You’ve been in Japan too long when you get a nihongo ga jozu and feel really insulted. It’s an odd fact of life in Japan, but foreigners who are learning Japanese strive for that magic moment when people will stop complimenting them on how good their Japanese is. Being told “your Japanese is very good” (nihongo ga jozu) is a sign that your language ability is good, but not “there” yet — if it were really good, the person you’re conversing with would just shut up and talk to you like a normal person. After studying Japanese for four years at SDSU and living in Japan since 1991, I am hopefully as fluent as I will ever need to be, although there are still occasional difficulties like discussing specific subject areas. Once I went to KFC to order a Twister (if you put taco sauce on them it’s almost like you’re eating Mexican food), but for some reason, I couldn’t make myself understood by the girl taking my order. It turned out that she was a foreigner herself, a university student from China, and hadn’t understood my American Japanese accent.
