I posted on Instagram about my September goals but felt that I needed a longer post here, mainly for me to have somewhere I can come back to and track my progress towards them. I’ve set myself a few goals plus a challenge (!!!) for this month so let’s do this!
CHALLENGE: Tadoku reading challenge (round 5)
This challenge was recommended to me on the Minimmersion Discord (thanks Ruby if you’re reading this!) and once I looked into it I knew immediately that I wanted to participate. To summarise, you track your reading and give yourself points according to the media you’ve consumed. It can be anything, from books to games, news articles to sentences! From the website the scoring is as follows;
- Book: 1 point per page
- Manga: 0.2 points per page
- Net: 1 points per page
- Full game: 0.1667 points per screen
- Game: 0.05 points per screen
- News: 1 point per page
- Sentences: 0.05 points per sentence
I’m going to mostly be focusing on books, news and manga since I don’t play many games in Japanese, and to keep score I have a crochet counter that sits around my neck that I can press as I read a page. I’ll keep score in a spreadsheet and will post my progress each week here and on Instagram! My only competition is myself as I think I’d like to participate in future challenges and aim to beat my score.
Goal 1: Watch 2 dramas by the end of the month
I am currently watching Proposal Daisakusen (I was rewatching Ossan’s Love in August!) and if I have time I want to pick a second drama, and then maybe review them both here. I just need to get into the habit of watching something in Japanese daily since I DO have time, I just don’t use my time wisely.
Goal 2: Speaking practice twice a week
August was great for conversation practice, so I’ll continue this in September. I use iTalki lessons for free talk and to go through my TRY! N3 and N2 books, and I use my regular local teacher to put all this in practice!
Goal 3: Finish revising N3 kanji
Kanji used to be my strongest point in both reading and writing but my writing has been ignored for the longest time. Last week I got out my big boxes of kanji flashcards that I bought when I first started learning Japanese and thought I was going to use (hahaha… yeah, no) and decided that this time I would put them to use. I’m using the 日本語総まとめ N3 kanji book which is split by weeks, so each week I get out the cards that correspond to that week, run through them to check if I can recall the writing from the reading/vocab alone, and then practice writing using the stroke order on the front. Each card also has key vocabulary so I make sure I practice these and put them into Anki if needed. If I then struggle with the reading I keep reviewing the card periodically throughout the week until I can comfortably recall the writing and reading without much effort. I may do a separate post about this method in future if I think it’s working, it’s only been a week so who knows.
Goal 4: Daily WaniKani and Anki
WaniKani is going great! I levelled up to level 17 this morning and I more or less level up every 7-8 days. I should be level 20 by the end of the month so I’m aiming for this (no more than this since I have a few busy weekends ahead), which means I’ll be 1/3 of the way through! Also Anki because I can make my own cards from media I’ve consumed and learn new and interesting vocabulary.
So that’s September planned for me! Oh, and it’s also Minimmersion month but I’ll be doing mine slightly differently again. I’ll post weekly updates if and when I remember; hope you all have a great month!
アマンダの勉強 / Amanda Learns! 