • Let’s see how I did this month….

      PreJapan:
      1. Maintain all Anki reviews each day (Core10K, Kanji Kingdom, JALUP Beginner and Intermediate) – MAINTAINED
      2. Unsuspend all Genki II vocabulary from Core10K – Only got to lesson 18
      3. Add 3-5 new cards from JALUP Intermediate per day – Added 2 per day.
      4. Continue listening practice 1hr per day- 80% followed this

      AfterJapan:
      1. Maintain all reviews – MAINTAINED
      2. Add 3-5 new cards from JALUP Intermediate per day – Still no progress. Somehow the deck got messed up and I had to reset, but now they are out of order. Need to get this fixed for March.
      3. Begin unsuspending and relearning Tobira vocabulary in Core10K – Did not reach due to still adding Genki II vocab.
      4. Continue listening practice 1hr per day – 90% followed this

      • I have experienced weird things with Anki before. My cards often got out of order too. It turns out that under Options, if you are not using Default in your Options Group: and instead using some custom one, then it is possible that the custom one is corrupt somehow. The only solution I have found is to delete the corrupted option group and create a new one. After doing this, if you reset the order of your deck in the Browser, it will stay reset. But if you keep the same Option Group, even after reseting the order of your deck, it will re-scramble at some later point.

  18. I’m a little late for this, but I want to get back into things this month. Who’d have thought moving to another country would be so disruptive…
    1. Clear out the the pile of old reviews.
    2. Finish Expert 1. I know about half of the words already in the Jalup decks so this should come out at about 20 a day.
    3. Read a book. Not sure which book, but I have a habit of reading 30-50 pages of something and then never looking at it again. I think it’s a mental block as much as anything.
    4. Listening immersion each day.

    • As for number 3 I definitely understand that feeling. I keep getting halfway through a book and even if I’m really enjoy it I end up putting it down. I don’t quite understand why I keep doing that.

  19. Well, I’ve had these goals for a while, so I figure posting them might help even though I’m late to the party.

    – complete JALUP beginner stage 2 and work on stage 3; I’m blasting through 20 cards a day right now so if I maintain my pace I should be able to finish 2 and 3, but I have a suspicion I’ll have to slow down around the end of 2, which is completely fine.

    – Do SOME kanji kingdom every day! I keep taking days off – I think my goals are too high – and setting myself back. I was trying to keep pace with JALUP beginner as recommended but I honestly am probably just trying too hard, and as long as I keep making progress the results will even out as I expect to slow down a lot when I transition onto JALUP intermediate.

    – Watch the rest of Legal High (jdrama). I’m really enjoying it!

    – Find something I can be bothered reading. I don’t really like comics or manga in english but japanese novels are too advanced for me so at the moment mostly I’m reading tweets in japanese. I need some more reading material that I’m going to enjoy.

    • I did so well with this! Especially since I was sick this entire month ???

      -I continued blasting through 20 cards a day on JALUP beginner, but I’d miscalculated and February is a short month so I still have 120 cards to go on stage 3. It did get harder but I didn’t need to slow my pace of new cards, I just have to mark stuff hard when it comes up for review more. But I’m so excited to be learning sentence constructions I’ve seen before but never been able to read!!!!

      -I dropped to doing 10 cards a day of Kanji Kingdom which helped. I’ve also noticed that learning kanji often involves learning and forgetting them a few times before I stick so knowing that and just persisting with it when I forget ones I learned yesterday has helped lots. I eventually managed to push it up to 11, 12 and then 13 a day.

      -I didn’t watch much more of Legal High;there were a few kinda complex episodes that I found hard to follow. I switched to 夏目友人帳 (Natsume’s book of friends) which is easier to understand and Mysterious Kiss: Love in Tokyo which is so silly !!! And I love it!! Everyone please watch this it’s on Crunchyroll and you can turn the subs off if you watch on desktop.

      I still didn’t watch as much as I wanted to because I was so sick. I DID also find on YouTube the LJL Spring Split which, if you’re a league of legends fan, please watch because of course even if you don’t understand the commentary there’s a lot of words borrowed from English and I was really surprised by how high the quality of play is!

      -I started reading Yotsubato! And I really like it. I tried to read it before and got discouraged by not being able to read it but now I can. I still find it more enjoyable if I look up the odd word to make sure I’m following what’s going on than if I don’t look up anything at all, but I don’t look up everything. My reading pace is improving too.

      Again because I was sick I didn’t read as much as I wanted to But there’s plenty more Yotsubato to keep going with next month!

      Overall I’m really pleased with how this month went!!! It’s so exciting to see my japanese level improving so rapidly and be able to understand more and more of the media I’m consuming. I’m even excited to start J-J :)

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