Hello All. Firstly, a big “Thank You” to those that sent e-mails of condolence. It’s much appreciated. The funeral was today (later than expected) and will be flying back to SF on February 22. I’ll resume part-time work on TextFugu starting tomorrow, and then get back into full-swing for the 23rd.

Once again, thank you all so much for your patience and condolences, and we’ll get back to normal soon!

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.