Last night I had a dream about Japanese.

I was sitting across from a bunch of idols. Don’t ask how it happened, it was a dream, dreams don’t have to make any sense at all. I didn’t think any of them spoke English, and my (now dead) father was sitting next to me. I was struggling to put together even a basic sentence, so I said something like “watashi no haha chotto baka desu”.

Of course, in my waking state, there’s so much wrong with that sentence. In my dream I was actually trying to say something like “My father is a little odd”, but I couldn’t think of the word (I think it’s mezurashii, so I know it, but again, a dream…)

At that point, one of the idols spoke up, and in perfect English, told me exactly how my sentence was wrong, but then she added something too that I think my brain just made up. I facepalmed, and said to myself “I just had to find an idol who speaks perfect English, didn’t I?” Then I woke up.

You know, this was a pretty telling dream. This is really how I feel about speaking Japanese. It’s embarrassing. I’m competent enough in it to carry on a basic conversation (and I’m not minimizing that, most people aren’t), but I feel very much like an incompetent fool every time I try to talk to someone. It’s ridiculous. That’s one reason why I really have second and third thoughts about putting so much time into it.

But here we are…