Final Assessment of the Year- December 2021

Looking back at the past year, I can confidently can that I have improved and grown so much. Even though I wasn't able to put as much effort as I would have liked this past semester in class, I feel like I would just be being mean to myself if I denied that my skills in Japanese have not gotten better. My goals that were set in August really revolved around my confidence and mentality, but the stress of finally starting on my journey to become a healthcare practitioner really helped me see that trying to force that confidence is more detrimental than letting it come with time and experience. As classes went on, I found that my goal changed to become more relaxed in that I wanted to try an approach of casual learning. 

Even when I was a child learning English, I really learned by just 'feeling' out the grammar and way things were said and being corrected when I was wrong. I would like to try that for a little while to see how it works with language learning as an adult. I think somewhere along the way I started falling into the trap of direct translation and was becoming frustrated with the semantics of everything- since my personality by nature is super detail-oriented and critical- so allowing myself to learn in a more natural childlike-associated way would be beneficial. Moving on for the future I have some more realistic (and fun) goals. They are less about skills and more about practice:

1. I want to help teach the others around me so that have friends to incorporate what I've learned more into my life.

2. I'd like to review and continue Marugoto.

3. I want to continue talking with the friends I've made online who are native speakers.

4. I want to continue to explore aspects of Japanese culture that I already have interest in.