Japanese

I'm thinking about studying a new language. And then Japanese would be jealous and stop being so difficult. Or maybe I would appreciate the difficulties as a change of pace compared to the ease and accessibility of a Germanic or Romance language. It sounds amazing- all of the vocab would look or sound like its English counterpart, and I would already be able to read. I could just sit down with a German-English dictionary and a German brochure and decode/read it in a single evening.

I feel discouraged with studying Japanese. I bought the Japanese translation of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for my birthday eight months ago and I haven't finished the first chapter. I had hardly started reading the xerox of a xerox history of Monterey that the Monterey Visitors Center gave me by the time I got the Yellowstone newsletter which I have now let languish because it is such slow going. I think I read the title and sounded out the transliterated English names and then I got mad very mad at my dictionary and stopped. The dictionary didn't have the word geyser, the word Yellowstone, or the word Wyoming. And I couldn't use google translate because I was camping. At Yellowstone.

And a new copy of my old textbook is too boring and books are too hard and the only thing that's perfect is my Let's Learn Japanese Picture Dictionary. So I thought, as long as I am never going to be bilingual, I might as well be trilingual. And now I get to pick a language. I think Spanish would be easy and useful, with easy access to books and television. But I feel like I don't have to study Spanish- I already speak Spanish; I am an American.