My English is so cool! (Native English speakers please read this post!)

Hey everyone! I'm an American who speaks Japanese fluently, living in Japan. Something happened yesterday that got me thinking. I was on a call with a hardware store, and after about 10 minutes, the guy on the other end of the line said in English "Wow, your Japanese is so cool!" <br><br>I thought this was a little strange. I get this a lot. Whenever I use Japanese correctly, people always comment on it. I've lived in Japan since I was 8. I went to elementary, middle, and high school here. I speak virtually flawless Japanese (except for when I start speaking to my Japanese friends in English and forget how to say things in Japanese). But no matter how good I get, I still get comments like this every time I speak to someone in Japanese.<br><br>The more I think about it, the more I realize how messed up this is. No one ever says this kind of thing in English. Imagine someone getting a compliment every time they spoke correctly. "Wow, your English is so cool!" I mean, in English, being able to speak the language *is the bare minimum.* Why is it that speaking Japanese gets me a gold star, while speaking English is just expected? I think that everyone who tells me this kind of thing is just perpetuating the racist notion that Japanese is an inferior language, and anyone who speaks it natively is somehow lesser than an English speaker. I think people need to realize that speaking Japanese comes with its own challenges. It's a hard language, too, and speaking it correctly isn't something to be seen as *impressive* or *cool.*<br><br>Sorry for the rant, but I guess what I'm getting at is this: if you're a native English speaker, please treat your proficiency in English just like you would any other language. If someone tells you "Wow, your English is so cool!", just tell them "Thanks...not really." I want this attitude to spread to Japan as well.