I've inadvertantly created a monster
By Yuki
@yukimori (10142)
United States
April 20, 2018 12:14pm CST
My kids have enjoyed watching Glitter Force and Glitter Force Doki Doki on Netflix, so earlier this week I introduced them to Pretty Cure on Crunchyroll. (Pretty Cure is the very first series in the franchise, released in 2004, but they changed the name of the later series to be a bit more friendly for American audiences.)
Anyway, Crunchyroll only has the series available with Japanese audio and English subtitles. I figured the kids would lose interest pretty quickly... nope. They love it. The 4-year-old got upset that she couldn't follow along with what the characters were saying, so now the 8-year-old is reading the subtitles for her when they watch it... and she's picked up quite a few Japanese phrases in the last couple of days thanks to her efforts.
We were listening to Japanese songs on the way back from dropping her sister off at school today, and she suddenly realized that she knows what some of the lyrics are.
Guess I'll have to watch which languages I swear in from now on... 
6 people like this
6 responses
@much2say (53870)
• Los Angeles, California
20 Apr 18
Certainly it's a great motivating factor to learn a language . . . not because they have to, but because they want to! My 13 year old picks up a Japanese manga every now and then . . . at least she wants to learn the katakana now so she can include the expressions in her manga drawings . . . like kyaaaaaaaa! But creating a monster is ok as long as there is no or not much merchandise available for a particular series . . . I can't tell you enough about the monsters we have here who like their Pokemon cards 
.2 people like this
@yukimori (10142)
• United States
20 Apr 18
....ugh, monsters and their Pokemon cards. Don't get me started on them and the fact that they think that they're entitled to my collection of Pokemon cards. I have a handful of rare (and awesome) cards from way back when they were first released and they think I should share. Nope!
We also had an incident the other night where they decided it was appropriate to "battle" by throwing their Pikachu night lights at each other... 
We also had an incident the other night where they decided it was appropriate to "battle" by throwing their Pikachu night lights at each other... 2 people like this
@much2say (53870)
• Los Angeles, California
21 Apr 18
@yukimori Oh that's right - you are one of the only people I know who still have the original Pokemon cards (almost everyone I know who was into it way back when are smacking themselves now for not taking better care of their cards and keeping them). Do you hide them 
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A Pikachu battle! But you gotta admit the monsters can be pretty creative with their play 
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A Pikachu battle! But you gotta admit the monsters can be pretty creative with their play .1 person likes this
@yukimori (10142)
• United States
21 Apr 18
@much2say Yes, they're hidden in the top of my closet right now. I've taken them down to show the kids a few times, but given how they treat their own cards... they're not quite ready to be allowed to play with mine. I used to get discounts on the packs when I worked at Best Buy, so they have quite a few of their own, and I've actually swiped a couple of their cards to hold onto until they're older. My oldest actually lucked out like I did and got a fairly rare Charizard card in her very first pack. She left it sitting on the floor that afternoon and hasn't even noticed that it vanished.
We're pretty consistently arguing over some of our toys, too. I have a Rowlet plush and a Sylveon figure that get swiped by one of the two fairly often, and I just realized my Greninja action figure is missing off my desk again.
Kids.
She left it sitting on the floor that afternoon and hasn't even noticed that it vanished.
We're pretty consistently arguing over some of our toys, too. I have a Rowlet plush and a Sylveon figure that get swiped by one of the two fairly often, and I just realized my Greninja action figure is missing off my desk again.
Kids. 1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (157463)
• United States
9 Aug 18
Hahaha. Multilingual with hardly any effort at all.
1 person likes this
@celticeagle (158606)
• Boise, Idaho
21 Apr 18
Sounds fun. My granddaughter has found some fun things for her little ones to watch.
. Better than the Occitan I learned from my mother, not spoken by 1 million people today. Congrats to your monster
@yukimori (10142)
• United States
20 Apr 18
It can be! She's been learning Spanish for a few years now, but after seeing how she's been with the Japanese I might try to find a series that's in Spanish with subtitles to help her comprehension. She doesn't get much practical experience with it unfortunately since our skills are fairly rusty.
There's a French series they like called Miraculous, too... so maybe I'll find the subtitled version of that one for them down the road. For some reason I don't think the French audio is available on Netflix right now. 
@yukimori (10142)
• United States
3 May 18
It really does help with fluency, building vocabulary, and getting familiar with the way native speakers use the language. It always surprises me how quickly they pick these things up at their ages, but it shouldn't--little kids are basically sponges after all.
Pretty soon she's going to be as familiar with the language as I am without all the formalities I've gone through like classroom courses.
@YrNemo (20261)
•
2 May 18
My oldest often read out loud the English subtitles from their favorite cartoons to his little sister years ago, when both were tiny. It was cute watching them helping each other.
