I have been self-studying Japanese for over three years and have created a weekly publication called Nihongo Yaoya.
What is Nihongo Yaoya?
The name "Yaoya" comes from the Japanese word for a vegetable store, "yao-ya" (やおや). In addition to the familiar meaning of "vegetable store," it also implies "a lot" or "many."
My goal is simple: to satisfy the thirst for knowledge and information anxiety of Japanese language, Japan, and Japanese drama enthusiasts. I aim to help reduce learning obstacles, information asymmetry, and increase knowledge of Japanese culture. The content covers Japanese language learning, traveling to Japan, Japanese culture, anime, language learning tips, and more.
Learning a language starts with small things like the 50 sounds, grammar, vocabulary, and honorific language. Over time, these become ingrained in oneself, step by step, resulting in significant progress. This is the concept of "yaoya" – starting small and gradually accumulating knowledge.
There are numerous online resources available for learning English, with comprehensive platforms like Voicetube, Xuefeng, and TutorABC offering a wide range of learning materials and videos. By searching diligently on the internet, one can find excellent resources.
However, when it comes to learning Japanese, the available resources are relatively scarce. Most of the information comes from fragmented sources such as blogs and Facebook groups. Resources like "Sonic Japanese" and "Wang Kele's Japanese Classroom" still primarily rely on traditional offline teaching or self-study through books.
After subscribing to the weekly publication, readers receive 5 to 10 articles every Monday morning to read.
Why not just manage a Facebook page?
The answer to this question is subjective. There are countless Japanese-related Facebook pages that appear when searching for Japanese language, Japanese, or Japanese drama. However, these fragmented pieces of information are scattered across the internet, making it difficult to consolidate. Beginners also struggle to figure out where to start amidst the vast sea of information.
Our goal is not to share specific domain-related information but to explore the Japanese language from multiple perspectives beyond grammar and vocabulary. Publishing books or offering courses requires substantial resources, and many others are already doing it.
There are already numerous Facebook pages managed by Japanese language enthusiasts, and I am just one of many. Therefore, the simplest and most straightforward approach for me is to send emails.
The Facebook page we have is primarily for promotion and does not have many posts.
How is it different from a regular Facebook page?
However, if we only gather grammar and vocabulary-related information, it may become monotonous. Moreover, the internet, major bookstores, and blogs already offer abundant content, including many excellent teaching materials.
The main difference is that we primarily use email to deliver content.
Email may not be as instant as Facebook, but that's actually an advantage. It allows you to focus solely on the current content. Additionally, email is not affected by external factors, and people tend to check their emails slightly less frequently than Facebook.
Taking advantage of the inherent characteristics of email, we send 5 to 10 articles each week, which can be easily read within a week (or even a day).
Although it may not significantly contribute to learning, I hope that through this approach, readers can expand their understanding of the Japanese language and also gain insights into Japanese culture. Therefore, the content covers a wide range of topics related to Japanese culture and can be considered as material for the weekly publication.
In the future, I hope to enable everyone to easily share their own notes or links, making the breadth of the weekly publication more dynamic. If anyone is willing to share articles or study notes, that would be fantastic.
After all, an individual's knowledge about Japan is limited. Some people focus on watching dramas, others on anime, some have a deep understanding of history, and some may have expertise in analyzing the economy. If we can combine these diverse contents, the weekly publication will become truly remarkable.
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Technical Line
To focus on writing articles, it took me about two days to build the website. I gradually added features, but the basic functionalities were essential:
- Sending emails
- Creating newsletters
- Sending newsletters
- Storing past issues of the weekly publication
- Home page
The entire app was built using Ruby on Rails, with Redis handling backend tasks. For more complex page interactions, I used React, Redux, and Redux-Observable.
The email sending functionality mainly integrates with two third-party packages, Mailgun and Mailchimp. Mailgun is responsible for sending individual emails, such as subscription confirmation emails, while Mailchimp handles newsletter distribution. Both APIs are relatively easy to integrate, and their documentation is well-written.
I plan to add more features in the future, such as:
- Synchronizing article publication with Medium and the Facebook page from the backend
- Adding furigana (phonetic readings in hiragana) to Japanese articles based on demand
- Implementing search functionality to find desired issues or articles
Afterword
I wanted to do something meaningful before graduating, so I started a course on Hahow called From 0 to 1 - Japanese Course Designed for Beginners, where I organized the basic Japanese grammar.
Later on, I realized that the price was too low. The grammar covered in the course, which was priced at 10,000 at a cram school.
However, the results were unexpectedly good. I initially thought that successfully launching the course would be great, but now the crowdfunding rate has exceeded 900%. Looking back, if I had known how exhausting it would be to prepare a course, I might not have done it, especially with the added effort of creating subtitles between two languages.
Reflection
Unknowingly, this weekly publication is already reaching its 20th issue. The biggest realization is that technology is no longer the main bottleneck; instead, it is about generating content. Although machine learning may help save some effort in the future, content production will always be in demand. However, having content alone is not enough. It is crucial to provide a good user experience to attract readers, no matter how hard we work to produce content.
I hope to continue persevering with this project.