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I joined in 2011. Every year or so I remember TextFugu exists and come back to have a look. Yup, this and EtoEto are still as dead as ever. Koichi is still taking money from people on the back of lofty promises that hold no weight.
I know he says continually promising things is a bad idea, but if EtoEto was still actually being worked on, I reckon there’d at least be a yearly update Tweet to say “Yes, we’re still working on it”. This makes me think it’s also been abandoned. He got Viet to create WaniKani, and since Viet actually seems competent, it turned into a success and he doesn’t need to bother with the other stuff anymore.
Time again for the annual event of “Remembering TextFugu Exists”!
If you any of you guys have email replies on still: Hello! :)
It’s sad to see there are still new people fooled into signing up for this site. Even EtoEto has had no announcements since 2017, I think.
Also, I just learned from Tofugu.com that Koichi’s full name is Jaered Koichi Croes. I think “Jaered” definitely sounds more “Seattle Hipster” to me.
I’ve been struggling to remember – what was the name of the first guy Koichi brought on to help with the site? I know Viet was second, but the first guy was great and I was sad when he left.
Hi Michael,
When did you sign up for TextFugu? Did you pay for a Lifetime Membership?
This site has been dead in the water since at least 2015, probably earlier. It was started in 2010, I joined in 2011, and it was great for a few years. Koichi kept moving onto newer and shinier things and eventually abandoned TextFugu completely, half-finished. It seems like TextFugu’s replacement – EtoEto – has also been abandoned in alpha stage (no updates since 2017).
My suggestion is ask for your money back and find a better resource to learn. Tae Kim is a good one if that’s still around, though there are probably a ton of new options that weren’t around when I started so take a look.
Oh cool! What are the book clubs like? What do you discuss, just interesting vocab and grammar?
I haven’t practised speaking since… 2015, I think :D I was in a small, after-hours Japanese class while I was at uni, but since graduation, I’ve had no interaction with Japanese people at all. Speaking scares me so I’m fine just reading and (occasionally) listening ;)
It’s weird to think I started TextFugu as a teenager. Now I’m a full, proper adult and it’s still not been finished!
Hey Luke, nice to see you again :) And Joel, of course!
You started 2011 and you’re fluent now. I started in 2010 and… I’m nowhere even near :D When I started I thought “It’ll probably take about 4 years to get fluent, I reckon”, but now it’s been double that because I haven’t put the consistent work in (for various reasons including laziness, stress, uni work, depression). Good to hear it’s going well for you! What are you working as now?
I’ve been putting in more effort with Japanese in the past year or so, mostly due to boredom at work, as I mentioned before. I’ve gone back to flashcards, doing a deck called Anon 5k. I don’t care nearly as much about doing reps every day but I’m still benefiting. I gave up on Little Charo (a bit boring) and Nihongo Sou-Matome (also boring). I did work through Kanzen Master N3 and N2, plus I just finished reading the whole Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. I’ve watched a few series on Netflix as well – there are a handful of shows that have Japanese audio AND subtitles! I’ve also (re-)played through Final Fantasy X, Ocarina of Time and Skyrim, all Japanese versions.
My crowning achievement this year has been working through the 1st Harry Potter book. It took from February to October(?) because I was doing it in little chunks at work and at random times. I used a great site called japanese.io for mouseover vocab. I read a chapter in English then a chapter in Japanese, so it’s not like I read a full novel from scratch, but it’s been a huge accomplishment for me.
How is your Japanese coming along, Joel?
Yeah, I hear you on vocab. I’m constantly having to look up words but I’m just so sick of doing flash cards! They kinda took over my life for a bit and I don’t fancy using them again. Well, they didn’t take over my life as such, just that I was getting unnecessarily stressed about doing them (or not doing them) and not seeing much real benefit. Some words I just kept failing over and over and it was slowly crushing my spirit a little more each day.
