I’ve been voluntold to make this thread for 2025, i.e. copy and paste the 2024 thread, so here it is:
Let’s set some goals
Here we can share and keep track of our goals. If you’ve already mentioned them in your study log, you can link that too!
If you don’t have any goals yet, here are some questions to think about:
Did you take the JLPT this month? If you feel like you got a bad score, what do you need to do to improve?
Between the four language skills, which one is your weakest?
What is your long term goal for learning Japanese? Yes I know we all want to become fluent, but why do you want to be fluent? Do you want to talk with your great grandma in her mother tongue? Do you want to live in Japan someday? Do you want to watch anime without subtitles? Keep this final goal in mind when your setting your smaller goals.
When setting goals, it’s recommended to make them SMART:
Specific: pass N3 mock exam listening section
Measurable: finish 10 manga volumes
Achievable: finish Tobira
Relevant: “I’m traveling to Japan this year, so I’m going to work on pronunciation”
Time bound: obviously the deadline is sometime in 2025, but you may want to set smaller deadlines throughout the year
SMART goals help in several ways, including: giving you a roadmap, making sure you feel a sense of accomplishment, and making sure that you’re organized and using your time efficiently.
It’s also okay if your goals aren’t refined yet, you can always fine-tune them at any time throughout 2025.
Do you think you’ll be able to achieve your 2025 goals:
Copying from the Natively goals thread and subtracting the goals outside of Japanese:
Read 5k pages of novels/nonfiction/short stories
I have this goal every year. It’s just my yearly minimum. I’m almost gonna hit 10k this year, so close yet so far
125 hours of audiobooks, don’t bother to track the rest of my listening
I noticed that I don’t want to watch tv shows/movies/youtube because ‘ugh I have to track it’. It’s worth noting that I often skip scenes, watch half an episode, 2/3 of video, etc. So tracking listening has always been less smooth than tracking pages. I feel like I naturally want to watch Japanese content, so tracking matters less for getting those hours in
20 hours of shadowing in Japanese
This seems tiny but I think I did zero this year soooo
Relearn how to handwrite 100 kanji
Learn an additional 728 (2/day) names from the Japanese name Anki deck
I majorly chilled on my goals because I’m OK-ish with my Japanese level (I can read most books I want to and ditto for TV shows) and honestly most of my practice now is just so purely routine that tracking feels like a hassle that isn’t gaining me anything.
This year I’m gonna be superambitious, I am hoping on having larger liesure time after april. Finish N2 and N1 grammer: To prepare for Jlpt N1 Be able to write an essay in japanese (no assist): I always wanted to write without worries. Pass JLPT N1 or the mock exam version: Get a score of 250+ in EJU Japanese: Hopefully perform good enough at writing and listening section. 110 books: This was also the same as this year’s which i failed appropriately but what’s the harm in aiming for the star’s. 300 hours of passive and active immersion: I am definitely gonna forget to track Good Luck future me and everybody and also be safe.
I don’t directly track most data outside the day I’m doing it to know how long a session was and etc, so my goals are a little more vague but here are some things I’d like to manage in the near-ish future:
Any level of comfort speaking. I’m getting solid-ish on comprehension but my output is abysmal. With time I can make my text good enough; it’s probably full of unnatural points but totally understandable and I have more important tasks than to iron out those kinks, that’ll get better with continued input anyway. But I’m barely capable of talking. Gonna keep up the input as well as I can and try to commit to proper shadowing regularly, at least a little. Then I can spend more time talking to a few Japanese Splatoon friends I have, whenever I feel up to it again.
Start reading Muramasa - this VN has a reputation for being one of the hardest but I got it in my mind I want to give it a shot, and it’s texthookable, so hey why not. I bought a copy and it’s ready to go on my computer. Might sample it soon. Just unsure if I’m gonna slowly crawl through it in the very near future, or decide it’s a pain and give it some months. But by the end of the year hopefully I’ll feel up to it if I don’t sooner.
N1 practice test? I want to think I’d be able to pass this already, but doing it properly is an annoying big time sink so I haven’t bothered. Would just be a neat little milestone to say I did it, but it’s a low priority goal cause ultimately it doesn’t mean anything compared to doing more real Japanese and working on proper skills. I don’t need it.
My nebulous goals are just to get faster and obv more comfortable reading. If the material isn’t too tough I can push a little over 10k characters per hour when focused, and Japanese fatigue for reading and listening are largely gone if I’m not straining myself on hard stuff. Just want to see it get easier.
That’s probably good for now. It’s nice that loads of stuff that may have been goals in the last few years, reading various things and playing X videogames and whatnot don’t feel like big goals anymore cause yeah, I’m just gonna do them. For average stuff I’m fairly confident I can manage and it’s just what I do.
Listening could use more work, though I’m seeing it get much more comfortable recently. That’s probably number 5, but it’s the same sort of nebulous zone. Probably work more on audiobooks to train my ear a little better, that sorta thing. Would be great to break into movies being easier to get closer to full comprehension on this year.
I Just started learning Japanese a few month ago. My Long Term priorities are Reading and Listening. Speaking and writing Not so much.
In the Last five month
I learned Hiragana (I can comfortably read and write it)
I recognized that my brain is slowly getting used to the Japanese sentence order
I struggle with Katakana
I am currently at Level 4 of Wanikani
JapanesePod101 Level 1.1 & 1 (Just listening)
~ 300-400 words
So my Goals for 2025 are:
Finishing WaniKani Level 16 (til End of June). I think this Goal will be difficult to reach.
Reading my first book (intensive Reading). Starting, not completing.
Listening to lvl 2 - 5 of JapanesePod101 (+ shadowing and Worksheets)
Knowing 1000 - 2000 words through working with textbooks and flash cards (I started trying out Kitsun and jpdb). I Hope my struggle with flash cards will be less, when I know more Kanji.
