So I learned Japanese through a curriculum designed to train spies and diplomats and the way it worked was every night we’d spend 2 hours in a tape lab listening to Japanese and playing along or responding

And then every day we’d break up into sections of like 7 and spend an hour talking about this assignment in Japanese with a super-sweet, grandmotherly woman who would look really disappointed in you if you fucked something up

(there were also MWF lectures, the two years of college this lasted felt like side projects I was doing while learning Japanese)

Anyway the result is I literally have a neurotic block on pronouncing Japanese in a non-Japanese way, if you ever see me doing that please know I’m not being a ponce.

(the exception is words I pronounced before this - I say “anime” the normal way, so you don’t have to punch me)