Master Japanese in One Year: goal setting and action plans｜Japanese Podcast #34

Hello everyone! Thank you for coming to my Japanese podcast with Hanae. This podcast is for people who are studying Japanese. I talk about Japanese culture, news, and my personal experiences in Japanese. How are you all doing? It's getting really cold in Japan right now. It's snowing in Tokyo, and it feels like winter. It's really hard to get out of the futon every morning. It's cold in the morning, but I'm getting ready for the morning. On the other hand, there may be some people who are fighting the very hot summer right now. The theme of this podcast is that it will soon be the new year, 2025. So I'm going to talk about how to set a goal for language learning and how to actually do it. When the new year approaches, do you look back on the past year? Or do you write down your goals for the next year? I do a lot of that. Every year, I take time to look back on the past year. I write down what I want to do and where I want to go next year. But when I look back on what I wrote a year ago, I sometimes forget my goal. If I say I don't have a goal, it's a lie. It's the same with language learning. At the beginning of the year, I have a goal to study Japanese or pass the N1 test. But I'm busy every day and forget it. I don't have much time to study. A year later, a year later, Oh, by the way, at the beginning of the year, I had so much motivation. Some people may think like that. So this time, I'm going to talk about how to set a goal, set a goal, and how to actually implement it. In 2025, I want you to set a goal together with me so that your Japanese, the language you are learning, and other goals can progress steadily. So this time, I'd like you to set a goal together with me and think about it. I'm going to talk about my experience and other research. First of all, how to set a goal. I think there are three steps. The first is to know yourself. The second is to set a goal for a year or a quarter, a three-month goal, and then to drop it down to a task that you can do for a day or a week. And the third is to record it so that you can see the growth, and then to make sure you can look back at it. I'll explain one by one. First, know yourself. Why do I want to learn Japanese? Why do I want to pass the Japanese test? I think you need to ask yourself that again and make it clear. When you ask yourself why again, and when you know yourself deeply, the reason for studying Japanese becomes clear. When you're not motivated, when you're tired, or when you think, wow, it's so difficult, I'm going to give up. By looking at the feelings and goals you had at first, I think you'll be able to think, okay, let's do a little more today. The reason really doesn't matter. Just ask yourself and write it down. You can really write it down on a note, or you can write it down on a smartphone memo, or whatever, but please try it. I think you'll find a way to study that you don't get tired of and don't hate by knowing yourself. And think about what you like to do. People who like sports, people who like guitar, piano, music, people who practice it, cooking, games, reading, I think there are various things. I like to go to the gym. First, think about your hobbies and what you like, and I think it's a good idea to set goals and goals so that you can do it in Japanese. And next, what kind of goals do you want to achieve in a year? Or if a year is too long, write down your three-month goal and plan what to do every day or what to do in a week to achieve it. For example, if reading four books in Japanese is your goal for a year, one book in three months in a quarter, right? Then how many pages are in that book? How many pages do you read a day? Will you be able to finish reading in three months? Then let's read three pages every day. Try to make a plan like that. If you have a hard time every day, I think a week is fine. Depending on the day, it can be a very busy day, and I think some people don't have time to study or have time for hobbies, so I think a one-week plan is fine. And if it's a one-month plan, humans are creatures that forget very quickly, so if you have a month, I think you'll easily forget what you wanted to do a month ago. So at least make a list of things you want to do every day for a week. Also, I don't think it's a good idea to overestimate yourself. Of course, I think some people's goal is to be at a native level where they can speak Japanese fluently. I think some people want to learn as many words as possible and listen to Japanese for the rest of their lives. I think some people think that's ideal, but think realistically about how much time you have, and think about how long you can study Japanese without burnout, and try to set realistic goals. And finally, I think it's important for everyone to be able to see progress. I'm glad I'm doing that. I think it's a good idea to check your progress every day with something like a habit tracker, or record your own voice as a practice for speaking Japanese, or take a video and talk about it. Of course, that will be a practice for speaking, and I think it will also improve your pronunciation. But when you look back later, you'll feel like, wow, I used to be like this, but now I'm getting better. I think it will be a motivation to continue. When I was studying English, I practiced speaking in voice memo like a practice to explain today's day in English. I've practiced pronunciation many times. If you listen to it a year later, you'll be like, wow, I didn't speak English at all a year ago. The good thing about this is that even now, every time I speak English, I'm like, I'm mispronouncing grammar, I can't say what I want to say at all, I can't speak fluently, I wish I had a better expression. I think about it later, I notice it while speaking. There are things like that, but when I listen to those old voices, I'm like, I can speak better than I did at this time. So it's okay, it's okay. Well, it's okay if you study more. I feel like I can use it as something that keeps my motivation. So it's important to keep track of your daily activities, and when you look back a little later, I think it can be used as a material that encourages you to say, I've been doing my best, so please try it. I think diary is also good. I