18 comments

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  Erin

  1 year ago

  Uuh, I was wondering, does anyone want my AIM/MSN?
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  Mathias

  1 year ago

  Great news! :)
  
  Let me please give my opinion about the changes.
  
  Regarding the account thing: If you have cookies enabled you do not actually have to type in your name and address each time, it is saved automatically. However, with avatars the whole thing makes sense.
  
  If it comes to the theme, to be honest, i liked the old one better. Mainly due to its color it looked kind of.... i don't know... more inviting and friendlier, i guess. Also that square fish, which really looks neat, has lost the focus in your header because of the the dark background. Well, it's a matter of taste anyway.
  
  I'm sure the guest writers will help to make this blog even better than it already is.
  
  Mostly I'm looking forward to Tofugu Live Japanese Lessons!
  Trying to create real lectures is a noble goal, though it might be hard to live up to your readers' expectations. Simply because teaching isn't too easy in my eyes. However, if you are good at it please give it a try, because I'd really like to see that. In that case you would have to start from a rather low level and begin teaching the basics, since there are way more people who want to start learning Japanese than people who actually did it.
  
  Personally i'd also like to see you reporting about modern Japanese language as spoken by the youth, even though it might contain not so proper Japanese (slang). Maybe you could try to combine cultur and traditions with language lessons by reporting about certain Japanese traditions and explain some Japanese terms alongside. Like if your talking about food, tell us what "to eat" means, and how certain dishes are called. If you talk about tv, tell us what "to watch TV" means and so on. Well, i don't know if that's a good approach, i'll leave that to you. :-P
  
  Just my two pounds of cents. ^_^
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  Onimusha Nosferatu

  1 year ago

  nice upgrade. my only issue w/ the old comments was that you couldn't edit comments so one would have to write a new comment. i look forward to the forum. can you make some advanced lessons in addition to beginner jps lessons. most ppl i see who make lessons only do it for beginners. i'm particularly interested in slang/rough speech. i wanna be a like the cool yakuza. haha. going along w/ mathias's idea there are videos on youtube called "the japanese tradition." you may have seen them, i think they're funny. they mix culture stuff w/ some vocabulary, but it's not 100% correct b/c it's by this comedy group. i'd take erin's or anybody elses msn, but i don't have anything in particular to talk about. i miss using it. most of my friends use aim now even thouh msn is better.
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  Erin

  1 year ago

  I agree about the color scheme. I think our old one had a little more character, but it wasn't "clean enough", eh?
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  koichi

  1 year ago

  @Mathias
  Yeah, I think that this one is, at least, more web2.0, whereas the first one was a little less "savvy" - I do agree with Mathias, though, it needs to be made a little more friendly. Perhaps I'll play with the colors a bit and lighten things up. I like your idea for articles about/lessons/tv about japanese youth style language. Sadly, my slang/youth speak is 3-4 years old. Perhaps I can get some of my Japanese friends in on the action and they can tell us what "the kids are doin' these days"....yo yo.
  
  @Onimusha
  I'm working on some higher level lessons. They're just so much harder to prepare than the beginner ones, because I'm learning it at the same time as I write them :)
  
  Thanks for the comments so far, We really do listen to them, so keep them coming. They're all really good!
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• 

  Fredy

  1 year ago

  Yay it's fixed! It sucks about the comments thing! Good luck getting that to work again! I like the new layout, but it isn't as inviting. I still like it better though... it seems more advanced or professional. Good luck on everything! Especially when more people start reading and joining! I know it takes a lot of time and work to get this stuff done.
  
  As for Live Lessons? How would those be done? I mean... would it be like through Stickam or something?
  
  PS: The Eyoung site down there, I just noticed it. I clicked on it, and somehow I accidently clicked on an image, and I got a trojan from a picture... :(
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  koichi

  1 year ago

  @Fredy
  Sad about the trojan. I just deleted it, and left the important references. And live lessons would be done through stickam, I imagine. Thanks for letting me know about the footer, I didn't think people looked at that :P
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  Daniel

  1 year ago

  Sweet! Japanese Lessons! I know the basics and stuff, but being teached by koichi... That's one of my dreams. We'll, I'd say we want a lesson that teaches us Americans what to say this and that, and some culture lesson too.
  
  
  Well, I'm not american, I'm more Mexican. :)
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  Josh

  1 year ago

  with the live japanese lesson thing just give us the full nine yards.No better yet the full football field.lol
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  Viet

  1 year ago

  Be cool. Participate in the Flickr group.
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  Viet

  1 year ago

  Mathias is cool :)
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  Mathias

  1 year ago

  Haha I agree on that one. B)
  
  By the way, what is going to appear below the “Yahoo!” heading in the sidebar?
  
  One last time regarding the old theme, being not "so clean" was what I personally liked about it. It looked a bit frisky. ^_^
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• 

  koichi

  1 year ago

  @Mathias
  Are you using Internet Explorer 6? That column has been giving me trouble in only some versions of IE6 (though for some reason it works fine in some, and not others). If you are, then it's time to switch to Firefox. If you are using something newer, then something is going wrong, and I don't know about it :(
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  Mathias

  1 year ago

  I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.5 and i see nothing. There are several JavaScript errors displayed, maybe that's the problem. However, i've found out that there should be ads, i don't mind if i can't see them. ^^ I suppose the problem is on my side of the line, so don't worry.
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  Mathias

  1 year ago

  It's pretty weird. Sometimes the ads are displayed, sometimes not. I can see the ads on your recent Japanese lesson, but not on this page and your most recent article Restaurant: Ninja Akasaka.
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  koichi

  1 year ago

  @mathias
  yeah, i see what you're talking about now, though the ads show up every time for me, not that I can click on them anyways. I'm getting a couple of javascript errors, depending on where I go - thanks for letting me know, i'll take a shot at it tonight.
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  Brian Middleton

  1 year ago

  hey, nice update. And I'm really looking forward to the japanese lessons. I've been teaching myself japanese for about 6 months and I think this could really help me. And the lessons could have a few vocab, a verb here and there. a verb ending, and maybe a small conversation with someone (formal and casual). I know I might be sounding a little pushy but I think these are good suggestions, unless, everyone else thinks they aren't. Well that's all.
  
  Keep it up!
  
  jaa ne!
  
  oh, and I would really like to write for the website. I want to be a journalist, and I would love all the practice/experience I can get. And if I did submit something, what should it be about?
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  Antonio Pratas

  1 year ago

  The live lessons look really nice (Koichi must remember me when I tried to trade Japanese lessons with Portuguese lessons in Koichiben :p).
  
  Being a beginner, I'd like to know the basics of the language, start from the beginning and then some vocabulary and verbs, specially the most important ones. But this is my point of view, it's obvious that what the majority wants is the best, since it will guarantee you more visits.
  
  Awesome layout and really cool comments design, it beats the old one, and the gravatar support is nice, I like to see who's talking.
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