Japanese from Zero books 2 - 5
Katakana
Watching all Videos on YouTube of Japanese from Zero (Books 2 - 5)
Genki 1&2 together with the Videos by Tokini Andy
I think I should readjust my Goals for 2025:
Finishing WaniKani Level 16 until the end of the year. I think it might be counterproductive to learn them too fast, because I can’t read yet, because of my low vocabulary. And the Reviews are getting to be too many in the morning.
Japanese from Zero 3-5 (I already finished vol. 2) + YouTube Videos
I am planning to get passed WaniKani Level 30 by the end of 2025! I am also hoping to finish both Genki volumes and start reading some books (maybe 2-4 by the end of the year).
I feel like 2024 has been a good year overall for my Japanese, and I’ve really started to build some good momentum these past couple of months. Going to take that forward into the new year!
2025 Goals
Pass JLPT N3 (I don’t need this, but I like to have an external indication of my progress)
Hit Level 40 on Wanikani
Double my reading (Natively has tracked just over 4k pages this year, I’d like to get closer to 10k in 2025)
Read my first LN (I keep starting and then dropping)
I don’t really track data all that much, so I can’t put anything too concretely and I haven’t really felt locked out of anything in terms of language in a while.
So simply put, my goals are:
Pass N1
Read more Light Novels
Reading other people’s lists makes me feel like I’m slacking, but if I’d taken last year’s JLPT in Summer, it wouldn’t been N3. I don’t have major goals to improve towards that much anymore outside of just doing it out of habit and enjoyment at this point. I could probably coast, but I don’t want to just coast.
Let’s see. I’ve made good progress on reading ability in 2024 and need to keep going.
The only SRS I’m still adding new stuff in anki, when mining stuff (about 1 word per day on average), and wanikani (about 4 items per day).
I need to keep working on reading and listening.
Pass level 50 on WK. I don’t feel kanji knowledge is my main issue now, so I won’t spend more time on time.
Go back to italki lessons. Instead of several small 30 minutes lessons during lunch break, do a single 45m-1h sessions on evenings / weekends for which I come more prepared. Reach about 100 lessons.
Keep participating in the Sakura Offshot bookclub and other book clubs when possible, and possibly read other books. Let’s say I need to reach about 10 books (manga volumes or short stories).
Listen to one quick podcast a day, either Teppei or half a “japanese bite size”.
Watch mangas with dual subtitles. Let’s target… 100 episodes.
My biggest goal is play the 逆転裁判 (Ace Attorney) games in Japanese. At this point, I think it would be way too frustrating, but I’d like to try sometime in 2025 (when my kanji and grammar knowledge are better, and when I consume more, easier native material in general).
I’d also like to finish Quartet I and Quartet II (currently halfway through Quartet I) in 2025.
And of course stay consistent with doing my Anki and WaniKani reviews
I still need to do my 2024 goal review and given that I haven’t managed to reach the majority of them and that 2025 will likely be a busy year for me, I intend to keep my goals for 2025 short:
Finish Quartet I and Quartet II
Finish the N4, Quartet I and Quartet II Bunpro decks
Play one video game in Japanese
Read one physical book, a light novel or novel, in Japanese
I might be too new to language learning to know what is attainable within a year of work, but I’ll give this a shot.
Complete the Japanese Duolingo course.
Complete Genki 1 and 2 along with Tokini Andy’s series.
Reach level 30 of WaniKani.
Start reading N3 level manga by the end of the year. I read that Genki 1 and 2 cover N5 and N4 material, so if I keep reading above my comfort level then I expect to pick up N3 level books after finishing the Genki series.
Start learning to write hiragana on paper by June, move on to learning to write katakana by the end of the year.
Edit: going to be a bit more specific with the timeframe of my Genki goal after looking through this chart Wkstats, I want to finish Genki 1 by the time I reach level 16 in WK, and Genki 2 by level 27, this way my grammar level catches up with my kanji/vocab.
So if I’m aiming for level 30 by the end of 2025 I’m going to say finish Genki 1 and L16 by June, Genki 2 and L27 by December.
This is a tricky question, because I’ve made a lot of progress this past year and I’ve no clue how much progress I’ll make next year. So, at the risk of these goals being very inaccurate, here goes nothing:
Finish 空の軌跡
Pass N4
Read more than 10k pages
Something something listening
I think counting pages rather than books finished makes more sense for me, personally. Natively says I’ve read 5047 so far this year. I reckon I could probably double it.
I mostly just want to keep doing what I’m already doing and get better at it, but I guess I may as well set some more concrete goals in that vein in that case.
Read 30 books - I usually read just below that many but I haven’t read as much this year, so I figure I may as well set it as an actual goal
Read 50 manga volumes - I have some manga I want to read too, so why not?
Read 5 vns - I’ve been reading visual novels a bit more recently so I’ll probably want to continue with that.
Maybe also play 5 non-vn games in Japanese? (this is honestly also basically just me taking something I did this year and setting it as a goal for next year too)
Watch… 20? anime without subs (If I’m watching on my own I always watch without subs anyway nowadays)
Watch those two ドラマ I wanted to watch but haven’t gotten around to yet
Reach 20k known vocab on jpdb (I’ve been using jpdb fairly consistently anyway)
Spend around 10-20ish hours listening to some Japanese content that isn’t anime or ドラマ (Mostly just to help get exposed to a good variety of content)
Write 80k characters
Let’s set some goals 
Books
Games
Studying
JLPT
(PS: two of the 2024 in the main post should be updated to 2025)
At this point, I think it would be way too frustrating, but I’d like to try sometime in 2025 (when my kanji and grammar knowledge are better, and when I consume more, easier native material in general).