"Fluent in Japanese"

I love it when random white people from Cornhole USA say that they're "fluent in Japanese."

It's like, Sure thing buddy, you took two semesters of elementary level Japanese during your freshman year of college almost ten years ago, that sounds "fluent" to me!

You'd think this would be a very specific situation, but it keeps happening?

Re: "Fluent in Japanese"

Another thing I love is when someone is applying for an extremely competative program that involves teaching English in East Asia (JET, for example) and their formal statement of purpose is filthy with grammatical errors. The assumption that people in Asia (not to mention the people reading the application!) are so stupid and ignorant that they won't notice is just so gratifying.

I'm venting about specific people who annoy me, because I'm bitter and petty like that, but I think what I'm actually upset about is the unfortunate fact that linguistic proficiency is not generally regarded as a "skill" in the same way that, say, mathematical proficiency is. It's like, listen. Just because I can catch a ball if someone throws it to me doesn't mean that I'm qualified to teach Physics, you know?