"I have learned more with his [Koichi's] guidance than I have in 6 months with books and CDs alone." - Ron H
"TextFugu is much more engaging than the hard-copy beginning Japanese texts I've used before for my Japanese Culture class. Its explanations are easy to understand, and the incorporation of audio and video sources teach effectively to the ways that today's students access and process information. Most of all, it's down-to-earth and fun, which means students are motivated to learn." - Joyce Boss, College Professor
"I had not realized how you learn is even more important than what you learn. You have taught me this. Thank you." - Irene
"Textfugu tackles kanji like you would expect any balloon fish to do. It makes you suck up those radicals first and before you know it you're swelling in size with your newfound knowledge." - Michael, Gakuranman.com
Let's be completely honest here.
The Japanese learning industry has failed you and everyone else who's ever wanted to learn Japanese. They're a bunch of faceless, boring, companies who don't care a bit about you, and how people actually learn Japanese. They're out of touch, and that makes us sad.
TextFugu is different. Maybe so much so that people will call us "crazy" from time to time. You see, TextFugu has been written specifically for the self-learners out there. Individuals don't learn languages the same way that groups do with teachers. The problems they face are completely different as well.
Our goal is to make it as easy and efficient as possible for an individual to teach themselves Japanese. We've taken the Japanese language apart and put it back together again (and removed all the extra stuff you don't need). We're also focused on motivation and inspiration. If you quit, no matter what resource you're using, it's considered a failure. This is the most common problem with the self-learner, and we address it head on. Our #1 priority is to keep you interested and happy. After that, as long as the content is good (and it is), everything else falls right into place, making you a happier (and more effective) student of the Japanese language.
"I know a little bit of Japanese, but TextFugu doesn't just help with Japanese, it's teaching me the most effective way to study, and that's awesome."
TextFugu Features
It's Aliiive!
TextFugu won't end up rotting on a shelf somewhere. TextFugu gets updated multiple times a week with new lessons, practice sheets, and more!
A Down-To-Earth Learning Style
Real people don't have PhDs in linguistics, so why should your textbook speak to you as if you did? Down to earth explanations written by a regular person for regular people makes learning so much simpler.
Kanji Learning That's Not Painful
Ask any Japanese learner what they hate most about Japanese, and 9 times out of 10, they'll say "kanji." TextFugu changes the way you learn kanji, making kanji learning simpler and faster than you ever thought possible.
Simplicity As A Feature
As Einstein once said: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." We think everyone else tries to complicate things too much, so we're taking the opposite (and more difficult) approach to bring you something simple and easy to understand.
Efficiency As A Virtue
Time is the most important commodity you can own. If there's one thing we hate, it's wasting time. By helping you learn smartly, your valuable time isn't wasted. You won't find "fluff" here.
Earn Bounties While You Study:
There's always room for improvement, which is why we want to encourage TextFugu members to send in ideas, suggestions, and whatever else comes across their mind. If we end up using your idea, we pay you for it (or donate it to a charitable organization), which means in theory you could pay for TextFugu just by using TextFugu.
TextFugu Is 98% Recommended
Our members love using TextFugu to learn Japanese. In a recent member-wide survey 98% of our members said they would recommend TextFugu to their friends, family, and colleagues. Since a large portion of our membership comes via word-of-mouth, we make sure that we take good care of our users take communication seriously!
Who Should Use TextFugu?
TextFugu was originally created for self-teachers of Japanese, though it can also be found in classrooms, Japanese study groups, and small companies. When it comes down to it, though, nothing has really been made with the self-teacher in mind, including the hardships one goes through when studying on their own. TextFugu takes all these pitfalls and seemlessly integrates it into your learning process, whether you're learning alone, in a group, or with a teacher.
At the moment, TextFugu is perfect for beginners of Japanese with intermediate content coming soon! You can even try out the first few lessons to see if you like it. We'd much rather have happy users than users who have been tricked into buying the product :)
Still Have Questions?
Take a look at our FAQ, or send the author an e-mail: koichi@textfugu.com. Looking forward to hearing from you!
TextFugu's 110% Guarantee
TextFugu's the best way to teach yourself Japanese, hands down, and we want to make it as easy as possible for you to see for yourself. If you end up hating TextFugu after you pay for it, just send us an e-mail and we'll give you 110% of your money back (though we'd love to get some feedback on how we can improve to go along with it, too!). After that, we'll do everything we can to help you find the right Japanese resource for you. We just want you to learn Japanese, even if you don't want to use us. We understand, everyone learns differently (though we gotta say, TextFugu is pretty incredible).
Get Started!
It's one thing to think about doing something, and another to actually do it. We want you to look back on yourself six months ago and be able to say "heck yeah, I did it." Make us proud, young Japanese-learning cricket. Be sure to say "Woo Hoo!" when you click the button below!
