i have studied chinese and japanese and my experience on both ends have been totally different.
as i'm sure others have experienced, chinese will often open there eyes wide at you and say "你吓死我了" (you scared me!) if you suddenly speak chinese at them without them knowing you can speak it.
also i have heard many times "you speak the best chinese from a foreign i have ever heard in my life," even though my chinese is nothing even close to fluent.
lastly, chinese people will often speak off and on english and chinese with me, even though i can't understand the chinese very well. i feel they want to speak full on chinese with me, but i can't do that.
then there's japanese.
even though my japanese is much better than my chinese--- i have never received any kind of a shocked reaction (wow! you speak japanese!) and have also never really been complimented on it earnestly.
i often get an obligatory "you speak japanese well" but it's said, well.. in obligation and without any feeling behind it.
also japanese often tell me "everyone speaks japanese in this town" or "now everyone can speak good japanese." i've absolutely never heard in my life "you speak the best japanese i've ever heard from an american" and i could absolutely never expect to ever be told that.
not that that's what i want. it's not.
though i do want a BIT more out of japanese. i feel like it's always a real pain in the ass for japanese to have to use japanese with "foreigners," no matter their english is good or not. it's an absolute 180 from chinese people, in my experience.
in the end, i think japanese people would like me MORE if i didn't speak japanese at all, which i just think is sad.
i don't know much about other asian languages and how their speakers react, but even when i try to say some korean (which is even much worse than my chinese), koreans act in a similar way to chinese: impressed and happy.
i admit i do have japanese friends who speak japanese to me so yes i do get use out of it, but just they REALLY could not care less that i speak japanese and when i look over to the "other side," and know that if only i could speak chinese or korean or ANYTHING other than japanese that i could impress people and make people happy with my language skills, it's just a bit saddening for me.
thoughts?
i would particularly like to hear from some established linguists. if you know a smattering of chinese and japanese and korean i'm sure you're interactions with all of them will be similar. i think things change up when you start having fluent conversations.
