Agreed, £42.99 is quite expensive for a book. The Kanzen Master series is also expensive for studying for the JLPT. Yeah, it’s good you only had to pay for the postage.

I recently re-watched some of the old Tofugu videos and they’re priceless. This one was very funny at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOYKILSjaBo

@ Mister

Is that shop in London you’re referring to http://shop.jpbooks.co.uk/ by any chance?

The cost of textbooks is especially high here in the UK. Imagine buying the whole Minna no Nihongo set lol.

An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese is considered Genki 3 as it’s made by the same company (Japan Times), that made Genki 1 and 2.
There’s less English in the book which isn’t surprising as it’s meant to be the start of the Intermediate stage.

Just as I thought about EtoEto. Oh well, here’s hoping this big revamp and merger with all the sites does actually happen one day.

Yeah, not sure if the Gakuu offer still applies but it’s probably worth trying if you’re interested in the site. I’d imagine you’d be able to get some out of it now.

Here’s Hashi’s old Tofugu Twitter account if you’re interested https://twitter.com/TofuguHashi
It hasn’t been updated since last July.

I’ve heard of LingQ, but never really looked into it. Is it any good? The layout looks a bit like Lang-8.
Tobira is a pretty good textbook from what I’ve read. Is it hard to find in the UK? I don’t see it listed on Amazon.
Have you looked at “An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese”?

I have an unusual study routine where I will review new vocab several times the first day I begin learning them.
After the first day, I let the SRS kick in and take care of when it should be showing me the cards.
It’s a method that I’ve found useful and something that Anki does well.

Yes, I know of Eto Eto. I did redeem my account last year. I briefly looked at some of the lessons. It looked ok’ish.
I think someone on here (might have been Elenkis) said that EtoEto hadn’t been updated in a while.
That was some months ago now. I’m guessing that project has been put on hold too.

I’m sure money plays a big part in the decision making here. I seem to remember Hashi shared some interesting stats about the amount of users TextFugu had. I think he said there were 2000 lifetime members. This was at least a couple of years ago now.
By going on that number, 2000 x $120 (old lifetime membership fee) = $240,000. If those numbers are right, that’s getting on for a quarter of a million dollars.
Since then, there’s been more members joining TextFugu plus all the members who have paid for WaniKani.
Obviously there are costs involved too such as server costs, business rates and tax, employees and Koichi’s own personal expenses, etc.
I don’t think it would be wrong to say a lot of money has been made.

Hashi left to join a local ISP from what his Twitter account says. This place went even more downhill after he left.
We could do with a character like him around again.

Did you ever buy a membership for http://gakuu.com/ ?
I bought one ages ago for $20. It’s more like EtoEto as it focuses on native material rather than actual learning.
I just had a quick browse now and it looks like it does get updated from time to time. Not a bad resource for the price.

Hi all. It’s been a while since I last properly used the site. A lot of you might not remember me. I still lurk around the forums from time to time as there’s some good advice being given out. I’ve tried to make this post as short as possible, which was a bit hard as there’s many different points I wanted to talk about. I’ve decided to do a TLDR version and a long version.

TLDR Version
TextFugu is a mess and needs major work done on it to revive it. With the right commitment and more people helping out, it can potentially be a great resource for future Japanese learners to use.

Long Version
I first joined TextFugu back in 2011. However, I didn’t properly start using it until early 2012. In that time, I think the only update has been Season 8 and the mini ‘Advanced’ section (which was around late 2012 if I remember correctly).

In its current state, TextFugu is only good for two things. The motivation tips, and the initial springboard it gives when starting to learn basic grammar. I’m a self-learner like most of the people who bought a membership here. So, TextFugu was appealing as it simplified grammar explanations and gave enormous encouragement to keep on learning. Without those, I might have given up.

Unfortunately, other than that, there’s not much else going for the site. Here’s a few of the gripes I have. These are just my opinion and you may or may not agree with me.
1) Dictionary form verbs should be taught first. I understand some people might need to use polite Japanese from the get go, but it’s much easier to work out the ます form of a verb if you know its dictionary form.
2) てーform should be taught much sooner. It isn’t taught until Season 7 which is baffling as it’s such an important and useful grammar point.

3) Kanji. Aside from the kanji section being incomplete, the order in which you learn them (fewest strokes first) doesn’t make any sense. I don’t want to start a debate about the best way to learn kanji, but it should at least be done in a logical order such as the RTK method, or the way Japanese kids learn it. I personally prefer learning it the way Japanese kids do.
Learning both the on’yomi and kun’yomi readings separately is pointless and rather tedious. It’s just not practical in the long run to do that for over 2,000 kanji. While an extreme example, memorising all the readings for 生 alone would be a nightmare. It will eventually cause major confusion. As others before me have said, it’s much better learning vocab and naturally picking up the readings that way. After a while, you can begin to make rational guesses with words you don’t know using the loose rule of:
on’yomi reading = compound words (at least two kanji next to each other)
kun’yomi reaidng = kanji by themselves, and kanji with hiragana attached to them.

Even then, there’s still lots of exceptions which makes the rule unreliable at times.

On top of those three things, add to that, all the countless mistakes I’ve read about in the later lessons, incomplete Anki decks, missing URL links, and basic information that could of been written in to easily avoided confusion (e.g. the counter 人 not being explained properly).

As things stand, I wouldn’t recommend TextFugu to anyone. There’s free alternatives out there such as http://www.imabi.net/ and of course, Tae Kim’s Guide. I’ve learnt more from Genki and Tae Kim, then I have TextFugu. While Genki can be a bit heavy on the linguistic terms, you can easily grasp the explanations by reviewing the example sentences.

When I look back, I have mixed feelings about this place. I feel ripped off as I definitely haven’t gotten my money’s worth for what I paid for the lifetime membership (back when it was $120). I could have either saved that money or paid for better resources. There’s been many broken promises made to us members, and we keep hearing the same old story. Whenever I read any updates on the blog, I don’t hold out much hope despite how good they sound. If these updates are ever implemented, I expect a lot of us will have long passed the content that will eventually be offered. Simply put, a project this size was far too ambitious for mainly one person. With the amount being charged, higher standards and a more efficient service are the minimum expectations.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. As someone mentioned earlier, we do have a nice little community here. Props to Aikibujin and the rest of you who regularly post and help out. The flip side to buying a membership here has given me some benefits. Half the battle of learning Japanese is knowing how to learn Japanese. After using other resources, I no longer need that hand holding that TextFugu gives. I feel a more independent learner. As I mentioned earlier, that initial springboard in the early seasons gave me a strong foundation on which I’ve built upon.

In closing, this place can become a valuable tool to any Japanese learner in the future. If the right amount of money, time and effort is invested, it could potentially help out the next generation of Japanese learners.

Vanandrew joined the dark side. He can vouch for Anki 2.

You can drag decks into other decks. This kind of creates a sub deck.

@ hey
I agree. Everyone will have their own method of learning and way that suits them the most. I think we could do with the whole on’yomi and kun’yomi debate being stickied though. What would be good is if a thread was made titled “Common problems” or something similar. In this thread, all common questions will be answered or have a link provided to save people asking the same question over and over.