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この ほん は いくら です か。
この ほん、 いくら の？I think that’s what Joel is referring to. The first is like “How much is this book?” while the second is like “This book, how much?”.
“A bit start and stop at times, but I feel more of an independent learner compared to when I first started.”
Yeah, that’s pretty much the same for me. I’ve started using LingQ now, plus I’m reading an intermediate, all-Japanese textbook called とびら and a book of short stories by Penguin with English translations on each opposite page. I’m at uni just now and exams are coming up soon, so Japanese has taken more of a back seat at the moment, but once the summer starts, hopefully I’ll do more.
“In Anki, I sometimes want to study decks early.”
Doesn’t that defeat the point of SRS? The algorithm is supposed to work out the optimal time for you to see a card again, so if you see it again too soon, you’re messing it all up :P I suppose the same could be said of accidentally missing a day of reviews, which I do sometimes.
“It would of taken less than five minutes to add a brief chapter on counters and why their readings can change often.”
That would have been ideal but he didn’t even have to go as far as adding a new chapter, he could have easily just said “The first two 人 numbers are ひとり and ふたり but then after that it’s pretty much just [number]+にん. Counters are weird, guys, watch out.”
“Even if I can’t make use of the site once the update(s) have been added”
From what I’ve heard about it, the update is going to include merging his current “EtoEto” site into TextFugu. If you haven’t seen or heard of EtoEto before, it’s aimed at intermediate/advanced users and features passages of text with recorded audio and translations, so it’s less about “Here’s some grammar for you to learn” and more “Acquire Japanese more naturally by reading and listening”. TextFugu was supposed to be getting intermediate content way back when, but then he took all that and made it it’s own site instead, the reason I’m guessing was to make more money ;) Even though it’ll be another 20 years before the update rolls out, I’m sure you’ll be able to make use of it when the time comes.
“I think Hashi has been a big miss here. His Tofugu videos were pretty funny, and it was good of him to pop in the forums regularly when Koichi was too busy.”
Yes, yes, 100x yes. Tofugu videos featuring Hashi were always awesome and I loved that he had a presence around the forum, even if it wasn’t as much as Koichi’s at the time TextFugu first started. It’s a real shame he’s gone now :(
@kanjiman8: You’re back! I haven’t seen you round here in ages :D You had a pic of Ryuichi Sakamoto as your avatar, right?
Good to hear your studies are still going well.
You expressed it excellently, the problem with TextFugu. You know, you could maybe try emailing Koichi to see about getting a refund, since someone earlier in the thread said the policy has been changed so that you can get a refund any time. No idea if that’s the case or whether he’d even read the email :P Would getting a refund lock you out from this forum, I wonder?
I think ます verbs are fine to teach first because their conjugation rules are so simple and it can get you used to how verbs are used and the concept of conjugation as a whole. I agree that learning dictionary form is much more important, but there are merits to doing it the other way around. Dictionary form should definitely be taught not long after ます form though, since it’s so vital.
I also agree that て form should be taught WAY, WAY sooner. Having it so late on is ridiculous. I found that myself even on the first time around – I kept seeing this mysterious て form everywhere but it wasn’t covered for another while on TF so I didn’t bother to learn about it properly at that time when it would have been so useful. If you know past tense dictionary form, you’ve got most of the て form conjugation down, just need to learn its uses (and ない → なくて etc.).
Once Koichi started on WaniKani, I assumed he’d just abandon TF’s kanji section, but I’m sure he kept going for a while. It was my understanding that WaniKani was supposed to be used *instead* of TF kanji because he realised it was so garbage but I guess not.
“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).”
Man, tell me about it ¬_¬ It’s not so much a problem for me because I don’t use TF anymore, but SOOO many people mention this stuff on the forum, it’s ridiculous.
I don’t know if I’d recommend imabi for beginners. Yeah, he includes material that seems aimed at beginners, but the amount of linguistic and historical detail he goes into is just way, way too much, unless you’re particularly interested in that kinda stuff. There’s no way I’d have been able to make sense of a lot of that if I’d tried reading it in the beginning stages. Beginners don’t need to know that such and such a verb ending evolved from this or that form in classical Japanese :P Interesting (albeit time-consuming to read) for learners with more experience under their belt but not beginners.
“Yeah they dropped the new girl apparently. I only found out through others talking about it on the WK forum. Nothing official.”
Oh really? I wasn’t exactly a fan of her but I assumed Koichi and the others were. She just didn’t seem comfortable or experienced doing videos. When they first announced she’d be joining them, it sounded like they’d hired someone who was really good at all that stuff but I guess not! Her first couple of videos were super awkward…
“you were being hardcore negative”
Ha, true :P
“which could have potentially scared away new users”
That’s slightly what I aim for, besides just having a moan. I did find TextFugu as a useful starting point for learning Japanese – it built a lot of motivation and set me on the right path – but because it’s kind of barren these days and because I’ve realised some of the methods aren’t actually that great now that I know better, I doubt they’d have the same experience I had. I just hate to see people wasting their money on something the adverts say is awesome but is in reality kinda meh, especially when you consider the cheaper/free alternatives out there. I *am* a little worried about putting people off Japanese learning as a whole, but if they’re going to be put off by one single site *apparently* not being good value for money, would they really stick with Japanese long term? If that was me, I’d have just tried somewhere else :P …although that never actually happened to me so I can’t be 100% sure.
