Remember last year’s resolutions? Funny how time flies 
Well it is a new New Year in a few days. What are your language and/ other resolutions for 2012?
I am travelling to Japan for 3 weeks in the Spring so I will be putting on a push for Japanese conversational skills in the next 2 months. But I am really enjoying Chinese so it will be hard. In Chinese I would like to try my first conversation by, say, June or July. Also, before the year is up I want to be doing Arabic again.
Over to you
Improve in English/Portuguese, learn Italian and/or Spanish and really start to learn Russian.
As a student I’ll have a 3-month holiday in summer, so I’d like to go to an English-speaking country in order to work, visit and speak English of course. I’d also like to go to Algeria to practice Arabic and see my relatives. But since the ramadan is in August and that I’m not muslim, I don’t know… Life’s so boring when the ramadan is in summer… People only sleep, waiting for the night to fall.
For me, these resolutions do not work. Every new day is just a lazy day for me. However, my first priority is to spend more time on listening and speaking activities in English language. If time permits, I’ll try to flirt around with Thai language. I’ll definitely learn some basic stuff in the language since there is a high chance that I may travel to Thailand again in the next year. Thais had won my heart with their geniune hospitality on my last trip. So, yeah, that’s about it.
This isn’t a resolution but a wish. I want to live in another country. The problem is that I was in the same field for 13 years in the US and I would not be able to work in this field in another country. So I either have to start a business in the US that would allow me to live off a tourist visa in another country, or get a work visa in another country which would probably mean teaching ESL. After doing the same work for so long, it is hard to imagine trying to develop a completely different skill set.
my goal is conversational fluency in japanese. i can and did hold conversations already, over skype, and when an online friend visited my home town, but overall it’s tiring, slow and somewhat painful, because i need more vocab both passively and actively. feels like i’d only use like 100 words (must be more, but it feels like that), and i’ve not felt progress for a long time. i’m a bit disappointed, but i guess that’s normal for people at lower intermediate level. thus, i’d like to push for atleast high intermediate this year.
30000 Dutch words
15000 French words
15000 Yiddish words
Maybe a little Hebrew
Get a basic grasp on Navajo
Avoid other languages.
I can tell, that failure of the last is already a given. But here’s to trying!
Last year I said I wanted to take a serious jab at korean… I dont think I was serious enough however i did lingq 7 months or so out of 12 in 2011… Until September when i got super busy with work for he last 4 months of the year… Overall results of my learning progress… not sooo good compared to the amount of time i put into it… I think my listening is what improved the most… but still… Not happy with the results at all. Its just a very painful slow process for me… I’m definitely not learning at a pace/speed I’m happy with… At this rate I’ll be conversational in 20 years which is unacceptably slow…
Anyways… This year… Same thing … Just improve my korean. I need to speak and learn more words…
My goals for this year are the following:
Learn 500 new words
Master the uses of the subjunctive tense
Finally open my “Teach Yourself Catalan” and learn the basics
Look for acceptable learning materials.
Concentrate only on a few languages. (That means I have to stop with my Turkish and Chinese. XD)
I’m just hoping that I achieve my first goal. The rest are just mini-goals.
Solanium - Sardinian is a difficult language to get resources for. Good luck on that one. If I notice anything, I’ll send you a message, but can’t guarantee anything.
Before I say what my resolution will be for 2012 let me say that I like to make my resolutions/goals as concrete as possible because I find that helps push me to achieve those goals. Plus it makes it easier to say whether or not I actually achieved that goal. What’s nice with lingq.com is that I get a numbers that show what I’ve done so far. I think the number most people pay attention to is the “Known Words” number but I actually like the “LingQs” number more. That number really isn’t subjective whereas known words can be a bit subjective. Also, I feel I have more control over the number of “LingQs” I create. As for known words I can’t really control when I actually learn or remember them.
