This post is going to be me discussing how my language learning went this year, stuff I tried, what worked, what didn't, what I want to try next year, etc. These are the languages I studied this year (in the order I'll talk about them in): Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Brazilian Portuguese. I also made one of these posts last year, here's the link if you want to read that.

Japanese



Goals at the start of the year

My goals for this year in Japanese were the same as last year since I didn't accomplish any: read 6 novels, write somewhat consistently in Japanese, read through the grammar book I'm using(初級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック), and watch 365 ~20-30min segments worth of Japanese audio without Japanese subtitles (so about the length of an episode of TV, but it could be a movie, podcast, video, etc.).

How those goals turned out

I didn't achieve any of them... AGAIN lol Let's go through each of these and see why.

Read 6 novels: I did technically get closer to this goal than last year, with 3 books read... well kind of. I read 推し、燃ゆ(128 pages), 幽霊列車(short story technically but counting it), and Dome-人類の箱舟(609 pages). I also got 38% through 石川晶康日本史B講義の実況中継(1)(160 pages read), but didn't finish. In terms of light novels, I read all of Fate/Zero. I did read a lot of news for about a month since I thought it would help introduce me to new vocabulary. At the very least this year I did not fall into the VN trap I did last year, except for maybe a bit in the middle of the year.

Write somewhat consistently in Japanese: I did not do this at all. I don't think I wrote anything in Japanese this year...

Read 初級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック: At the start of the year I made some more progress in it but didn't keep up much. I also read some of くらべてわかる日本語表現文型辞典 (A Guide to Useful Japanese Sentence Patterns) and made some flashcards from those.

365 ~20-30min JP audio, no JP subs: As always hard to track this, but I'm pretty sure I did not hit this goal. Whenever I watch anything new in Japanese by myself I don't let myself use any JP subs anymore. With the anime I watched probably made it 1/3 to this goal. Didn't really listen to many podcasts, videos, news, etc. I really need to listen to more podcasts and just more actual conversations in general. Anime I can usually understand most of what's going on, but podcasts I get tripped up more often.

Everything else



This is a picture of my Japanese vocab Anki deck stats for the year.

I did not spend many days doing my cards unfortunately. My prediction came true that I'd add less new cards(1117 cards) than I would last year. The majority of these probably came from the history book and news I read, and Dome had ~100-200 new words for me. I feel like it might even be less next year, which is good in the sense that I should be understanding most words I come across without having to look them up. Hopefully this leads me to have more time to focus on studying grammar. Also unfortunately I did not hit 30k cards, but I'm so close I should hit it extremely early next year.

This is a picture of my Japanese grammar Anki deck stats for the year.

A very sad showing... Hopefully I can put more time into this next year.

Goals for next year

You'll see this in the following sections, but for 2024 I'm not going to have any strict goals like the last two years. I feel like they ended up just making me procrastinate and do nothing. So I'll be easier on myself and follow my interests as they come. If I fall into a VN hole again, so be it! lol At least from what I think might happen, if I read any books next year, it'll probably be finishing the 4 石川晶康日本史B講義の実況中継 books. There's some more academic books I want to read, but I feel like I should have at least a high-school level "standard" knowledge of Japanese History to really get something out of them. Other than that, don't really know what else.

Spanish



Goals at the start of the year

My goals were to read 6 book, write at least a sentence almost everyday in Spanish, watch some movies originally in Spanish, speak more, and more abstractly, have Spanish be the language I studied most.

How those goals turned out

Again I didn't achieve any of them, except arguably one of them.

Read 6 books: I read 3 books, Amora, Nueva Historia Mínima de México, and Carta a mi padre. These were in the first 6 months of the year, then the latter half shifted more to Japanese reading, so couldn't really read 2 books at once. Comparing my choice of books in Spanish and Japanese, I think I made more interesting choices in Spanish lol Amora being the first Mexican lesbian feminist novel and Carta a mi padre being Irina Echevarría detailing her life as a trans/disabled rights activist made them books I got more out of.

Write at least a sentence almost everyday in Spanish: Same as Japanese, did not write anything...

Watch some movies originally in Spanish: Didn't happen either... but my parents watch a lot of travel videos in Spanish, so I watched some of those with them and got practice that way. My listening is still not great, but it is improving.

Speak more: Didn't do at all...

Being my most studied language: I might've achieved this, even if it's because I didn't put much time into studying other times rather than a massive investment in Spanish study. It depends on how I want to look at it. In terms of cards it was the most, barely beating Mandarin Chinese (2266 vs. 2139 new cards). So I am proud of that. In terms of listening, Japanese wins that category.

Everything else

I did play some games with Spanish dubs/subs, 7 finished in total. At first it was to procrastinate from reading books, like at the start of the year I read through a spanish fan translation of Danganronpa. Was I actually interested in playing it? Ehh, no, not really... I'll play VNs I don't like that much which take many hours, but won't read books I like a lot. It's just how I am lol

This is a picture of my Spanish vocab Anki deck stats for the year.

As stated above, I did actually get a good amount of new words this year. Hopefully next year will be about the same amount of new words.

This is a picture of my Spanish grammar Anki deck stats for the year.

Did pretty alright with my Spanish grammar study. Not as much as I'd like, but respectable.

Goals for next year

Again, no strict goals. I'll probably read the other books I had on my list to read. In contrast to my Japanese reading, I already read the more "basic" history book and can get to the more interesting history books I want to read in Spanish.

Mandarin Chinese

I was correct in my prediction that I would do another "sprint" where I really focus on studying for like a month or two. I'm still using Chinese Grammar Wiki along with HSK Reading and made it 2/3 through B2 grammar before stopping the sprint. I also started reading some manhua and playing games but didn't finish any. Reading still takes me a long time.

This is a picture of my Mandarin Chinese vocab Anki deck stats for the year.

This is a picture of my Mandarin Chinese grammar Anki deck stats for the year.

The second most words added of any deck. Same as last year lol The amount of new grammar cards isn't too shabby either.

Goals for next year

While this year I couldn't finish any games/manhua in Mandarin Chinese, I think I could manage at least finishing one in 2024. Will it be very slow? Yes. Will I end up spending most of the time looking up words? Yes. That's just where I'm at, not going to be reading multiple books and finishing multiple games like Japanese and Spanish yet lol Probably will do another sprint and finish up the B2 grammar section, then will have to find a new grammar source since the C1 section is not complete yet.

French

Again, another quiet year for learning French. Again, the only thing I really did was a little vocab mining from re-watching anime with French dubs/subs. I also read some of Routledge French Grammar and Usage. Probably going to be the same next year.

This is a picture of my French vocab Anki deck stats for the year.

Brazilian Portuguese

This is the second year of me studying Brazilian Portuguese and I did more studying than French at least, but mostly the same strategy of rewatching anime dubs/subs. The book I'm using for grammar is Living Language: Brazilian Portuguese: Complete Course, The Basics. Probably will be about the same next year.

This is a picture of my Brazilian Portuguese vocab Anki deck stats for the year.

Conclusion

Mostly this year's conclusion is not to have so many big goals and to be easier on myself for not reaching them. I mean, I still read a lot in Japanese and Spanish. I did end up studying Spanish more like I wanted. Next year we'll see how being more lax turns out. Either way, progress is progress!