Hello friends! Happy new year, and of course, blwyddyn newydd dda! I feel like I say it every year, but I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone. It feels like I was just drafting my post in January 2024, and now here we are. But before we jump into what I’d like to do this year, we have to look back over 2024 and see how I measured up to the ‘loose guidelines’ I gave myself instead of solid goals. According to the post I made this time last year, my goals for 2024 were as follows:
I’d like to read more than 20 books, watch more than 25 films, continue plugging away at both Welsh and Korean (to a lesser extent, that much has become obvious) and have a bash at doing Polyglot NaNoWriMo again. Simple as that.
Simple as that, eh? Well, let’s get started with books. So as of last night, I had read 24 books in 2024. That’s more than my target, so I’m going to count that as a win. Of course, the year before I’d read 34 – so it’s not quite as target smashing as I would have liked, but a win is a win! I did however say I’d like two of those books to be in Welsh (this was a secondary target I added later), and I’m sad to say that only one of them was. However, in my defence, I did also read one book in Danish and one book in Norwegian – so all in all that’s three non-English books, which is an increase on what I managed the year before. So that’s definitely something to be proud of, and I hope that trend continues this year.
And now, films! My target this year was, I believe I’m correct in saying, reduced from 30 to 25. It turns out I needn’t have worried, as I ended up watching 37 films in 2024. Also, a lot more of them were watched at the cinema, which is another thing I’ve wanted to do more this year. So that’s been nice. It’s been quite a good year for cinema, I’ve seen a lot of films I’ve really enjoyed and some that have become more permanent favourites – and of course there were some I never want to have to sit through ever again. They know who they are.
The main change with Polyglot NaNoWriMo, is that it now goes by a different name – the Multilingual Writing Challenge. Aside from the unpleasantness surrounding NaNoWriMo, I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the term ‘polyglot’. I don’t describe myself as one, and I think it can be off-putting for people who ‘only’ speak a few languages, as I do, so I made the decision to drop it altogether. Aside from that little bit of housekeeping, the challenge itself was something of a washout, as you’ll already know if you read last month’s post…
I think it’s safe to say I haven’t exactly covered myself in glory in the same way this year as the one before, but I can’t beat myself up about that now. As I said at the time, there were a series of unfortunate circumstances that knocked me off track, and I still managed to write over 2,000 words that I wouldn’t have had if I never took part in the challenge at all. So I have to cling on to that.
As for language learning, that hasn’t been quite as successful as my other goals either. I’m still working through the same Welsh textbook (Routledge Basic Welsh by Gareth King), and Korean has fallen off altogether. I’ve replaced it with little bits of Japanese, a smattering of Faroese, and even a little sprinkling of Slovene towards the end of the year. It’s been nice to dabble in some new projects, but Welsh remains my focus — and will continue to be so in the coming year.
So, to look forward, I need to decide what my goals should be for 2025. As nice as it would be to say ‘I’m going to become fluent in Welsh and read 800 books’, I have to be realistic. So I’ll go with my usual rule – if I beat my target by more than five, the target will increase. If I fail to meet it by more than five, the target will decrease. As I didn’t beat my target for books by more than five, that will remain the same, but I’d like to read more in languages other than English than I did this year. As I did beat my target for films by more than five, that will increase by five. I’ll also keep plugging on with my Welsh textbook, and I’ll most likely take part in the Multilingual Writing Challenge again. To summarise, in 2025 I will read twenty books, of which five will not be written in English. I will watch thirty films, and go to the cinema as often as the opportunity arises. I will finish Routledge Basic Welsh, and move on to Intermediate Welsh (also by Gareth King), and I will take part in the Multilingual Writing Challenge again in November. There, I think that all seems quite sensible, don’t you think?
What about you? Have you set yourself any goals for this coming year, and if so, what are they? If not, that’s perfectly reasonable too. As I always say with this, it’s the taking part that counts – even if you read one more book than you normally would, or listen to one more podcast, or spend five more minutes working on that task, that’s a win. As always, you can leave a comment here, or you can usually find me hanging around either Instagram or Threads (as @sprakskatan) or alternatively Mastodon (as @sprakskatan@toot.wales). And that’s it for this month! Wishing you all a very happy new year, and a wonderful 2025 to come. And as always, thanks for reading.
— J.
Cover image found here.
den språkliga skatan 