Current mood:

amused

Funny tidbit
I'm used to being told that my Japanese is very good by now.
Actually, you can't, as a foreigner, have a conversation with any Japanese without that at some point, they will compliment you on how good you speak their language. Usually at the beginning of the conversation, in extreme cases even when you barely stuttered a simple "hello" with a heavy accent and bad pronunciation. It became that much of a cliché that you even see that kind of scenes with the exact same sentence in movies whenever a Japanese speaking foreigner is involved. Except that no Japanese seems to be aware that most foreigners who have had that kind of experience for a few times don't take them seriously on that compliment anymore, especially when you don't hear it that often the better your Japanese actually gets.

However, this is the first time that a Japanese told me in their usual appreciative and very surprised manner that I'm indeed speaking fluently Japanese. And I barely even had the time to stutter my name in that particular case, maybe four words all in all, probably barely audible against the background noises. Now that was a variation I've never ever stumbled across before, because seriously, "fluent", me?

Not that I'm taking this seriously, mind you, but still, I love my Japanese!:D It's quite annoying when you hear the same compliment with the same wording over and over again for no good reason at all, but when I think of most Germans or French, they'd rather rant about how bad your pronunciation is or just how much you suck at grammar if they care to try to understand at all.
But Japanese? I often feel slightly mocked with that compliment when I know how bad I worded what I really wanted to say, but I clearly remember my first trip to Japan when I was nothing but a beginner in that language and just how good it felt to be praised for the effort I made. It's positive, and that's all what matters when you ignore the little voice that tells you that they praise you for nothing because they don't expect any foreigners to master Japanese at all, but hey, I like my happy little pink bubble at times.