But my Yiddish, however...

In the middle of class today I stopped by a group of students to explain a grammar point. Not getting the gist across in my native tongue, I switched to Japanese.

"Oh my god!" said one girl, "he speaks japanese!"

the boy next to her looks at her quizzically. I keep explaining... whatever it was that I was explaining.

"Wow, he's really good!" she's just spitting with amazement at this point.

the boy on her right interrupts. "he lives in japan! what do you expect? you need japanese to live here."

way to go, dude on her right. it's not uncommon for people over here to be shocked a foreigner who's even somewhat comfortable in their language. while in the states complementing someone on their English would be unthinkable, we foreigners get it all the time in japan

ex:

"Good morning."
"My god, your Japanese is AMAZING"

point being: next generation seems to be stepping up