Tag Archives: lessons

Turning Owls Into Lemonade

It’s been a rough week with Smart.fm shutting down (that’s the main thing we used to use for flashcards and drilling), but it’s finally over. I’m so happy to say that all Smart.fm lists being used on TextFugu are now Anki lists.

I know some of you don’t like Anki as much (and then there are those who already liked Anki better, and have been emailing nonstop trying to get me to switch over since forever), but I hope you give it a fighting chance. First off, it’s a little different in how it tests you. Instead of choosing a correct answer, you have to come up with the right answer in your head, display the answer, and then tell it how well you actually knew it. If you’re honest with yourself, then this method is actually way better for long term retention. If you’re not honest, and you keep telling it you know things you don’t… well… I think you’ll know what will happen (so be honest!). Continue Reading →

Fonzie Says “Be Casual…Eeiiii”

As you can tell from this image of Fonzie, “How To Be Casual, Part 2” is up and pretty much ready to go. The rest of this week will be spent finishing the next chapter after this one, as well as the next kanji chapter.

Oh, and there will be some neat things regarding e-mail showing up too, if the other two things get done first.

Readjusted Schedules

Originally, Season 2 was supposed to be finished on January 15 (that’s today), but I want to spend a little more time with it and will be extending the scheduled Season 2 finish time out to January 20. This will give me more time to go through and take a little more time on each lesson (though most of the remaining lessons have rough drafts finished already), add one or two extra lessons for Season 2 (either now or a bit later), and just make sure the quality meets my own standards. 5 days isn’t too bad, I think, and it will definitely be worth it.

That being said, there are a couple of other schedule have changed as well. Here they are in easy-to-read bullet mode:

New Season 2 estimated completion date: January 20
January 20 – January 31: I’ll be spending time looking at Season 1 & 2 lessons, adding new worksheets, submenus, more organization, and more. I think 10 days to go through and improve the lessons will be well spent, and make sure there’s a great framework to build future lessons on. Thanks to your feedback I have a good sized list of improvements I want to make that will make TextFugu easier to use. I’ll be working on:
- Sub menus
- “Vocab-focus” Worksheets
- Lesson checklists
- Addition of “big picture” takeaways throughout lessons to help organize and highlight the important things you need to learn
- Audio for Japanese text so you can practice speaking / listening almost anything
- Copies of flashcards on Anki (for backup or if someone prefers using Anki over Smart.fm)
- Complete “Vocabulary,” “Worksheets,” and “Tools” pages.
- Search functionality for members
- Figuring out how to hide “buy now!” buttons, etc., from signed in members
February 1: TextFugu’s price will go up until the completion of Season 3. New price starting February 1 is $75, i.e. around 25% off the final price of $99.
February 20-25: Completion of Season 3.
February 21-29: Go back and do fixes – make improvements based on feedback up until this point.
March 1: TextFugu goes to full price ($100) and Season 4 work begins.

That being said, 4 new lessons are up, with a couple more almost ready to go up. I’ll still be making tweaks to new lessons, through the 20th, though, so you may see some (small) changes between now and then.