Achieving Your Japanese Goals – January 2020
We all have goals, big and small. Things get in the way, preventing you from achieving them. Not any more. This time you are going to win.
Task
Write down specific goals you want to achieve for the month of January
Initial Instructions
Leave a comment by January 1st and include:
1. Your specific goal(s)
2. Resources you will use
3. Game plan/strategy
Completion Instructions
Reply to your comment by January 31st and include:
1. Which goals were you able to accomplish
2. Which goals did you fail (how far did you get)?
3. Your experience (issues, struggles, discoveries)
If you don’t come back and leave a reply, it will be assumed you didn’t meet your goals for the month. Pressure. But sometimes a little positive pressure can be a good thing.
Complete your goals, finally.
Make sure to update your December goals!
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
Okay excited to hit the new year with some adjusted tactics. In order of priority:
1) Start jalup champion, pace 12 cards/day. This should have me finish all of Jalup in March.
2) Start Shadowing as a real solid monthly goal. I’ve tried it before as tests but never have done it repeatedly. I am going to use this new series Shadowing! to help me focus and make it more concrete. I really don’t know what pace to expect as it’s my first time. But I would love to finish the entire two text books by end of October. I’ll start slow to see what is required. Complete at least 1 unit this month. Ideally at least 10 minutes a day but really would love 30+ minutes a day ideally.
3) Read accompanying manga to jalup champion as I finish the cards.
4) I’m going to kick the anime for now and focus tv time on the original terrace houses with no subs at all. I would hope to watch at least 8 but of all the goals this is the least important. I would much rather focus on shadowing between the two.
Great month! I feel like I am actually making serious progress again after a 3-6 month plateau where I was doing the work but mostly felt like I was spinning my wheels. The biggest secret was adding in a serious amount of Shadowing. Just like practicing SRS gets you seriously better at reading my listening/audio processing/speaking was seriously lagging. Shadowing practices all three, especially the first two and I am noticing a difference in just one month. I am excited to continue it for a long time.
In detail here is how the month went:
1) Start jalup champion, pace 12 cards/day. This should have me finish all of Jalup in March.
DONE – stuck with 12 new cards a day, review counts around ~120 a day. This would use to have been very scary but I am so much faster at reading now it is more equivalent to maybe 90 a day review counts in the time it takes.
2) Start Shadowing as a real solid monthly goal. I’ve tried it before as tests but never have done it repeatedly. I am going to use this new series Shadowing! to help me focus and make it more concrete. I really don’t know what pace to expect as it’s my first time. But I would love to finish the entire two text books by end of October. I’ll start slow to see what is required. Complete at least 1 unit this month. Ideally at least 10 minutes a day but really would love 30+ minutes a day ideally.
DONE – I settled into a pace with this. I usually was much closer to 30 minutes a day average. Some days maybe 15 minutes but just as many I did an hour or even more. I completed two units without rushing which felt comfortable. Now at the end of the month trying some of the early sentences that used to give me trouble they have become super easy. My processing is much faster. I find myself mentally practicing on accident. It feels great.
3) Read accompanying manga to jalup champion as I finish the cards.
DONE
4) I’m going to kick the anime for now and focus tv time on the original terrace houses with no subs at all. I would hope to watch at least 8 but of all the goals this is the least important. I would much rather focus on shadowing between the two.
DONE – I hit 11 episodes. Really like the original and how it complements my shadowing practice. I am getting more and more confidence in listening. Excited to see where I am at in 6 months.
I’m back in the game after being sidetracked for a couple of years. I’m starting over from scratch.
1) A) Keep reviewing past Jalup decks (I’m over halfway through an old Anki Beginner deck) and get at least halfway through Jalup Intermediate. B) I’m also shooting for relearning at least the first third of the Jalup Kanji deck (have 100 completed)–this is also reviewing something I used to have a pretty good handle on. C) Do at least 15 minutes (total) of shadowing a day. D) Watch at least one episode of a Japanese TV drama per night. E) Complete all reviews daily. F) Passive and active listening to podcasts and ripped J dramas.
2) Purchase Jalup Maximum by 12/31 to relearn and review cards. I’ll also use this resource to practice shadowing. Watch stuff from my extensive Japanese DVD collection.
3) Relearn and add at least 25 Kanji cards and 25 Sentence cards per day. Chip away at reviews throughout the day a few minutes at a time. Listen to podcasts while getting ready for work in the morning, when I come home, and spare moments between. Watch J dramas right before bed. If I slip on card adds and reviews, I will make sure I catch up on weekends.
しまった。仕事が忙しいになった、そしてPythonの勉強しようと思っています。かなり遅くしなければなりませんでした。来月に頑張るよ。:)
Two really inspiring posts to start off the New Year guys :)
I’m really torn on what to do….
My original plan was to concentrate on RTK (currently at 700), as previous years I start with concentrated RTK study…. but….
In Marcb I am going to Japan (for the first time!!) and I want to be able to engage in conversation, so I think I’m going to deprioritise RTK til after I get back,
I am pushing up to 900 in Intermediate (and I am still struggling with quite a few definitions), but I would like to have it complete by end of Jan.
I’m happy with my reading level considering I’m near the end of intermediate, I would like to up my listening comprehension, any advice from those who have pushed past this point, as to what might help me to engage in conversation when I travel to Japan?
My thoughts are:
1) Speak out loud more (I do speak out loud (or at very least in my head) when doing reviews whenever possible)
2) “Create” more with the language (I have not done a lot of writing (digital or physical)
3) Write “scripts” then act them out (yes really :)
Thanks all!
