For years (since high school), I tried to study Japanese.
Becoming fluent in Japanese is a long, long process. We're approaching two decades since I started, beginning with the Berlitz audio cassette tapes. (Really? It's been that long? ugh....)
After all this time, I may have gotten proficient enough to pass N5.
N5 is the first and easiest test in the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. (It goes from N5 to N1.)
At least, I could probably pass it if I really apply myself....
Oy.... Yes, it's taken this long, and I'm nowhere near fluent. Of course, self-study is probably a lousy way to learn.... If I was really serious about the language, I would have enrolled in a class and applied to travel abroad, to immerse myself in the language.
But no. I was self studying. As long as I'd be self-studying, perhaps the best tool would be Rosetta Stone, right? After all, it must be a powerful tool for language learning, as it had been advertised on the tee-vee, and that it can cost around $220.
.... Um.. No thanks...?
I'm sorry, I just wanted to learn a language, not drop a butt-load of money. That's a rather bold price tag for a piece of software that I'm not even sure will be worth my investment....
In hindsight, I'm glad I never bought Rosetta Stone. After looking at some reviews, it probably makes for a poor teacher, with users claiming it's very slow and boring.
So then... Rosetta Stone is like a novelty gift for tourists of Alaska: a moose-nugget swizzle stick: a stick of moose droppings polished to a fine shine...with a high price tag.
... But anyway — why did I study Japanese in the first place?
I was an anime nerd in high school, when Toonami was at its peak. Sailor Moon, Dragonball Z.... and later Tencho Muyo, etc.... Then Adult Swim came along, and I remember watching its premiere in 2001, with its first anime Cowboy Bebop. And in 2002, Adult Swim had a dedicated anime block on Saturday nights: it was always the highlight of my week. I remember its schedule: Yuyu Hakusho, Cowboy Bebop, Pilot Candidate, Gundum 0028328 (whatever the number was), Outlaw Star, Tenchi Muyo.
Anime was really popular in the early 2000s. The anime industry finally found out how to break into the English-speaking market. (For years, anime had a reputation as scary foreign cartoons for adults you could find only in the back of the video rental shops.) Cartoon Network broke the mould, by presenting anime targeted at us kids and teenagers, who were a lot more open-minded towards these foreign cartoons.
The Asian Invasion was a lot of fun. Japan sent us a lot of awesome programming. Of course to get its foot in the door, it started with the best the industry had to offer. Sailor Moon was the first anime I ever sat down for and watched. And to this day, it's my favorite anime ever. It had an awe-inspiring story and amazing character development; it was something you'd never see an American animation studio produce.
Over time, the cream of the crop had already been sent. Any other anime left to deliver was a mixed bag. Some good, some mediocre...some just plain bad. The industry has stabilized and now it's no longer exciting. Anime is just "there," along with reality TV shows, sitcoms, soap operas... and honestly there's nothing really worth writing home about.
In 2019, I don't even know what's popular with anime fans anymore. I gave up following the industry long ago. It doesn't spark happiness.
∙∙∙ So, honestly, I don't have much incentive to study Japanese.
After all these years of self-study, I've tried all kinds of different tools: audio CDs, various iPhone apps, KanjiDamage....I gave up on a lot of them.
Honestly, I just got really sick of trying a new approach, only to be treated like a beginner every single time. You can handle only so much preschool material before going insane.... Yeah, I don't need to study kana — I learned hiragana and katakana a long time ago.
.... You know what? This language is just a headache. I give up.
Well, maybe it's on me. Maybe I don't have the best study habits.
Moving on...
... Earlier this year, I was perusing the kids section on Amazon Prime, and I stumbled upon K3. It's a cartoon show about three pop stars going on various adventures.
I had never heard of it, but I gave it a chance. It was a bit goofy and I didn't know if I wanted to finish watching the first episode. But as it went on, something about it just drew me in. I genuinely laughed when the pop stars got on stage and started "singing" before they realized their voices had been stolen by a mad scientist. This kind of show is just dumb fun — it's totally something I would have watched if I were still a kid.
The following episodes would go on to show some character development I really hadn't seen before....
Okay, the three main characters are, well, teenage girls. They're girly. They like pink. They like cute things. And those aren't weaknesses. They still have ambitions in sports or science....
I was floored in one episode wherein K3 meets a little boy who's a fan of theirs, happily wearing a shirt with their logo.
