Newly updated and soon to come out in paperback, Japanese Reader Collection Volume 2 now includes a revised Momotaro story and The Tortoise and the Hare. A download link for the MP3s of the story is also included.
Just for fun, see how CJ Martin went from this:
to this:
Click to read about the process on his blog.
(The Temporal, a thriller by CJ Martin and in English is FREE now for Kindle.)
TheJapanesePage.com has a new face! If you have been a regular visitor to TJP you know we’ve been trying to improve the site for quite some time now–over three years. We’ve tried several web design firms and spent waaay too much money (for a free site), but nothing seemed to work the way we wanted–I’m sure a lot of this is because of my poor managerial skills.
Thanks to Phreadom (a long time member and maestro web designer), we have a new look:
This time, I think we have a keeper. There are still a few issues to work out, but take a look at the new TJP. Kick the tires and let us know if anything falls off.
I think I blogged that I had joined Twitter a few weeks ago, but we are going to really start using it as a promotional device starting yesterday.
For the rest of the month, we will be posting special Twitter-only coupons and promos good at TheJapanShop.com. If you are interested, please follow us!
I was looking at the stats for the download section and was amazed to see how many people have downloaded files.
The average file rating is 4.042 out of 5 stars
There are 47 files in the database
There has been a total of 57,555 downloads
The newest file is Japanese Beginner Phrases Podcast 9
The highest rated file is Chapter 5 with a rating of 5 out of 5 stars
The lowest rated file is Listening Practice #2: Golden Week with a rating of 2 out of 5 stars
The most downloaded file is Grammar PDF: Hou ga ii with 4,339 downloads
The least downloaded file is Japanese Beginner Phrases Podcast 9 with 12 downloads
The average number of downloads each file has is 1,224.574
Note: The links above are direct links, but it is ‘prettier’ to find them through the main download page: HERE
We have 47 files for download. Many of these are ebooks with audio, but there are a few PDF lessons and other miscellaneous items.
I’ve been working with Brian Franklin for the past few weeks on creating an article for TheJapanesePage.com and listing his new CD at TheJapanShop.com.
The 尺八 shakuhachi is a Japanese bamboo flute often heard at festivals and recently on TV and film–The Last Samurai, for example.
His article finally went live a few minutes ago here. And I listed his brand new CD earlier today here. So I feel pretty good about a days worth of work. 🙂
If you are at all interested in Japanese traditional music, please checkout both the article and the CD. Brian does much to introduce the instrument to his Western audience. If you like his work, please consider supporting him by buying his CD or giving him a holler at his website.
There is a performance issue. This means, the site is running a heavy load all too often. It is the same server as before but with different software and databases.
We think it has something to do with the new forum. The techs will work on optimizing the forum database and we’ll see…
Other than that and a few other small glitches, it looks pretty good. I’ll wait until we figure out the performance issue before making a formal announcement. 🙂
In the mean-time, check out the new (possibly slow) site: http://www.thejapanesepage.com
I’m sitting here biding my time and biting my nails waiting for the two developers to fill me in what’s happening. They are working hard at backing up, converting, and then restoring user data, blog data, group data, and forum data. This is a huge and complicated job, but it looks like it will be done tonight! We should have a brand new TheJapanesePage.com very soon!
More to come…