These are the right things to do to help for your trip. To be honest this is an area I still struggle with. These things should help but temper your expectations.
You could also try shadowing. Also jpod101 has some great stuff specifically to prepare for a trip there that I find very helpful. You could just do it for a month and get through that stuff specifically.
Hi laddr,
Thanks for the encouragement and advice to “temper my expectations” :)
Shortly after I wrote this post, I found hellotalk, and I think I have found a really good resource for pre-trip study.
1. Meeting actual Japanese people (maybe even meet some IRL when I go!)
2. Corrections to my posts within minutes (it encourages me to write more)
3. Correcting English of Japanese speakers
-a the fuzzy feeling of helping others
-b I feel I’m learning how a JP speaker “sees” English, which in turn helps my understanding of JP
4. Using “speech to text” to write my posts, which is:
-a. quicker than typing
-b: means I am talking
Only caveat is, it can easily eat into time, so I need to ration the time on it :-D
After going through a big burnout stage last month I feel the need to alter what goals I focus on. I will focus more on JALUP cards than on kanji from now one. I should be able to prevent burnout by going more slowly on kanji I think.
Goals
1. From now on I think I may make a goal of doing only 30 kanji each weekend. Considering that I am nearing the end of RTK lite, I already know almost all of the most common kanji anyway and cam go even more slowly with learning the remaining kanji once I finish RTK Lite. 30 kanji a weekend means 120 kanji by the end of this month.
2. At least 200 new JALUP Expert cards.
3. Catch up on the Promised Neverland manga.
Oh one more goal.
4. Finally cut out all english subtitles on anime. I have started watching several shows without subs and some with Japanese subs, but havent totally cut out english subs yet. That changes this month as this past anime season comes to an end.
Having considered my goals, with an upcoming trip to Japan as well as already wanting to create/use the language more my goals are:
1) Finish JALUP Intermediate (115 cards to go)
2) Write a short daily journal in Japanese (I’ve wanted to journal for a while now and I think that forcing myself to then translate it into Japanese will keep me journalling). For sanitys sake my goal will be 4 journals a week, committing to every day is probably more pressure than I need ;)
3) Continue actively listening to a 25 minute episode three times a week minimum.
4) Spend a minimum of 30 minutes three times a week in hello talk, Helping others and talking with native Japanese speakers
I think that will do for January! I’ll be doing other Japanese things as well I am sure!
All the best for the coming year guys!
Since we are coming up to the end of month and Adam has put up the Feb goals post, thought I’d update on mine!
So I chopped and changed through the month, in particular due to Adam’s post about pre-Japan-trip learning. In the end I decided to go with option 3 for the most part…. keep on the same path as if I wasn’t going.
In accordance with that (and following the rule that there is no bad outcome to learning more Kanji!) I did my original goal of another 100 RTK cards.
My HelloTalk commitment completely fell by the way side, mainly as I now back in work, and my normal life routine! (Note to self, don’t make commitments based on holiday behaviour!!)
Journaling likewise fell by the wayside, so lessons learned (hopefully!)
I’m not unhappy with my progress through January, but the result was very different to what I planned! So technically a fail, but not really… right :D :D :D
As of today I’m at:
RTK – 795
Jalup Intermediate – 970 (So close….)
Also technically a day late, but here are my goals for this month:
1) Finish Jalup Advanced. This won’t work at a pace of 10 cards per day but lately I could sustain a higher pace quite well so this should work out.
2) Check out the Japanese bookstore in my city. Try to find some interesting books and maybe buy them. This goal will be the hardest for me. I dislike unfamiliar situations (especially first time somethings) and I especially feel anxious about being seen checking out Japanese books without “speaking” Japanese. Because I know I will stop feeling this way as soon as I have been there once this is a specific goal.
3) On average create 1 “selfmade” sentence card, including branches per week. When I started reading I first experienced the bonus memory effect of figuring out a sentence by myself. So I want to start my own sentence deck a bit early (compared to the recommendations on this site). I actually have a two of those already made, but I want to start creating this habit. Goal will be fulfilled if I successfully added 4 cards including their branches to my own sentence deck.
Good luck everybody!
Ok, end of month time.
1) Did it about a week ago. I realize that means I kinda rushed this deck (with most of the time 20 new cards per day) but the pace felt ok. In the end, the estimated review numbers tended to reach my upper end of the comfort zone, so I will probably tweak this number again.
2) Did that, was there, bought a random book. It was a bit awkward (mainly because I was not confident enough to try it in Japanese) telling the shopkeeper what I wanted but it worked out in the end. This might be a good source for physical books, even though it is not large and the most is translated books or manga.
3) Done that. Still loving the possibility but I had to kill quite a few cards because the branching got too much.
All in all a rough month with a very good ending. Plateauing for most of it, but I broke through it more or less at the same time as I finished advanced. Coincidentally the same day I discovered that Netflix added Japanese dubs to the shows which have them, which made me binge a bit on 新スタートレック so lots of immersion done. This is also huge because this show was one of the main ones I achieved English fluency with :-)
1. 100 new cards (95 to finish expert level 5 + 5 from level 6)
2. Read 2 manga (currently on book 7 グッドモーニングコール）
3. Watch 10 dramas (current on terrace house episode 16)
My goals for January are:
* Level 11 on WaniKani (385 kanji, 1163 vocab)
* Complete the “Read/understand 5 short stories and listen to/comprehend 21 life situations” task on World 2 of the Walkthrough.
* Get about 3-4 hours of passive/active immersion through audio-visual media daily
* MAYBE make it through volume 1 of Yotsuba. It looks hilarious.
* Do all Anki reviews
* Lots of listening immersion