Since everyone seems to be doing one of these, I decided to start my own. In this first post, I want to outline my long term goals, short term goals, and how I plan to study to accomplish these. If anyone has any constructive advice or critique, I do welcome it, but please at least read through this first post all the way through as I will go into my current limitations to what/how I am studying.
First, I want to go over my goals. In about 3-5 years I plan on starting my PhD and I want my research question to focus around the depiction of social movements in anime/manga (will start to narrow it down once I get into the program and can talk with researcher in my chosen field). In addition to this, I am debating on whether or not to apply to a school in Japan. Either way, I will need a high level of Japanese both to watch/read the stories that my research applies to but also in order to understand any research papers/presentations that might be applicable to my research. Therefore, my current long term goal is to reach the point where I can watch anime comfortably in Japanese and read through academic papers with relative ease (still having to look up a handful of words per page but being able to get the general meaning even without looking things up).
In order to reach this longer term goal, I want to take the JLPT N1 within the next 3 years. I think this should be possible even though it will definitely take effort. As background, I have been studying Japanese for about 15 years (though not always seriously). I am around N3 in terms of grammar and vocab though there are a handful of points from the lower levels I don’t know as well as many points from the higher levels that I have at least a passing familiarity with from engagement with native content. I believe that 3 years will be more than enough time to fill in the gaps as long as I stay on track. Honestly I could probably shorten the time from 3 years but I do want to give myself wiggle room as I am unsure how hectic my life might become and I tend to have variable energy levels (though that problem has been partly dealt with).
My short term goals are to finish the N3 grammar and N4 vocab by the end of the year while supplementing higher level content from my other studies in order to keep my grammar/vocab studies all in one place; make it halfway through Nihongo Dokkai - Speaking and Reading through Reading Comprehension (Intermediate) by the end of the year; and make it halfway through the High Level EJU Preparation Textbook - Math Course 1. The bunpro goal makes sure I am on target for the JLPT, but the other two goals are to improve my reading, writing, and being able to learn in Japanese. These will help to round out my skill set as even though I am aiming to take the JLPT, if I am hoping to understand native material and communicate in Japanese, it will take a lot more than just grammar and vocab drills. I also plan to engage with a variety of native language materials both reading and listening.
Due to other responsibilities I cannot guarantee that I will be able to study consistently everyday. So although I will make a post for everyday that I do study (which should be most days of the week) I want to set up mainly weekly goals, except for bunpro which I will still have daily goals for. For bunpro, I am currently doing 5 items from the Pokemon Special deck plus 2 items from N4 grammar and 5 items from N5 vocab as well as adding any items I accumulate from textbooks or native materials. I will continue like this until I reach the end of the Pokemon Special deck. Afterwards I plan to increase the amount of grammar/vocab points I am doing from the JLPT decks unless there is another manga/novel deck that I want to go through. For Nihongo Dokkai, I plan to go through 1 chapter every week and for EJU Math I plan to go through 1 chapter every month (since I have to figure out both the Japanese and math). For native material, I am currently keeping up with the daily articles on NEWS WEB EASY and watching several episodes of Yugioh Go Rush without subtitles per week. I am hoping to get back to the Pokemon Special manga when I have time and energy as well as listening to podcasts and slugging my way through some novels.
So with all of that, let’s hope I can keep this up!