Intentions for Spanish in 2009

Now that I’m back from Spain I have many things to think about. These two weeks were mainly to visit friends which I haven’t seen for almost a year, but it turned out to be a trip full of practicing Spanish and polishing my skills. Because of this, I had to change my New Year intentions a bit, which I’ll point out below.

• Last year my main goal was to tackle my screwed up pronunciation. This worked out well and natives say that my pronunciation is pretty much flawless. However, it seems that I can’t get rid of my accent (my intonation is still way too Dutch), so my goal for 2009 will be to reduce this to a minimum (I don’t really care if there’s still a slight accent in the end, but it has to be at a minimum).
• Immerse myself more. Because of some college subjects that require a heavy use of Dutch and because I still have friends and family that can’t or refuse to speak Spanish, there were times I found it hard to immerse myself as much as I wanted. This is something what will change (intention is the bad word because it WILL change).
• Spend less time with non-Spanish speaking people. This includes friends and may seem cruel, but is necessary to become near-native fluent.
• Become near-native fluent. I know it’s possible, so it has to happen. Real fluency is in sight…
• Spend more time in Spain. This one will be easy as I have an internship lined up in Spain which will be for about three months.
• Listen more audio books instead of music.
• Add more cards to Anki, and not just rely on the things I already know. For this I’ll reserve some serious time each and every day.
• Let it be that my intenstions aren’t intentions but simply things on my to-do list (which always need to be done).

What are your intentions for 2009?