Anyway, last year, the first year of me using lingq.com I created 6,499 LingQs for Japanese. The majority of those LingQs were created over the summer months when I first started subscribing and I was on break from school. The fall semester of school was a rather intense one for me so I got out of the habit of LingQ’ing on a regular basis. I don’t think this spring will be quite as intense so I’m hoping to spend more time on the site. For my resolution I want something that will push me. I plan on being more consistent so a repeat of last year should be easily achievable. At the same time, I expect the number of new words available to LingQ to eventually dwindle so eventually my pace will have to slow.
With that, I’m going to say that my resolution for 2012 will be to bring my total Japanese LingQs to 20,000. I think that will push me hard and it is a concrete goal that I can easily say whether I achieved it or not. What do you think? Too much, too little? I’m curious what some people think who may have already achieved a similar number of LingQs in a language.
Sorry for the long post and good luck on your goals everyone!
I heartily agree with cgreen0038 that “LingQs created” is the statistic at LingQ that is the most within our control. It is also an excellent indicator activity, of exposure to the language, of reading, of listening and general interaction with the language. This is on the assumption that we listen to our lessons and read them, and even import our writing corrections and discussion reports and create LingQs from them.
The known words total is meaningful, in that it reflects not only the words that we have deliberately learned, but also those that we have learned incidentally and did not need to LingQ. However, it is less of a target that we can deliberately aim for or control.
Some of those things I agree with, but I don’t apologise for creating a goal in terms of known words. For me, the known words statistic is more meaningful. I can take some book and quickly lingq the entire content and do nothing with it. Those lingqs would mean nothing for me within the context of the way I use this website. (Creating lingqs first and then going through the content - which seems to be heresy around here hehe)
Right now, I’ve got these statistics for Dutch within a 3 month period:
Known: 11948
Lingqs: 10653
Learned: 1358
Listened: 110.8
Read: 613078
To me, known and learned are two very important stats. Reading and listening come second. Lingqs is simply a mechanical thing for me. Their importance is in making them go from unknown to known. Nothing inherently important, as I see it. Means to an end.
Imyirtseshem, I can see how using lingq.com in that manner would make known words more meaningful. I create my LingQs as I read a lesson for the first time. Also I don’t normally use the flashcard app for my LingQs, mostly because I find it more interesting to read new content. Because of this my LingQs are only ever marked as known when I mark them as such and I only do that when I happen to notice that I stop mousing over my LingQ to see the hint. So my known words are basically whatever I say they are and therefore a bad way to judge myself, haha.
Btw, I just looked at your profile to see where you’re at right now and compared that to your goals. I sincerely wish you luck for those are lofty goals indeed. 0_o Wow. But if your recent progress is any indication it seems those are goals within your reach. Good luck!
I think we have some similar methods in our madness.
Thanks for the encouragement. I’d rather set my goals towards the higher end of the scale and not reach them than set them small and achieve them easily that it doesn’t feel like a real accomplishment. Something to do with my own personality, I guess. I hope things go well for you too.
I have two resolutions:
These are my aims for Japanese, which I will be tracking on LingQ:
I’m hoping to overdo the listening, but I think it’ll be better to have a daily minimum on the targets for that rather than a target for the end of the year; I want to avoid binging on the weekends and playing catch-up.
In addition to this, I’m also doing about an hour a day at the moment on Kanji study, outside of LingQ, but that shouldn’t take the whole year (I should have the basic 2,000 done by the start of March).
Edit: Make that 365 hours in the year, or 1 hour of listening a day.
I think you might overdo the listening part if you listen to Japanese 365 hours a day I wish I could do that!
My most important goals are: prepare for and pass CPE examination (English), brush up on my German and make significant progress with Turkish. And, like Imyirtseshem, I wish I could just ignore other languages for a year! Too many of them are trying to catch my attention…
I’ve already started playing with another, customic…hahahaha! Failed that goal already! 
@customic
I know right? While I was studying some Portuguese, I just couldn’t help but take a peak at my Turkish workbook. I swear, all that agglutination is to die for! I guess I just need to learn a little more self-restraint. Haha.
@ Imyirtseshem
I know! Trying to find resources for Sardinian is soooooo difficult. =( Thanks for offering your help though. 
Hi Solanium,If you need help,I’ll be glad to help in Turkish.By the way,happy new year