Language goals 2025 | Korean, Italian and Chinese

Posted on January 15 2025 by Katja in Language Studies / 0 Comments

This year I will become a polyglot. Let’s get into all the languages I want to study this year!

Road to polyglot
Can’t wait what 2025 has in store for me. Language studies will be one of my priorities since my own company will expand internationally and honestly I can’t wait for the ride of a lifetime. As a lover of stories, becoming a polyglot adds so much colour to my life. The books I can read, the shows I can watch, the connections with people I have made… Learning about different cultures and starting to understand history better. It’s amazing what studying languages has done for my life. And I am far from done on this road to become a polyglot!

Korean – Complete level 3
Last year was intense on a personal level to say the least. It was hard to maintain my Korean skills. So I decided that I would consume Korean content as much as possible and that studying would come later once my name is changed. During the last quarter of the year when I restarted my Korean lessons again, I made great progress, and even scored very well on tests, so luckily I maintained most of my Korean knowledge. Even better, I found out that I have preferred words that go beyond the textbook stuff, but are still correct Korean. I am super happy that the language stuck with me.
This year I want to focus on getting to and finishing level 3 with Talk To Me in Korean. 

German – Get my speaking skills fully to B1 (other skills are already at B2/C1 level)
To get to a certain level, maintaining it and learning everything that you need to know to be on that level is quite a lot. I realised that when I lived in Vienna (Austria) at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025. Except for my speaking skills, everything else is already at a B2 level. Reading is most of the time at a C1 level. I could be sad that my speaking skills are behind, but I am not. Because I found out that I can think in German after just living in Vienna for two weeks! My mind clicked at a certain point and I couldn’t be happier about it! When I studied English my speech was also behind, but once it clicked I started to make big jumps forward. I am between A2 and B1 depending on the topic. But since the click has been made I am not worried about getting to B2 this year. As long as I work hard to keep improving, I am sure I will reach this goal.
However, I decided that I won’t push for B2. There is so much to learn and also other languages that I want to study that B1 will be my focus. If B2 happens, well great! But I want to enjoy and maintain the language for now.  

French – Check my skills and get to A2
Last year I got back into my French studies. Picking up some French here and there already came in handy plenty of times. I noticed that my knowledge of the language was better than I expected. If I would be tested I am not sure that I would get A2 level with all the skills, but my reading skills are mostly needed and that is at B1/2 level.
This year I want to look a bit closer at the French language. I need the language a couple of times for travelling both privately and for work. My focus will be conversations that I could have during my travels and getting to A2 level. 

Italian – Start and get to A2
Here we finally go again! I’ve been wanting to study Italian for a long time, but at a certain point I turned back to French, cause I prefer the grammar rules in that romantic language. However, I want to give it a shot again. I am not entirely sure yet how I want to study the language to be honest. Maybe I am going to do language stacking. Learning the language with French and working my way up. I need to look into it, cause for some reason I personally don’t like to learn Italian from my native language (Dutch). I have the feeling too much is lacking. The same reason why I personally dislike that I have to learn Korean from an English standpoint even though my native language has more in common with Korean. 

Japanese – Start and explore the language
Why would I want to learn Japanese? At the moment it is not my plan at all to speak Japanese fluently. I want to be able to do basic things and that’s it, but I have several reasons why. First, I want to understand the similarities between Korean and Japanese. Second, I want to learn more about the rhythm of the Japanese language. I’m reading more and more manga and sometimes I’m curious why the story is structured in a certain way. I fell in love with the Korean language when I saw a K-drama and suddenly started to understand the rhythm of the language. Not only that, I started to understand the entire series a lot better once I figured out how the language worked.
I have yet to figure out how I’m going to learn the Japanese language. I already have good study books in mind, but I might want to take a simpler approach first. We’ll have to see what I will land on.

Chinese – Start and explore the language
For the first time in years, finally a new language that I want to pick up! Chinese, well Mandarin to be more exact. Fun fact: I always had hoped that one day I would pick up Chinese. I found my study books and apps (soon more about this in my Chinese study plan blog), so I am ready to get on learning. 

Which language(s) will you be studying this year?

Love,

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