It was cute.
Honestly, that was the kind of thing I needed to see. It gave me a small feeling that I hadn't felt since I first watched Sailor Moon. I realized this cartoon show is something that likely would never have been produced by an American animation studio.
Really, in American culture, pink things, girly things are still somewhat looked down upon. And god forbid if a little boy looks up to cheery teenage girls as role models.
Really, if this cartoon was produced by an American animation studio, we'd probably see something with cringe-inducing valley girl tropes like Totally Spies, a show that kind of made me uncomfortable, what with its characters in compromising situations while wearing form-fitting body suits, or character behavior reminiscent of the movie Clueless (which, honestly, I've never been a fan of). Or maybe it would have been like the Powerpuff Girls, which could make both boys and girls watch it as long as it had enough aggressive rough-and-tumble violence.
No. K3 isn't like that. K3 is from Belgium. From a studio known as Studio 100, which evidently is a popular source for kids entertainment.
You could tell K3 is from a vastly different culture. And to me it's a breath of fresh air.
It's the kind of show that'll open your eyes to how different cultures treat kids. America had a baby boom generation after World War II, during a time of excessive riches, and that whole generation grew up $*&^@! spoiled. A generation of kids spoiled for more toys, who grew to rambunctious teenagers, who grew into adults with the mentality of treating younger generations more like pets instead of young human beings.
But this Belgian cartoon show doesn't have that feeling. K3 is more than a cartoon; it's based on a real-life pop group by the way, and if you'd watch their music videos on YouTube, you may see kids dancing around. You'll also see plenty of adults. People of all ages, really.
This is rather eye-opening. This European country doesn't look down to kids. I get the feeling children are just treated with more dignity there.
And they're not cringe-inducing like Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus only made me groan when she tried way too hard to break away from her Disney Channel stardom with her twerking in a flesh-colored unitard.
You can just tell K3 would never EVER do anything like that. K3 doesn't seem interested in making adolescent boys horny.
I've gotten addicted to K3's music.
Their language is Dutch. ...Well, technically it's Flemish, the Belgian dialect of Dutch.
It's made me want to learn their language.
It's not exactly a spur of the moment thing.... I've always had a passing interest in the origins of English. I sort of wanted to learn Old English or Middle English, just to see how far our language has changed over the centuries, but that never happened.
Some other Germanic language? How about German? (I have a German last name, by the way.) Nah, I never felt the drive for that language.
... Now Dutch? Well, it's one of the closest relatives to English, about halfway between English and German. It's kind of like German's kid sibling (which sounds cute when I think of it). And some words are just fun to say: those wooden shoes? It's called a "klomp." The plural is "klompen." That's a really cute word for a type of footwear. razz
Or there's the word for shopping cart: "winkelwagen." Totally fun to say. I have a hard time saying these words with a straight face.
Dutch also has this thing about making diminutives out of nouns, with the suffix -tje. Put it after a noun to make it "diminutive" or something even mildly precious to you. Honestly, I find this really cute.
Furthermore, I've heard that speakers of Standard Dutch find Flemish (the Belgian dialect) to sound sort of cute.
Layer that with K3's tendency to use -tje, as in the song title "Waar Zijn die Engeltjes," and it just seems so super cute, even though the song isn't exactly about puppies and kittens.
(I like cute things, okay? No shame in that.)
As for what tool I'm using for learning Dutch? Duolingo.
It's a free-to-use app, which feels nice. And it seems to be doing quite well for me so far. I've reached 74 consecutive days of reaching my daily goal. (Actually, there'd be about 26 more days, since I somehow missed one, upsetting my streak.)
I went into learning Dutch pretty much blind, having little to no experience with the language. And honestly, it feels better than my experience with Japanese. Maybe I'm just doing this from experience, not making the mistakes I took from Japanese study. I'm addicted to the app. I may be using it for a long, long time. I hope I can actually get fluent in this language eventually.
Of course, I'll be on the lookout for other sources of study. I can't rely on just the one tool that is Duolingo.
Furthermore, the Dutch language learners seem more fun to be with than the Japanese learners. (I swear, the Japanese learners make me cringe sometimes, as quite a few of them use obnoxious internet slang.... Oy....)
So... I'm not sure I'll be continuing studying Japanese any time soon.
BB Flowerchild Community Member 
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