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Meet Beni, the Dog Who Probably Speaks Better Japanese Than You

This is further evidence that all shiba inus are precious.

By 2 min read

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Beni is the Japanese dog that’s taking the internet by storm and adorably proving you really can.

https://twitter.com/a_t_k123/status/1047984244834750464

This cute Shiba Inu was seen in several videos managing to grasp the pronunciation of a few Japanese words. You can clearly hear Beni yap the words “taberu” (eat) and “hanbagu” (hamburg steak). Yeah, we’re noticing a theme here.

With over 7,500 likes and 176,000 views on this single tweet — it is Beni’s closest shot to internet fame so far. Her Instagram (clearly run by her owner) has gained an international following, with comments in English, Japanese and Spanish.

Beni hasn’t been learning Japanese for long. According to her owner, she’s only been with her new family for less than a year, but in this short time has developed a devout Twitter following. Beni’s Twitter vids get user comments showering her with compliments like “She’s so clever,” and “Genius dog.”

Although other sources report that Beni’s a male, clearly stated in the Tweet from her owner, Beni is female and used to be a breeding dog before she was adopted. If Beni can devote this much time to Japanese study, so can the rest of us!

However, Beni isn’t alone. A fellow canine was captured in this unverified YouTube clip speaking in Kansai dialect. Although Beni’s tasty rewards result in food-related vocab, perhaps this dog’s cries of “nandeyanen?” (why?) reflect displeasure.

The cynics among us may have noticed Beni is only at the repeating stage, but we’ve all got to start somewhere. In her downtime from study, she’s clearly also working on her #instabae modeling career.

So, what do you think? Is this a clever trick or are Japanese dogs a lot smarter than we know?

Article by Arthur Reiji Morris.

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