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February 22, 2006
Goals: who needs 'em anyway?
This evening I'll be starting a second round of Japanese classes/lessons. It's hard to believe that I started the first round almost exactly a year ago (March 1, 2005); due to school and finances I was only able to attend until July. This time there will be 2 other students and I'll be able to jump in at almost exactly the point where I left off.
When I mentioned this to my friend (and former coworker) he replied, "Is the Japanese study purely academic for you, or do you have some longer term ambitions related to the language? You certainly have put a lot of effort into it."
Hmmm. That's a good question. For the last year and a half I've put a lot of my spare time into learning Japanese, and it seems like the primary reason has been an Everestish "because it's there." Originally I never intended to put much time into it: after a bad week at work (during which I learned that I'd be getting no raise after a year of working like a dog) I decided to take a week off and spend some time doing something different. I've always enjoyed languages, my new video gaming habit had put Japanese into my range of awareness, and it'd always irritated me that my web browser could render Japanese and Chinese sites, but I couldn't read them. So I got a few books, borrowed Pimsleur from the library and devoted a few hours to Japanese. Most of the time when I take up an interest on a whim, it doesn't last too long.
Over the last year and a half I've failed to come up with a long-term goal or higher ambition which might reasonably drive my Japanese learning. Yes, I'd like to go there someday, but that takes cash. For a brief time my former employer was courting a Japanese company, but (as usual) couldn't manage to get the contracts it wanted. I've had vague thoughts about directing some of my new business efforts at Japanese companies--after all, providing English business writing services to Japanese speakers does sound like a good prospect--but I need to get the thing started first.
So, right now my longer-term ambitions are fairly shortsighted: this year I'm going to learn the 2000 joyo kanji and take the JLPT in December. I do want to be able to read Japanese. But beyond that, nothing is really pushing me (or is it pulling?). Maybe it's time to start thinking up some larger goals.
Permalink | Posted by Joe at February 22, 2006 09:33 AM