“You haven’t been bad lately”
I don’t go out of my way to do it, making lots of threads titled “TEXTFUGU IS THE BIGGEST PIECE OF SHHHHHHORTCAKE”, I just talk about it when the topic comes up ;)
“That said, I’m still optimistic in the upgrade”
I’m also looking forward to see what the upgrade brings, it’s just that I hate that it’s taking so long and with so little contact from Koichi in the meantime. Also that he’s charging so much for a half-done site (and has been for years).
“Yeah, but you’re also not going to see much benefit from ignoring it either. =P”
So you don’t get benefit either way, meaning it’s either “effort and no benefit” or “no effort and no benefit”. I’d rather take the “no effort” route to getting no benefit ;)
@Jack Kagan: Yup, you can have 0-th, n-th, k-th, r-th, even n-plus-one-th.
No, I don’t think it needs the extra 一
When I type it using my IME, one of the conversion options is 五万四千百二十五. Saying that though, the next conversion option is 五萬四阡壱百弐拾五 which is the same number using the formal versions of the numerals. That one has 壱百, where 壱 is the alternative version of 一
Sounds interesting but I’m all the way over in Scotland; I think the plane fairs would be a little expensive ;)
@Aikibujin:
“You would also need to monitor any youtube videos produced by Tofugu”
You just reminded me that Tofugu haven’t done a new video in while. They even hired that girl to make them more frequently but maybe they fired her :P
This has happened so many times: he recognises they haven’t made new videos in ages and says they’re going to make a push to do more. In the next few weeks or a month or so, they make a number of videos and then it all trails off. 6+ months later, he makes a new promise regarding videos which goes exactly the same way. Do you know that at one point he said they’d do 5 videos a week? Ridiculous XD
I remember for a while after you came back, you were super enthusiastic but now you seem to be coming around to my way of thinking :P
@Eihiko: I agree with zeldaskitten, the community was way stronger a few years ago, not long after TextFugu actually started, when every thing was fresh and exciting and Koichi actually acted like he gave a damn. I mean, he probably still does but he was actually a regular on the forum and really involved with the users. There were many more regulars on the forum and the place was fairly active (there was also a TeamSpeak server where people could just hang out, not that I was on it much).
@Joel:
“Actually, they’re pretty much all over the place.”
As a whole yes, but each individual font isn’t all over the place. A couple lines down on that Google Image search there’s a Sanyo logo – are you really going to see *that* font in lots of different places? If you made flash cards for that font, would you really get much benefit?
@Joshua:
“Another example is き. I didn’t realize the diagonal line and curve didn’t always connect”
That’s the trouble with learning kana online: computerised fonts can have the characters one way while handwritten fonts can have them another. The “non-connected” version of き is the standard way when writing (though there are computer fonts that have the character like that too).
http://www.realkana.com/options/
You can choose to practise kana in different fonts on realkana already. Those are some of the more common styles, I think.
I’m not sure I see why you’d want to have flash cards of unusual kana fonts. The fact that they are “unusual” means you’re not going to have to see them all the time, so they’re not something you need to specifically practice. Yeah, sometimes I see text in weird fonts and I think “What the heck is that one supposed to be?”, but if I manage to figure it out then I know for the next time I see it (if ever). It’s one of these things you have to take on a case-by-case basis as fonts can sometimes be drastically different, although you do get better at guessing over time.
As for the text “drawn with as few lines as possible”, I don’t see what’s weird about that one, it looks fairly standard. Well, they’re not too hard to guess, at least.
Good effort though, don’t get me wrong :D Maybe it will be more helpful to other people. It’d be cool to actually see a picture of the fonts you ripped – most of the examples on Google Images show a remake of the game, with nice smooth, hi-def fonts.
“all updates are free”
Free *nothing* is still nothing.
“the fee is eternally refundable”
Is it though? I thought it was only for a limited time after you’ve paid. Maybe it’s changed since I signed up.
“I’d be happy to write an app that aggregates them into one, convenient newsfeed.”
You make it sound like there are constant updates. People only see these updates by chance while they’re going about their business, I don’t think many people are specifically looking out for what’s new with TextFugu. What I mean is, you wouldn’t want to check an app every day for updates when there will only be an update 1 day out of 365.
@Jason: Yup, this has been a problem for a long time, but what can you do? :/
Yeah, commas are still used in the same way we would use them, as far as I’ve seen. It’s only the actual words that are composed of multiples of 10,000.
“[...] my whole family needs to be damned for three whole generations”
Only three?
Koichi’s explanation of this topic is pretty garbage but then it’s not an easy thing to explain. Your explanation isn’t any better, I’m afraid (it might even be completely wrong but then I might just not be understanding what you mean). は has nothing to do with how the sentence can be contracted. If anything, I’ve seen more cases of a sentence being reduced to just [topic]は than to [subject]が.
Fun fact: The phrase こんにちは（今日は）is actually just a shortened form of the sentence 今日はご機嫌いかがですか。which was a common greeting way back when. Or so I’ve heard.