think diary is also a practice for writing Japanese, and I think it will also be a practice for typing, so I highly recommend a diary. So next, if you've actually set your goals, and you've decided what you're going to do every day, how do you do it? Even if you want to study Japanese, simply because you don't have time, I think there are many reasons for each person. Among them, there are ways to do it little by little, but the first one is to do it in the morning. I think it's better to do it in the morning, but I recommend getting up early in the morning, studying new words one by one, or something like that. I think I'm more of a morning person, so I have the most energy in the morning, I can concentrate, and I'm tired at night and I don't feel like doing anything. So I think it's best to do what you want to do in the morning. In the morning, there's no temptation, and I don't think there's a physical problem like tiredness, so think about how to avoid studying Japanese in the morning. For example, if you're listening to music in the morning, and you're preparing for the morning, try changing the music to Japanese, or if you're the type of person who doesn't listen to anything, try listening to a Japanese podcast in the morning, or you can play any YouTube video. Also, if you have time during commuting, study Japanese in the morning, listen to podcasts, study words with a flashcard app, read a book in Japanese on Kindle, Think about how you can make the most of your time in the morning. After school, after work, instead of studying words, I think it's more like watching videos on YouTube, scrolling through Instagram, scrolling through TikTok, so try to make the most of your time in the morning. And I think it's also important to do it with your current habits. For example, I definitely drink coffee in the morning, but before I drink coffee, I try to do a duolingo, and if I don't do duolingo, I can't drink coffee. If you do it like that, you can give yourself a little mission, and I think coffee will feel like a reward, so I recommend it. And while I'm getting ready to go out, when I have time, I listen to something on podcasts. In 2025, I want to study Spanish seriously, so I've been listening to Spanish podcasts a lot lately. There are still a lot of things I don't understand, but I think it's still a practice to listen, so I'm listening to Spanish podcasts. Also, I think language learning is really like review, review, repeat, repeat, so find 5 minutes of free time and try to review with Anki or flashcards. Anything is fine, so think about how much time you can use effectively and try it. Also, when you have a lot of time on holidays, watch a YouTube video, learn words from it, practice speaking, take an online class, I think that's important, but I think it's also good to think about what you can do when you're tired from work or school on weekdays. After all, I think it's a compilation of those little things, so I'm tired, but I have about 10 minutes, and I have time, so I wonder if there's anything I can do before I go to bed, so I think it's a good idea to make good use of that. After that, learning words, using space repetition, studying at night, reviewing in the morning, and before you forget the word, review it again, I think it's easy to do if you use Anki or various tools, so use those tools, and even if it's simple, review it over and over again, and try your best. Also, there's a tool here that I think is really good for learning Japanese, so I'll finish by introducing it. It's called Japanese.io. This is a tool that allows you to find the meaning of Japanese words by combining this cursor with the free grammar and English on the spot, so you don't have to look up the meaning every time. It's been around the middle of Japanese, and the number of kanji I can read has increased, but if you still don't know something, please try using it once. And you can also see all the transcripts of this podcast on Japanese.io. If you put it in Google Extension, when you're looking at a Japanese site, if you don't know something, you don't have to look it up every time, and you can easily find the meaning, so I think it's very convenient. It's only for those of you who are studying Japanese in English, but if you'd like, please try using it. I don't think this is a sponsor, but I think it's a really useful tool, so if you'd like, please try using it. Also, something you can do right now is set your smartphone to Japanese. This isn't easy either, but smartphones are something you use every day, something you look at every day, so if you want to put yourself in the Japanese environment as much as possible, I think it's a good idea to change your smartphone settings or something you're familiar with to Japanese. This time, I talked about how to set goals for language learning and how to implement them. Learning a language takes a lot of time, so once you've decided to do it, I think it's really amazing. I don't think everyone can keep doing it every day, or set a goal for it, or make a plan for it. So first of all, I want you to praise yourself. You can do it. You can do it if you do it. It's amazing. Like that. And I think it's important to look back at the goal, so set a goal and implement it every day, and then look back and say, What did you do this week? What did you do? I hope you can do it like that. And when you set a goal, that person studies for two hours every day, so I don't do it either. That person grows up so fast, but I still can't speak at all. There may be times when you compare yourself to others like that, but really, everyone has their own free time, their own situation, and their own knowledge. I think it's different, so don't compare yourself to others, and study at your own pace. And in 2025, I'm going to post more of this podcast, so I hope you'll listen to this podcast from now on. And finally, I'm doing a membership on YouTube and Patreon right now. If you join the membership, you'll be able to see all the transcripts of the videos. If you join the Patreon Super Supporter, you'll be able to see exclusive episodes of Super Supporter. Please join the membership. I'll be waiting for you. That's it for this time. Thank you so much for listening to me until the end. I'll see you in the next episode. See you.