not sure if i set goals this year besides reading more novels… and as expected it didn’t happen yet. 
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I hope no one minds me continuing to update here, but until I hear otherwise, here’s the progress in July…
I listened 21 days and read 11 days. There was a break at the beginning of the month where I visited my aunt, and I came home exhausted and didn’t do much for a while afterward. But I’ve noticed toward the end of the month that my reading stamina has been increasing, or maybe I just found a novel that I’m finding really interesting, so I can read a lot more at once. I’m still adjusting to novels, but I reread a favorite manga last weekend and was really surprised by my ease of comprehension. I reread things a lot in English (my autistic brain loves repetition) but I haven’t done that a lot in Japanese recently, since I’ve been reading more difficult things, and the easy things have been boring. I wonder if I’ll get to a point where I’m rereading novels, instead of manga. I think I’d have to find a novel that really grabs me, which hasn’t happened yet.
I’ve also been writing a lot more this month. In June I wrote 1 time, but in July I wrote 6 times. My italki tutor is helping me correct my writing, and we’re finding a lot of grammar errors that I can improve. I’m really actually pretty excited to be going over my writing this way, because I feel that it’s going to really help me to use the language better. One of the English teachers at my school told me once that he likes speaking because your mistakes float away on the wind, which I agree with. I feel like I can speak in a way where I can be (mostly) easily understood, but I’d really like to speak (mostly) correctly instead, and I hope that writing more will help with that.
I hope I can keep up this new writing habit without burnout! We’ll see what happens in August.
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8月26日(火)
Reached one of my 2025 goals this morning!
Reach Lvl 40✅
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I had a very motivated month in August, I read 27 days, listened 27 days, and really got into my writing habit. (I wrote 4 essays based on articles I read, plus a few diary entries.) I feel proud of my reading in particular, because I found something that grabbed me, so it became very easy to read. I was even picking it up in the middle of the night when my insomnia hit, when I usually would put on a YouTube video or something.
September, onwards and upwards!
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Congrats! 
That was my first book too.
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Thanks! I think I’ll celebrate (in a small way) on the weekend!
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In September I listened 26 days and read 23 days, although I’m not sure how indicative that is of my actual engagement. I’ve found my mind wandering so there have been a couple of times where I’ve listened to an entire podcast and then at the end I can’t remember what it was about. I also didn’t finish any of my hardcopy books this month, I’ve been reading primarily on the internet. Which is ok, I’ve read a lot of news articles and I got onto a fan site on social media, so I’ve been reading a lot of posts there. I think I’m just in a downturn, where I’m focused more on what I can’t do than what I can do. My energy is probably going to fall off a bit with the change of the seasons, so it’ll be interesting to see if I can maintain the frequency of my input.
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Reached a goal 
Yay!
I do reviews every morning and sometimes in the evening too. At first I added 30 lessons per day, but partway through the year I upped to 40 lessons per day.
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Congratulations!
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I got embarrassed about posting here and stopped, but I continued with my goals (sort of). I moved in November, and the autism means that whenever I move all of my routines get disturbed and I have to relearn how to do things like leave the house without panicking. In any case, I stopped tracking my listening and reading for 3-4 weeks, although I seem to remember continuing to listen to podcasts. I use reading in English as complete escapism, so in this stressful time I basically only reread English books I’d read before, and read nothing new or Japanese. I kept up with my conversation practice, but I currently don’t have any more scheduled, and I think I’ll need a break until January.
Looking back over the entire year, I see an interesting story. I can tell when work and/or life was stressful based on how much reading I did, specifically. I started the year excited about an online class, which didn’t last at all. I did quite a lot of writing over the summer, but much less when the fall started. I set several secret goals at the beginning of the year, that I didn’t share on this forum, and I did not achieve a single one of them (although I did work toward them at various points). Still, it’s clear that I’ve improved: I did a lot more conversation practice and I could talk about complex topics. I was really nervous about finding someone to correct my writing, and I’m proud that I did, and was able to stick with it for 3 months.
If I think about how I want to improve next year, I think my biggest goal will be reading. There’s still far too much vocab I don’t know and can’t use, and I think reading is the only way forward. I’ve been reading only fiction, but I think I will attempt some non-fiction, particularly science, as a way to learn some new words. My library doesn’t really have any non fiction books in any foreign language, as far as I can tell, although the fiction collections are generally good, so I may have to resort to actually buying something. We’ll see.
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looks at 2025 goals
cries
Oh, how young and naive I was a year ago…
…but I did finish 5 manga volumes like I wanted!
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That’s definitely an achievement!
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Win some, lose some 
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I completely failed my Goals for 2025.
- I’ve completed Genki 1, but started Genki 2 today.
- I watched the Videos for Genki 1&2 by Tokini Andy.
- I know less than 1000 words.
- I haven’t finished all volumes of JFZ, but I watched all Videos.
- I haven’t continued with Wanikani (Kanji are Not my priorty at the moment).
- I didn’t continue with Japanese Pod 101.
- I read my First book 十分で読めるこわい話 vol. 1 with the absolute Beginner book Club.
- I started with Bunpro This month.
I Hope next year will be better.
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I don’t think you completely failed your goals - you achieved a lot and most importantly you’re readjusting the goals but: keep on keeping on.
As we often hear - it’s a marathon, not a sprint and the African proverb: if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. This community helps a lot like that!
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i’m still here albeit have mostly lurked recently, but i haven’t stopped which i care about the most.
my “variety” has mostly come from running into japanese in social media which has been anything from news to shitposts in japanese, but deliberate studying has mostly still been with light novels which are my main motivator.
i’ve done some text chatting in japanese but no speaking which is hardly a priority. i don’t think i want to stress too much about it.
my level is a strong N4 and i’m not unhappy about that even though you can get further in one and a half years.
what’s more amazing to me is that i’m more than a year in on nearly daily flashcards with some longer breaks, and haven’t lost my motivation for learning in that time.
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Ok, looking back, I didn’t manage to finish any of my goals set for this year…
I mean, the year still hasn’t ended, but it’s pretty much safe to say that I won’t be able to finish either of remaining goals this year.
Still, Japanese-wise, this was quite a productive year.
I finally moved from mostly adapted materials to actual manga and games in Japanese.
As for the goals – they would have to be moved to next year. Hopefully, this time I would manage to take JLPT. I originally planned to take N4 first, but maybe I’ll risk it and go straight for N3. We’ll see.
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I was waiting for this post 
This month marks one year of studying Japanese for me, and I’m happy to say that I achieved my goals. Well, I guess technically I didn’t finish reading something with the book club, but I am having a great time there!
My 2026 goals
- Turning known words into active vocabulary
- Cementing my N5 and N4 knowledge by starting and maintaining a sentence book
- Finish pimsleur (currently LVL3 L8)
- At least 20 italki lessons
- JLPTN3 in December
- Play through a game in Japanese
I’ve seen people say that going from N4 to N3 in a year is not doable, but I want to give it a try! 
edit: this says 2025, please ignore me 
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I’ve finally completed all three goals thanks to the Final Fantasy Club. This year, I’m not going to set any goals for JP; I’m just taking it easy for a bit.
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