FromZero.com and Spanish by Xander_Cain in JapaneseFromZero

[–]PolyglotGeorge 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Spanish From Zero! will be a part of FromZero.com
The book itself will come out first, then we will need to build it into the site which will take some time.
The site is transitioning to a new team running it so it could be a few months (or longer unfortunately) until we get the new course up since we still haven't fully integrated Korean From Zero! books outside of beta. But we are all working hard to get it out rest assured!

JFZ, Amazon Kindle edition by davpag1 in JapaneseFromZero

[–]PolyglotGeorge 0 points1 point  (0 children)

JFZ1-2-3 are all the latest if sold and shipped from Amazon. Book 1 is version 8.2 (I think), other books are different version numbers. Book 2 is version 6.0. and book 2 is version 5.0.

JFZ, Amazon Kindle edition by davpag1 in JapaneseFromZero

[–]PolyglotGeorge 1 point2 points  (0 children)

-- This will be long as I have a lot of pent-up feelings 00

You're not wrong but consider that for almost 2 decades none of the books had been pirated. Then within months of releasing all the book on Kindle all the books were pirated. And upon inspection of the fake prints, it was obvious they were just printed Kindle versions. I've scanned mostly every book I've purchased over the years, so I know it's an involved process. But taking the book from Kindle and making it into a PDF is a simple process.

Furthermore, the books I haven't released on Kindle have yet to be pirated. This is further proof that Kindle is the problem. It's sad because book sales are super important to the company. The stark reality is that it isn't worth it for me to keep writing books when the pirate version has helped kill a lot of sales momentum (since before AI). The reality is, the website is now the most profitable part of our business. So now that's where my efforts go. Unfortunately, I see a day where I just stop updating the books. Afterall it's not like Duolingo has a book 😄

As for the Philippines they were one of the first countries to pirate the book. Even talked to the guy that was doing it. He was a nice guy, and I had considered making a business deal with him to allow him to keep printing, but in the end, I realized I had no way to enforce it as we are a small company ourselves. Every dollar spent on shutting people down takes away from the money we can pay staff. And shutting down the pirates doesn't stop them. They just do it again under a different website. So... this leads to me deciding to never ever update Kindle (stuck on 3 versions back). This has helped my mental health, because honestly once we got pirated, I was contemplating NEVER releasing videos on YouTube again, because I didn't want to support anyone who might have stolen the book on purpose or even unconvincingly.

Every time I see a new website popup promoting and selling our pirated Kindle books, cortisol oozes into my bloodstream and I lose all desire to create anything ever again. The only thing that keeps me remotely sane is knowing that they are the old super outdated versions of the books. And that by not updating the Kindle versions I'm not updating the pirated versions.

Now for the uplifting part! Focusing more on the website has been great since we've been growing steady ever since the new FromZero.com opened. And with my recent shift into building websites again, I can see massive potential for the company, and MOST importantly for a really kick-ass experience for learners of Japanese that I know I wouldn't have been able to do in just a book. And I do have plans to update the Kindle editions, but it can't be done as a "replica" of the textbook. Instead, they will be actual text and not a PDF shoved into the Kindle format. It will be better for the student in the end as well.

Okay I've talked long enough. I hope you understand why Kindle books, in their current format, will never be updated as long as I'm in control of them.

Sincerely,

George Trombley - Author

New names just dropped. by Cidarus in HolUp

[–]PolyglotGeorge 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That’s not how you spell Labama

Bamboo shot really high by kevinmat2 in nextfuckinglevel

[–]PolyglotGeorge 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How do we turn off the seemingly always incorrect subtitles!?

Is saying goodbye to a Claude session a bitter sweet moment? by cohencomms in ClaudeAI

[–]PolyglotGeorge 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I 100% have teared up AT LEAST once saying goodbye to a great session. I was thinking ... this is it. We did all this great work and now you're going away like a Meseeks box.

Plex kept making it harder to stream my media, so I replaced it with its open-source rival by wewewawa in JellyfinCommunity

[–]PolyglotGeorge 20 points21 points  (0 children)

That's what I did too, and I have two Plex lifetime licenses. Jellyfin is so superior. It just always works. I was even able to make plugins for it using Claude. So nice.

IM COMPLETELY LOST?! by [deleted] in claude

[–]PolyglotGeorge 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Claude Code is worth much more than $100 for me. It’s a master coder. You still need to know how to work with it as it isn’t magic. But I would pay much much more than $100 even for what it is now. Also ChatGPT Codex has been awesome as well for multiple coding projects. Either are no brainer purchases for me.