And kanji… I think I spent more time arguing the merits of RtK than actually studying useful stuff! It’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking “I should really do X, but first I’ll just do Y for a bit”, then you never get round to doing X. “I should really read more of this novel, but someone on the internet doesn’t understand why Heisig’s book is actually useful in certain cases, so…”
That’s awesome that you’re at the point where you’re even slightly capable of translating a drama, that takes some serious doing! The only drama I’ve tried watching was 電車男 but that was with Japanese subtitles, English translation, and lots of pausing and rewinding (plus not really listening to the audio properly). I really need more listening practice…
Have a good time in Japan, I’m sure it’ll be great :D
I was about to say the same but I recognise the name Banana Yoshimoto. One of her essays is included in the book “Read Real Japanese: Essays”. Once you get a bit better with reading, I’d definitely recommend giving that book a go – it’s got Japanese text on one page and on the opposite is English translation of most individual phrases, plus explanations for certain interesting grammar points at the back of the book. Like so.
I recently started playing a Japanese copy of Wind Waker, on an emulator so with glorious custom HD textures and all that good stuff. I’m understanding a nice few chunks of the dialogue, but since I’ve played the game so many times in English over the years, I’ve got a decent amount of context to figure out most of the rest. What’s more, I’ve got a table I found online of each line of Japanese dialogue next to it’s English counterpart, so I can refer to that for trickier grammar and the like. Plus 100% furigana! :D
@Tim: Kanji are great! You’ll get to a point eventually where things just click in your head. The more kanji you learn and the more you encounter them in your studies, the more your brain will “get used to” them and see them as words as opposed to mysterious symbols :) It’s a bit like how the particle ‘wa’ is written as ‘ha’ but your brain kinda auto-converts it once you’ve seen it enough times.
@Joel: Yup, still kicking around. It’s nice to see you’re still around too, helpful as ever. Apart from Winter/Kaona and Mark Weber who I’ve got on Facebook, I wonder how the other oldies are getting on. After graduating university in 2015, I kinda put my Japanese studies on hold due to lack of motivation. I had so much free time after uni to study Japanese but only now that I’ve found a job and I’m actually busy am I slowly returning to it…
I started TF in late-2010 before going to uni in 2011, completed 4 years, and now almost 2 years after THAT, TF is still not finished :D
@Joel: Post #50000 GET!
@OP: Yup, I joined late 2010, not long after TF started. After maybe a year or so of frequent updates and lots of community interaction from Koichi (and Hashi RIP xx), things died down and the blog post that kyrias linked has basically been the situation since then. To be fair, Wani Kani seemed to get a fair amount of work put into it but I never actually used it – RtK 4 lyf! “Tofugu TV” was another thing that failed to get off the ground multiple times.
Koichi’s a nice enough guy, he just wouldn’t make a good project manager :P TF was fresh and exciting back when it started but he kinda missed the boat by taking so long with it, such a shame.
Hey Joel, 久しぶりね!! Thought I’d check back with Textfugu after all this time to see if much had changed. Nope, nothing has, should have expected that :D I thought at least EtoEto beta would be up and running, but no. The last blog post here is from 2015. You’re still here helping newbies with the *exact* same questions as well! You could probably have written your own textbook in the time it’s taken Koichi and the gang, though it would probably just be 10 chapters explaining 七人 vs 一人 in minute detail ;)
Nah, not the whole song, just the title.
“I was able to get a girlfriend” – With the に there, I’m not sure that works. To be fair, your translation is what I initially thought too, but it doesn’t seem right to me now.
Googling 彼女をする suggests that maybe 彼女＊に＊する means “to make someone a girlfriend”, though I could be wrong. Does the particle always change to が with a potential form?
Thanks :)
I just started playing Skyrim a week or two ago. I didn’t realise you could set it to Japanese D:
I’d rather play it right the way through in English first though, to have a better first experience, but if I replay it sometime in the future, I might just try it in Japanese.
I actually understand all those dialogue options, although that’s probably some of the easier language in the game i.e. nothing to do with magic and swords and other fantasy elements.
僕に彼女ができたんだ
It’s the name of a song.
I know each of the words but it’s the particles and how it all fits together that get me, as usual.
Help.
Thank you please.
There are a number of new people here who haven’t realised that TextFugu sucks yet, and then there are people like Joel and I who are still around after so long but we don’t know why. But yeah, it’s pretty dead. It’s never been *that* lively, though I guess it was more so a few years ago when TF first started.
SHISHAMO, やなが なぎ and Girls Dead Monster were all pretty good. That girl in SHISHAMO has an interesting voice. I’ll definitely check out more of them at some point.
