Malak Alzahrani

 A young trilingual Saudi influencer, Shadn, has over 100,000 followers on Instagram. She is currently trending in Saudi Arabia thanks to her videos about Japan, Japanese snacks, and her YouTube vlogs speaking in Japanese.

 Shadn graduated from Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University in Riyadh, majoring in Japanese. She told Arab News Japan she enjoyed learning different languages, which led her to learning Japanese.

Here’s what she had to say:

Q: What is the reason why you chose Japanese?

A: “I like languages, so I wanted to learn different languages.”

Q: What is difficult about Japanese?

A: “The most difficult things are reading and writing in Japanese and kanji. I hate kanji,” she said.

Q: What is your favorite anime?

A: “My favorite anime are Fairy Tail, One Piece, and Sailor Moon.”

Q: What is your favorite Japanese song?

A: I like songs from the 2000s.

Q: What is your favorite Japanese word?

A: “My favorite Japanese word is ‘’hope’’. The reason why I chose that word is because it feels beautiful to me. “don’t ever give up hope” she said.

Shadn, who first visited Japan in March, went on a sightseeing trip to Tokyo and Osaka. “I like Tokyo more!”, she said. She also mentioned that Harajuku in Tokyo was her favorite place as she likes to go shopping. Also, she likes Japanese food, especially miso ramen and sushi.

“The Japanese language has opened my perception of life and have given me many opportunities. I decided to study Japanese because it is needed in many places. Learning a language, a culture completely different from ours (Saudi) made me see the world in a different light, accept opinions from different people and always expand my way of thinking.”  Sahdn told Arab News Japan.