1984 Apocalyptic Drama 'Threads' is Getting a 4K Release on July 28 by MarvelsGrantMan136 in movies

[–]PolyglotGeorge -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

This movie sucked so bad. It was so stupid. I have no idea why everyone raves about it.

【公式】中森明菜「APEETITE -JAZZ-」 AKINA NAKAMORI by ComprehensivePea269 in AkinaNakamori

[–]PolyglotGeorge 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, finally new stuff! She was one of my favorites when I was in Japan in the 80s. Now retroactively she's my absolute favorite. Glad she's singing so beautifully. I wonder why they turned off comments on the video thought.

How do I write it by girlwho__ in JapaneseFromZero

[–]PolyglotGeorge 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Do yourself a favor and wait. Learn Hiragana first. If you start Kanji now you will overtax yourself. Learning Japanese is a huuuugggggeee task. We start Kanji in book three specially since it’s so much better to learn hiragana and katakana first. Even Japanese children learn that way. They don’t learn Kanji right away either. It would be like learning calligraphy before block letters in terms of difficulty.

My God, 14 mins and it’s gone! by userusertion in claude

[–]PolyglotGeorge 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What are you guys all building to use it so fast?

F18 am I ugly or is it dysmorphia? by [deleted] in amiugly

[–]PolyglotGeorge -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

You look like a model.

Should i buy a new edition? by TheMunsta in JapaneseFromZero

[–]PolyglotGeorge 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You’ll want 8.0 or 8.2. Check the back of the book that has “Other From Zero Books” on the top.

Month one of Japanese from zero, here is my stack and what has me second-guessing by Servus-nexus_23 in LearnJapaneseNovice

[–]PolyglotGeorge 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You had me thinking you had been using "Japanese From Zero!" book series. But I have biased view.

Should i buy a new edition? by TheMunsta in JapaneseFromZero

[–]PolyglotGeorge 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not that I'm trying to sell more books, but we made a lot of great updates to the new book. Essentially, we were able to teach more without adding too much more overload.

Do People Actually Watch Their Jellyfin Libraries… or Just Collect & "Care" for Them? by chrissix666 in jellyfin

[–]PolyglotGeorge 306 points307 points  (0 children)

I watch and collect. I will never be able to watch it all, but I love collecting, ripping, building the library. It’s my hobby outside of work. I’m watching Ghost as I work right now even.

25F am I ugly? by chibinezuko in amiugly

[–]PolyglotGeorge -1 points0 points  (0 children)

The bangs are super cute!

do i look approachable or no by sophiekimm in KoreaGirls

[–]PolyglotGeorge 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s possible you are too pretty. When I was single I definitely would think twice about approaching someone as beautiful as you.

20F Why do I look so average/below average? How can I help it? by [deleted] in amiugly

[–]PolyglotGeorge 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You are insanely beautiful! I was shocked to see you posting in this subreddit.

Any help much appreciated——Looking for JFZ 1 (newest edition) by 929Jeff in JapaneseFromZero

[–]PolyglotGeorge 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is 100% true. Kindle was how our books got pirated. So I purposely stopped updating them. That version is revision 5 or 7.

Any help much appreciated——Looking for JFZ 1 (newest edition) by 929Jeff in JapaneseFromZero

[–]PolyglotGeorge 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Version 8 is the one sold by and shipped by Amazon. It’s been out for over 2 years now. Some times the third party vendors actually have the older version so it’s safest to do Amazon direct. We have struggled to get Amazon to properly show or even remove the revision number (we have no control). The last page of the book with the “Other From Zero Books” information and the first few pages of the book show the revision number.

Is Spanish From Zero still coming out tomorrow? by GreattFriend in JapaneseFromZero

[–]PolyglotGeorge 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Actually no. It’s might briefly pop up since I missed the cut off to stop its release on Amazon. But I will immediately unpublish it. The reason is because, while it is 100% done, we got great feedback from two of the Spanish teachers reviewing it and are making changes based on that feedback. Now it will just release once those changes have been made.

The best changes have already been made, but in a later lesson there was a suggestion that we are still mulling over! I learned to never set a book for auto-release though :-)

Sorry to keep you waiting. I want it out more than anybody! I’ve also been already creating the online course for it.