It started as an extension to Japanese language learning in college but grew into an international endeavor to teach people Japanese. The blog, Koichiben, has evolved into three distinct offerings that all relate back to a central topic: Japan.

Koichiben

Koichi (he prefers to go by his middle name) is a melting pot of ethnicity, part Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Irish and more, with glasses and a faint mustache. He began blogging in Japanese as part of a self-study Japanese project. His blog, Koichiben (ben being the Japanese marker for a dialect of language or accent), tried to plot the American experience for those in Japan. It describes holidays, like Thanksgiving and Halloween, and other information in an often humorous manner across a range of media, including text and YouTube videos. Every so often, he would write a post in English, which he says garnered more hits. Eventually, this lead him to create two separate entities, one describing American culture to Japanese speakers, the other Japanese culture to English speakers.

Tofugu

Offering a series of blog and video posts, Tofugu teaches Japanese faux pas and other cultural nuances to Japan enthusiasts. Tofugu itself is a play on the words “tofu,” formed soy bean curds, and “fugu,” or blowfish. It’s an amalgam of things that are foreign and yet familiar. Koichi says people’s reactions have overwhelmingly been positive.

“I think it’s been really good because we’ve really focused on trying to write things that are useful,” he says via Skype. “Even if they’re supposed to be more entertainment, we try to make it more education[al] and [in] more of a fun way different from what most people are doing.”

Despite some positive reception, Koichi says he didn’t know what to do after graduating from Willamette University in Salem, Ore., in 2008. “I thought, ‘OK. I’m going to try being a pro blogger and see how that works.’”

At first, it didn’t. He says the $700 – $800 earned through advertising revenue couldn’t pay the bills. Luckily, an online education startup got wind of his work and recruited him for its marketing department. The startup, which developed live online video courses, provided him a great learning experience, up until the money ran out and the staff was let go.

“I thought I’d give it a shot again,” he says of blogging for Koichiben and Tofugu, “ and that’s when things really took off.”

TextFugu

This was in January 2010, following the lay off and the creation of his third brand, TextFugu. “So TextFugu started when I didn’t have a job, and I had to figure out something to do,” he explains. “And I’d always wanted to make an online textbook, so that was the greatest opportunity, when I had a lot of time right after that.”

Utilizing the ad base and community generated from Tofugu, Koichi says TextFugu took off quickly from there. Currently, he says around 3,400 people pay between $20 per month or $120 for a lifetime membership to TextFugu, and it keeps growing.

Unlike other methods of self-taught language materials, TextFugu is “more about keeping people motivated and keeping people from getting stuck, which I think is one of the main reasons why people just stop learning something …”

TextFugu is separated into various seasons (six as of this writing) that are further broken up into lessons and then chapters. The first season is available for free and describes the fundamental principles of what TextFugu sets out to do. It also provides a brief introduction to the Japanese alphabets and a list of the available resources on the website. Subsequent seasons require a membership, but give users access to community forums, which seem to be the greatest resource for exchanging current Japanese knowledge and questions with others.

“I’m not saying it’s better than them,” Koichi says of other self-teaching resources, such as Rosetta Stone, “but it’s just a different sort of way about learning that clicks really well with some people and doesn’t click with other people.”

Tyler LeBrun, a doctoral student in Osaka University’s Department of Mechanical Science and Bioengineering, says he became a member of TextFugu near the beginning, when a sale on a lifetime membership made it too good to pass over. He says via email that, while the content on TextFugu thus far doesn’t match his more advanced level of Japanese ability, “… the website has been useful as a reviewing tool to follow up with and ensure my understanding of the material already learned.”

TextFugu isn’t an accredited source of language learning, Koichi admits, although he says it doesn’t really matter. “Every once in a while,” he says, “someone will ask, ‘What’s your background? How long have you been teaching?’ And I’ve got to be honest – not very long.”

Most of the users on the site are in their 20s, he says, and don’t look for things like certificates or a resume attached to a resource like older people might. “It’s getting to the point where you can be an ‘expert’ in something without having accreditations,” Koichi says. “I’ll write something on Tofugu and hundreds of thousands of people will read it, and if I put something out in a research journal, or something, which is the stereotypical ‘expert’ sort of thing to do, maybe 20, 30 people might read it.”

LeBrun says he’s recommended TextFugu to others. “For native English speakers who are of a certain generation,” he says, “the inside jokes, writing style and content delivery is an enjoyable way to begin learning Japanese.”

“I think who’s an expert is changing as people get on the Internet more,” Koichi explains. “So I’m relying on the young people to have a different standard.”

Tofuvolution

Koichi’s three endeavors rack up over 8.1 million views on YouTube and almost 44,000 subscribers. He runs these brands with his first full-time hire, Hashi, and recent programmer addition, Viet, in their Portland, Ore., office. Moving forward, Koichi wants to add more community features, “since I think TextFugu has a long ways to go before it’s where I want it to be. And so that has a lot of room for expansion.”

One way LeBrun would like it to expand is to include some kind of feedback mechanism. He says there’s no way for students to know if their pronunciation and grammatical constructions are acceptable, although, “The complementing YouTube videos to the written lessons are a step in the right direction …”

LeBrun believes in a multi-pronged approach to learning, utilizing a variety of different sources that teach the same subject. “TextFugu is just one tool to tackle this problem,” he says, “and a good one at that.” He says he’ll continue to use TextFugu, along with other resources, to achieve a better level of Japanese language skills to make his time studying in Japan the best it can be.

“I want it to be, if you’re going to learn Japanese, when someone asks, ‘Oh, what should I do? Where should I read?’ I want people to always say, ‘Oh, you should go to Tofugu first,’” Koichi explains. “And then wherever they go from there is up to them, but that’s kind of my overall goal.”

Photo: Provided by Koichi.

Tags: Japanese, Koichi, Koichiben, language, TextFugu, Tofugu