I don’t know about recommendations, but I can agree with the update thing. However I will say that I have been away since about December 2011. [My high school offers Japanese through your Junior year.] In that time, the changes have been so immense I barely recognize the place anymore. In fact, I was about to post a topic asking for some briefing about the new stuff.

As far as him continuing to update, I just read his post on the blog about frontend/backend stuff. I’m assuming you’ve read it. If not: Post I decided to comb the comments section to see if he himself had said anything. About 11 days ago, he replied to a few comments that the backend stuff just took a long time, but he had NOT in fact dropped off the face of the planet. As a self-proclaimed procrastinator, I can say there have been several projects which I promised people would not take long at all, and actually took forever.

I understand that it’s been 4 months, but if he’s anything like me, he will finish the updates eventually. Timeliness? Well I don’t know about that, but I don’t think TextFugu is done forever.

Jacqui

• This reply was modified 11 years, 4 months ago by  Jacqui.
• This reply was modified 11 years, 4 months ago by  Jacqui. Reason: Link did not appear

I didn’t post here since…I’d guess over a year. I visit once in a while to see if there is new stuff and without much surprise, there is not.

@Rowen : It is true that textfugu level is pretty low. Just explore and see what works for you, could be books like genki, website like Tae Kim, different deck on Anki, writing practice with lang-8, etc.

@Michael : The reason you feel mostly alone is probably because other people who think textfugu became shit are long gone(like me).

@vanandrew : Not so hard in fact. Yes, there are all the things you say, which is bad. Plus, about 0 deadline respected in 2 years. But on the other hand, you did get an email that was saying what you wanted to hear :P

@Rowen: Does it matter if Jpod101 add any new content though? They’ve got so much as it is, it would take a long, long to actually get through all of it :D

Also, I’d recommend watching those Japanese anime with Japanese subtitles instead, if you can. I’ve not tried it yet myself (I don’t really watch anime but I mean with other TV too) but I’ve heard it’s a lot more effective – if you’ve got English subtitles, your brain is drawn to the English and you’ll be less likely to take in the Japanese being spoken. Still pretty difficult, though it could fun to try, see how much you can understand :D I keep meaning to do this with a series called “Densha Otoko”, supposed to be pretty good.

@Vanandrew: Yeah, Koichi says a lot of things. He also told me he planned to finish the core content of TextFugu (6 whole seasons to start but hopefully add another few for more advanced stuff if he had the chance, which under the new system of shorter seasons would be around 12 up to maybe 16 respectively) by… I think his first estimate was around the end of 2011 (I know, right?). And back when he used to update more often and was more actually *involved* with his customers and the community, he’d frequently keep pushing back the dates for when stuff would be done. If a lesson was to be up “this Wednesday”, you can bet your ass he’d keep pushing it back till it finally came on the Friday of the next week. Don’t forget numerous promises of “5 new Tofugu videos every week”, “a few new Tofugu videos every week”, “one new Tofugu video every week” – don’t get me wrong, those videos were usually pretty good, it’s just that those promises were obviously going to fail. And then there was the whole “Cat Island” section of his TofuguTV series that didn’t get done for god knows how long. And then there was the experiment he was supposed to do regarding learning Japanese in your sleep: instead of making post explaining that it didn’t come to anything (or that he couldn’t be bothered), I only found out what happened to it after asking him about it directly in an unrelated email.

@Reiden: Welcome back haha. Did you used to use a different avatar? I can kinda remember the username but something seems a bit off :P Maybe I’m thinking of someone else…

@Rowen (again): As for communities worth joining, this one! :D As much as I moan about TextFugu as a whole, this part is pretty good ;) I caught up with the material in TextFugu (and thus stopped using it) about a little under 2 years ago maybe; besides a couple of long(ish)-term absences, I’ve stayed on this forum ever since :D Though it may not be the best forum from a technical stand-point, there are some pretty decent people here, even though a lot of the regulars from when I first started don’t really come here much (or at all) any more.

Man, I really wish Koichi did update this site regularly. I do still to intend to finish all of the lessons I can learn here first, then go onwards. It is awesome that he is making WaniKani and EtoEto, but he really should reinforce the beginning where most people start.

@vanandrew: Oh, that’s not a complete list, just what I could think of off the top of my head ;)

Do you remember him mentioning something about a project codenamed “Kuma”? EtoEto seems to be the new name for that. It was a bunch of more intermediate content that he was going to add to TextFugu but decided he could make more money from it if he made it a separate thing :P I think it’s free for current TextFugu lifetime members though. http://etoeto.com/ for more details. It looks good, but like I said I’m a bit apprehensive.