Goals

[luke]

Wondering what you all think about goals.

Strategic goals - can pass a test or do specific things (this has almost unlimited variations and is sometimes harder to claim clear success because it may be a sliding scale - example: can speak to my spouse's parents in their native language)

Tactical goals - measuring things (page counts, hours, words, etc) - may help with strategic goals

No goals - goals are for when you don't want to enjoy yourself or lack motivation or something

[Iversen]

No specific goals in any language, but just the whisper of a hope of progressing in each of them.

[german2k01]

Tactical goals. I need to get 60 hours of shadowing done. If I look at it as a whole, I will never get down to do it as it looks huge. However, If I break it down to 1 hour a day then I will nail it down in 60 days or 2 months without even realizing that I have done it.
60 hours of shadowing is not my own figment of imagination it is recommended by Matt. You can do it more or less it is up to you.

Just to give you an example, I joined a 90-day challenge for German at LingQ. I have set a minimum goal of listening to German 6 hours a day. Now the 90-day challenge is ending in a week. Setting my micro goal for 6 hours a day finally ended up in me achieving "552.5 hours" in 83 days. Below are my statistics for the 90-day challenge for German.

[Aloyse]

Depends on the language.

For languages with lots of speakers and lots of resources (Spanish, Chinese, MSA) my main ambition is to be able to read articles and possibly novels, listen to the news, perhaps be able to discuss and summarize.

For languages that are mainly spoken (Darja, Berber), I'd like to be able to express basic needs, understand daily conversation.

Japanese is/was mostly for fun, I don't have concrete goals.

I use my passive English skills daily without a learning goal. Even though I'd like to improve my speaking and pass a C2 exam someday, it's not really an exciting goal for me.

[FeoGringo]

No goals but may need to shift to tactical goals.

[smallwhite]

I feel that you cannot claim No Goal unless you don’t even look for improvement, eg. you don’t even plan maintenance and you don’t mind deterioration.

I have level- or can-do- type goals, but parts of them would be expressed in numbers because it’s easier or more finite this way. Say, a goal of B2 (confirmed by a reputable online test) with 6000 words in my SRS deck and having read at least 1 native detective novel.

[白田龍]

I set goals for physical training, meaning that I am committed to a certain schedule, or that I can only allow myself to rest after completing the routine I have designed beforehand.

For language learning I have no need for goals, as I am naturally inclined to spend most of my time on it if I given the chance. I read a book for 4 hours, work on my deck, binge watch some tv series, eat something, then go to sleep. What a great day!

[Xenops]

Just curious: did anyone vote for Strategic Goals, but not Tactical ones? If so, I’m curious as how you make this work.

[Deinonysus]

Just curious: did anyone vote for Strategic Goals, but not Tactical ones? If so, I’m curious as how you make this work.

I voted for only Strategic and not Tactical. I generally have some goal I'd like to achieve for a given language, whether it's just general familiarity, or the ability to interact and enjoy media in the language. But I couldn't care less about how much time I spend or how many pages I read. I pick some resources and try to do a lesson a day (or some equivalent amount for courses that aren't designed around a lesson a day). Counting how many hours I spend on resources doesn't give me any additional information because I try to spend the same amount of time every day anyway. And I don't see the point in counting hours spent enjoying media in the language either. For me that isn't work, it's the reward for getting far enough in my coursework to be able to enjoy media. Turning it into work would make it less appealing and might stop me from doing it.

I tried signing up for a couple of bot challenges (one super, one 6 week, I think), and I quit almost immediately since tracking my time was just obnoxious extra work with no benefit. It isn't for me.

[Aloyse]

Just curious: did anyone vote for Strategic Goals, but not Tactical ones? If so, I’m curious as how you make this work.

What works for me nowadays:
Attending a Chinese newspaper reading class. Subscribing to a Spanish learners magazine.
I can't call these tactical goals, more like external stimuli.

Also, listening to at least one audio track per language everyday. It's more a habit than a goal. It's integrated in my hygiene routine so almost unskippable.

I used to count hours, characters etc. But I am not in a hurry anymore.