On this day, five years ago, I started this site to compile some of my most memorable things I encountered in my language learning journeys, reflections, and some of the most interesting things about languages around the world. I have seen how my writing style changed, hopefully giving a more reflective take on some posts, and becoming more communicative about some linguistic features.

It was also amazing to see the reach of this site grow. Thousands of readers have explored my site at least once, and using WordPress’ analytics features, it was great to see this reach extending to more than 140 countries and territories, many I have yet to travel to, and might want to visit when this public health crisis ends.

Additionally, since last year, I have managed to finally write weekly content, curated from experience, research (using academic resources), and extra reading. With more than 100 posts officially, this has been an interesting look back at what I have done, especially over the past year. In fact, most of the time spent on each post was not on writing, but on reading, critical evaluation of given sources, and trying to form a cohesive opinion or more communicable text. Making comprehensive posts has now shifted to become a priority, so my readers can make a more informed opinion.

You might also have encountered my Facebook page too. That is my channel where I would try to have a bit of fun posting memes, but it is something that it still in its infancy. Right now, weekly updates on posts here are shared there as well, but hopefully more community-focused posts could be scheduled there as well.

So, now in 2021, I thought I would put forward some updates I am excited to share with you, and build upon what has relatively succeeded on this site!

Firstly, I have been considering doing a site redesign, or perhaps and upgrade. While creating my own banner image, some thumbnails and things like that have been a great exposure to some parts of graphic design, I want to properly revise how some posts want to be displayed on this site. This includes designing a “This week’s post” section, plus some categories of post series that you might be interested in. Another one would be doing up better graphic designs for many of these thumbnails. I am not an artistic person myself, but I would want to learn this skill over time.

Secondly, I want to obtain my own domain. Considering plans on Squarespace, Wix, WordPress etc. I am tempted to upgrade to a more professional plan, where I can get my own website domain, and perhaps, my own email domain too. Expanding the media library would also be a nice perk to support some graphics I have wanted to use, but because of the free plan I am currently using, have cut them to ration these things out.

Thirdly, I have been tempted to explore some of the more paid options on some language learning methods, to see if paying for some premium features is worth the money. This would be a promising expansion to my Method Review series, a series which has exclusively assessed free and freely accessible language learning methods.

Achieving these goals would undoubtedly cost a lot in time and money, and as a fresh college graduate, the latter is something that is not quite easy to come by and have. With this in mind, I have decided to open up some monetary contribution channels for anyone to show their support! Further details will be ironed out in due time, but these donations and contributions will be prioritised to achieve these three goals I have set out in this update.

Considering monetisation has been an iffy subject for me, as I still want to make all content here freely available for all to access, and some of these platforms might suggest a tiered rewards system that I am not quite yet familiar with. Let me know what you think about my goals, and what opinions you have about these financial bits!

Once again, thank you so much for your support. We will be back on our usual weekly Saturday post schedule tomorrow, so stay tuned!