Aspirations for 2009

We’re more than a week into the new year so I felt it was high time I made my language learning resolutions for 2009. I’ve never been very good at keeping my New Year’s resolutions so it’ll be interesting to review my progress twelve months from now.

Here are my aspirations for the year :

Take the JLPT Exam - I’ve been meaning to do this for some time but I haven’t had the chance to sit the exam so far. There doesn’t seem to be a test centre in the Netherlands so I would have to go over to London for the weekend and sit the exam there. I’ve been working on my Japanese on and off for nearly two years now but I haven’t really gone about my studies in a structured way so I’m still having trouble with conjugating verbs and using the correct particles. Perhaps setting myself this goal will help me focus on my studies. I haven’t decided if I want to sit the Level 4 or the Level 3 exam as I’m not sure whether to risk skipping a level and finding it too difficult or whether I should just go straight for Level 3 as sitting the Level 4 exam this year would mean having to wait another year to take the Level 3 exam.

Improving my Writing Skills - I plan to make more effort to write blog posts in the languages I’m studying/perfecting as my writing skills are very weak and I feel that writing is a good way to test one’s knowledge of a language and improve my active vocabulary. I have a rather good passive vocabulary in most of the languages I’ve learnt but I think it’s very important to be able to recall words and, more importantly, know how to use a certain word or expression. I plan to write posts in Dutch, Italian, Mandarin and Japanese, though I often find it very difficult to think of something to write about..

Read at Least One Foreign Language Book a Month - This is a resolution I think I can keep as I tend to read a lot during my daily commute and have quite a few foreign language books waiting to be read. I hope to read at least one book for each of the following languages : French, Italian, Mandarin, Dutch and Spanish (I might add Japanese to this list if I can find some novels in the second-hand bookstore). I’m currently reading Garrie van Pinxteren’s China (a Dutch-language account of the author’s experiences in China) so I’m on target for this month!

Avoid Succumbing to Wanderlust - This is one resolution I doubt I can keep for very long. My curiosity for languages often distracts me from my studies. I’ve been toying with the idea of learning some more Persian (I dabbled with it briefly a few years ago) or taking up a new language (Turkish and Romanian are quite high on my ‘hit list’). This is going to be a very difficult resolution to keep.

Are any of you planning on setting yourself some language learning goals for this year?