how is it... (baffled bee-bee)

How is it that a non-native speaker of a language can recognize when another speaker has a strange accent? MANY times I have wondered about this...it baffles me. When some foreigners speak Japanese, I can sense that it is not natural Japanese. Even on a radio program, I could tell the speaker was a foreigner.

On the other hand I cannot detect the accent in my own Japanese...Hiro says my Japanese is like singing, tee hee. My former co-worker Tomomi told me my Japanese sounds adorable and would make any man fall head over heels. (a sarcastic "yeah, right" was my response) Sara and Mai-chan from the ski trip told me they like my Japanese because it was cute and sounded like a little girl...hmm, I am not too sure that is such a good thing...

Once (in Japan) I picked up the phone and the man said, "may I speak to your mommy?" and seemed to be surprised when I told him I was the sole inhabitant...hee hee.

A REALLY funny one is when a telephone solicitor called to sell me a condominium (called 'mansions' in Japanese). He asked me if I had visited a condo or open house - my reply? "gommenasaiiiiiiii, atashi waaa maaada gakuusei desuuuuuu..." (that means, I am sorryyyyy but I am still just a student) and from his hurried apologetic reaction, I have a feeling I did a good job of pretending to be a junior high-schooler. Hee hee. What a creative way to chase off telephone solicitors.

Last year I experienced a different incident, a rather scary one, and it's the reason why I never give out my 411 to strangers anymore. I called the wrong number one day...I THOUGHT I reached NTT telephone company but had mistakingly reached Nippon Ginko. Ughhh, I still have his message saved on my phone in case I never need it in the future. It gives me the shivers. After he got my home number, private number, and address, he finally told me I had called the wrong number! Scary. He asked me if it was all right to call me outside of official business and I said, "wakarimasen, wakarimasen" to everything...(it means I do not know, I do not understand)...even though I clearly knew he wanted to get to know me personally. Eww, scary! He called me on my cellphone later that day and I ignored it. Late that night he tried calling me again but again I ignored it. It was the scariest thing ever. For the next few weeks I was on the lookout for a stalker but luckily, nothing happened.