super hyper awesome

as anyone who has tried can surely attest, attempting to learn a new language is a bit like a righteous bout of heavy drinking: the more you consume, the greater you feel and more amazing you think you are, when of course in reality you are making a right ass of yourself

in Japan however, any attempts to do anything that is even remotely language-ish and not downright rude is met with praise and fawning.
For example:
Me: "hello." (translated from the Japanese with the most wonderful skill)
Them: "ohhhhh!! Wonderful, I'm surprised how skilled and intelligent you are!" (again, translated fabulously with wondrous accuracy)
Me: "I only said hello."
Them: "Nonono, you're really good. Isn't he good? Wow. You're really learning fast!"

of course, this sort of character building session only occurs among work associates...the situation is slightly different when among the commons of the land, on the train, in les restaurants, etc. In fact, the commoners' response is almost the polar opposite of the work associates. Any foreigner who speaks any Japanese at any time to anyone, irrespective of the situation, regardless of skill and even after living in the country for years, will not be understood until his or her Japanese friend repeats, word for word and with identical inflection, exactly what has been said in exactly the same way...only then does the native speaker recognize the speech act as "Japanese", and only then will he or she enter in to the "conversation"...but even then and no matter who responds to the native speaker, the native speaker will only look at and speak to the Japanese friend...everyone else is clearly an insidious hallucination, designed to confuse and bewilder the poor native into thinking there are others present, when in fact, there aren't...