My Language Learning Goals in 2020

As the new year has started I'd like to give input on my thoughts about my personal goals and feelings regarding language learning in 2020.

Much like in recent years, I keep on improving my Japanese. As I just passed N3, I already started studying for the N2 exam. It's a huge amount of more vocabulary, kanji and grammar I have to remember and understand.

I continue studying with the Anki app having a personalized deck, but I also downloaded a separate deck with N2 words. I study grammar with YouTube channels, and it's best to use some channels where the explanation is all in Japanese (like Nihongo No Mori, 日本語の森). 

Also, I can keep reading a lot of manga, but I feel that I should try reading an unknown story from a novel at some point this year. And manga with no furigana on the kanji would also be important. But for now I'm busy reading through all 42 volumes of Dragon Ball as well as catching up One Piece and Detective Conan with their recent volumes.

Also, as much as I'm able to read manga quite well, I still have lots of trouble understanding keigo in restaurants or combinis. Also it's spoken quite fast making me often unable to follow. Yeah, that's something I need to get better in.

Therefore, Japanese is keeping me busy on daily basis, but I also have some thoughts and plans regarding other languages:

As I grew up near Luxembourg, I speak a German dialect very close to the Luxembourgish language, and can also read news articles in that language. However, interestingly: I cannot really write it, I don't know the exact spelling of words. So I set myself also the goal to use the language more in written form, like texting.

And what about improving other languages? I know basic French and Spanish, but I've currently no ambition or even focus to pursue that. Could it be a something to focus on in the future? Maybe, but for now it's ok to just use it in a basic way, wherever needed. 

About learning any languages from zero? There are surely languages I have an interest to learn, but not this year. Another Germanic language would be interesting. I already understand and can read a bit of Dutch as it's quite close to my native German. 
Swedish or Norwegian would also be interesting. Or even Finnish, which is completely different language, but special in many ways. Also Italian could be interesting as I like the sound of it.

Other Asian languages? I studied a bit of Korean characters on my trip to Seoul by the end of last year and figured that it's actually quite simple. Still, when I sometimes see a name somewhere on social media I try to figure out the reading. Apart from that, I don't really have a connection to the language to further pursue it. And that's something which I feel is quite important. But I wouldn't exclude that there could be something which motivates me on that in the future...

Currently I have no deeper interest in learning other Asian languages. Learning Kanji can keep understanding a bit of Chinese. But I'm pretty sure I would struggle with the correct pronunciation. 

Anyway, I have enough goals right now anyway to keep myself busy. Let's see where this year will bring me.

「Ｎ３へ」ついに合格した! 次は...「一月の考え」

ついにN3を合格した！やっとやったぜ！でもN3への道は簡単のじゃなかった。実はまだ沢山勉強しなきゃ。

面白いことは今回は初めて日本語能力試験を合格した。自分のJLPTの歴史はこのようにだった:

2016年07月　N5　不合格
2018年07月　N4　不合格
2018年12月　N3　不合格
2019年07月　N3　不合格
2019年12月　N3　　合格

N3の三回目に合格した。この時に自分の問題のせいであまり勉強しなかった。試験日に日本にいるかどうかしらかなかった。とにかく、たくさんドラゴンボール漫画読んだし、もちろん毎日奥さんと話した。あと、アンキのアプリに新単語を勉強した。

もっと文法や、長いテクスト読みたかった。だからリーディングには24点だけだった。聴解(リスニング)の点はちょっとびっくりした。ときどき会話は早すぎだった、半分しか分からなかった。とにかく、上達した。

夏にＮ２を試してみると思う。今もう、新しい感じやＮ２の文法を勉強しています。特にユーチューブの「日本語の森」のチャンネルは本当にいいですね。たぶん本も買います。

あと、今はドラゴンボールを最初から読んでいる中、今は第17巻を読んで終えた。本当に簡単です。でも逆にワンピースに使った単語はほうが難しい。今の「ワノ国編」は沢山Ｎ１日本語がある。多分このことについて他の記事書きます。

じゃあ、これからもっと上達したい。頑張ります！N3は大切な目標だったんだけど、本当の挑戦は今のだ！

How I will continue to follow One Piece

After watching One Piece for around 15 years and especially in the last few years in the original dub with subtitles I recently decided to take another approach...

I was mostly following the anime being around 20-30 episodes behind the broadcast and was on the way to reach episode 800. Through some spoilers I was aware that there will be an emotional fight between Luffy and Sanji soon and checked that volume 84 will cover exactly that.

And with my will to take my Japanese skills to the next level I decided the following step:
- watch the One Piece anime that far that I can continue with reading volume 84... in Japanese!

While being in Tokyo I bought this very volume and caught up with the anime that I could start reading in it's original form.

To explain, it's not my first Japanese manga, but mostly I bought manga where I already knew the story like some Dragon Ball or Detective Conan volumes. And of course I had to look up lots of kanji and vocabulary. But the important ones ended up in my Anki deck.

But the situation now is different: I'm now reading a manga story (where I know what happened up until now), but need to understand the upcoming development of the Whole Cake Island arc in Japanese.

It's a challenge, I need to read the chapter twice and more to get the meanings. And I wouldn't say I get every line. Sometimes I'm happy with understanding the just some words in a sentence. The furigana are helping a lot, but sometimes the kanji itself are helping more to get the meaning than the furigana.

Often used words I look up in Jisho.org and add them in my Anki deck. Generally I realized: Once I dived in reading it all in Japanese, having the time to focus on it really works. I see progress in my understanding and reading skills.

By now I already continued with volume 85 and will keep on going this path.