Chinese character goal

I have set myself the goal of completing all the Smart FM Chinese character goals by the end of February—6 months from now.

This goal will be difficult, but I have made it difficult in the belief that this will get me to study faster and harder than if the goal was easier.

At the moment I’m on level 2. Level 1 took me approximately 20 hours. Considering level 1 was pretty easy for me anyway because I’m familiar with a lot of the basic Kanji, let’s say that it takes 24 hours to complete one level. In that case, a robot would be able to complete the course in 10 days. Unfortunately, I’m not a robot, so 6 months is my goal. That means I have to complete one and a bit goals per month—let’s say 30 hours a month. That’s about an hour a day. When I have to work, that's unlikely, but if I can keep in the game, I can play catch up when I have some spare time.

I'm going to measure my progress by saying 50% of each level should be completed by the 15th of the month—50% of level 2 by 15th September, level 3 15th October and so on, and the whole goal should be completed by the end of the month (so far, so good). Then it's just a case of fitting those other 2 or 3 goals in somewhere along the way.

Should I manage this, then in theory, I should know enough Chinese to read a newspaper by March next year. I guess the grammar might be a little weak here, but if the goals work as they should, then character recognition and pronunciation shouldn't be a problem. Seems hard to believe.

Watch this space.