2013 was another great year for JLPT Boot Camp. The site has become more and more popular, and I’ve been able to make a lot of additions here and there to content on the site as well as on Memrise.com. This year, I was able to add the online N5 practice test for free over at the premium site as well as add more content to the N5 Grammar Guide.
Although I haven’t been able to do everything I really wanted to do this year due to massive time constraints. I was looking for a house for most of the year, which I didn’t think was going to be the case. We started looking exactly a year ago and now we have moved in, but still need to do some minor adjustments. It was a fun and interesting process though. I’ll have to post some details about it soon.
Looking forward, there are going to be some minor changes to the site, that I think a lot of people will find useful and make JLPTBC a lot more valuable resource for those studying for the JLPT. Since this is still a mostly one-man operation, some of these changes might come a little slower than others, but I love blogging and helping people with the test so I’ll do my best to push these out when I can.
Introducing JLPT Study Guide Kit 2.0
The kit has been incredibly successful this year, which has led to a lot of feedback as to how to improve it and make it a better resource. I released it last year in August, and since then have made regular updates every month to expand it to over 200 pages. I believe it now provides most of the major tools needed to do your best on the test.
So, starting in 2014, it will be moving into a more interactive format, so that you can lock in what you learned in the guide. It will no longer be just a ‘dead’ ebook, but more of an interactive course with questions and extra material to help you make use of everything you learn. It will still be a standalone book, but if you have the time and Internet access there is going to be some extra content on the main premium site to help you out.
The most recent upgrade to the kit makes it a lot more lightweight so that you can download it and use it anywhere instead of just on your home PC. The new material on the premium site will also be available and optimized for mobile users, too.
All of these extra upgrades plus regular access to upgrades to the N5 Grammar Guide are, of course, free upgrades to lifetime members. Updates are delivered straight to your mailbox. But, you’ll still need to login to the site for special content.
JLPT N5 Grammar Course
The JLPT N5 Grammar YouTube channel has gotten a lot of views recently and is growing (admittedly a bit slowly). The N5 Vocabulary course on Memrise has gotten some great feedback as well and is now a fairly well-rounded course. But, studiers and readers have been asking for a little something more.
So, I’m putting together a N5 grammar course on Memrise that will use the videos to help you understand the key grammar points. It will also include some premium content pulled from the grammar guide. I’ve already laid out a few of the first modules, and I’ll be looking to put it out in beta starting next year.
More Useful Content
The focus next year will be more on useful content that you can directly use for your studies, which means I might have to publish a little less material than I am now in order to create richer content that it is going to be more useful. I haven’t been able to do the tweaks to the different courses that I have currently available because of some time constraints and I’d like to change that.
Also, I do still want to pass N1. I love blogging and building resources, and in truth it is what I’d like to do more than grind away on some more reading and grammar exercises, but it needs to be done and it will hopefully be my biggest focus for 2014.
A Short Holiday, but Stay Tuned!
I’ll be heading to the States for Christmas/New Year’s and so will be on a short holiday. I’ll still be replying to comments and emails when I can, but I’ll probably be fairly busy with my family. So, over that break I’ll be sharing some unique experiences that I’ve personally had in Japan. You are going to be surprised at some of things that can happen to you when you live abroad.
I hope you have a good end to the year, however you happen to be celebrating it. If you have any suggestions on resources that you might find helpful, please let me know in the comments!
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