Eri learning Japanese | My language mission and my log | Forum

I'm not really sure if this 'language log' portion is for any kind of language log or just if you're using Benny's method… there isn't one under the non-speaking part of the forum, so I'm assuming this is the former. If I'm wrong… someone please tell me?

ANYWAY. As the title says, I am aiming for fluency in Japanese. I've set my own definition of what fluency is for me thusly:

Reading 95~100% of any Japanese text

Understand 95~100% of any spoken Japanese

Write something with only having to think about it for ~10 seconds

As I sort of implied up there, I'm not quite focusing on speaking, not at the moment anyway. This could change at any moment though ^^

Method:

Something similar to Benny, except with reading and listening rather than speaking. The reading 'regiment' I'm following it actually called 'Tadoku' or 'extensive reading'. Basically, I'm going to try and read as much as I can in Japanese without English translation. Something similar to this with listening, I'm going to watch TV in only Japanese and only Japanese music.

For learning vocab and grammar and such I'll be (and have been for some time now) using the AJATT method.

Problems I can foresee:

My job for the summer is designing and carrying out a 'summer reading programme' for children at my local library. This means that for about 30hrs a week I will only be able to do thing in English (although I am allowed to listen to music while the kids aren't there). However, considering the progress I've made with Japanese in the last couple months while I've been at school (and my school forbid listening to music during class, not matter what the teachers rules used to be), so I don't actually see this as a huge problem.

Other than that, the fact that it's summer vacation I might be prone to not wanting to do anything all day, especially on the days I don't have work. But we'll just have to see Hopefully keeping this log will keep up my motivation to continue.

PS: feel free to call me Eri or Pandakitty or whatever name you think suits me best.

じゃあ皆さんよろしくお願いしま~す! またね～

I guess I should have been clearer, but I do sort of have a daily go, which is to read one volume of manga a day, although this isn't easy because I'm a very slow reader (in English as well, not just Japanese). But I honestly prefer not to have short term goals because I usually end up pushing myself too much and then doing very little for the next little while. I've found that just doing things as I feel like doing them is a much better way of studying for me.

And I'm not sure where I gave the impression I wanted to achieve fluency in a short amount of time. I know it'll take a while, but sometimes you surprise yourself with how quickly you can learn something.