日本語上手。
I found it funny that foreigners learning Japanese are offended when the jouzu compliment is applied to them. There is this question of whether the compliment is derogatory, insincere, or pandering. Surprisingly, it is none of those. It's quite the sincere compliment. I guess Japanese people don't really care to explain the nuance in this word because people who are offended are not really skilled (i.e., not reading the Kanji) in the first place and therefore deserved to feel offended.
Anyway, I'll just explain all the nuances of every "skillful" word in Japanese and English (By the way, I don't believe in the translation method, so all words have their own nuances):
上手 jouzu (up + hand) : in Cantonese, there is this expression 快上手 fast uptake (able to grasp/understand something quickly). So, 上手 points to the ability to grasp/understand something (with the unspoken detail that it was reached at a commendable speed). In Japanese, there is no such nice explanation. Instead, it means "being good at something" with the vague restrictions:
1. Cannot be used to describe one self. (Contrast with 得意 tokui)
2. Used as na-adjective only, making it a semi-adjective (Contrast with umai for i-adjective).
Skilled : The word skill came from Old Norse skil which mean a distinction (something can that separated/divided/distinguished). So, being skilled means having something that others don't have.
Skillful: Full of skills; or (when compared to skilled) implies a higher degree of dexterity and adroitness in execution, often with a more creative or natural talent aspect.
うまい umai : means skillful, among other stuff like delicious and convenient. Comes from the verb うま umu (to ripen). Conflated with 美味い umai (beautiful + flavor). Regardless, the nuance points to the outcome of being good at something.
得意 tokui : one's strong-point/specialty/forte :: Kanji 得 obtain + 意 intent :: So, it means successfully obtained something that one had intended to pursue.
I think this misses the point of why people get irritated when it's applied to them or perceive it as non-complimentary. I don't get offended when people 上手 me, but I also don't particularly take it as a compliment, because there are other social factors at play that influence the tendency for people to hear me speaking Japanese and think that I'm 上手 other than my literal ability. Many Japanese people have the assumption that a foreigner (including those living in Japan, including outside of areas with high foreign populations) speaks zero Japanese; speaking any Japanese at all becomes noteworthy. To me, internally, this is not noteworthy. So while I believe it to be a genuine compliment from their end--they are impressed I speak any Japanese at all--this does not get internalized as a high valuation of my skill, because my skill does not have to be particularly high at all to receive that. (Interestingly, I've observed that speaking well is more likely to get me a めっちゃしゃべれる than a 日本語上手).
The point I want to make is that, if you know certain variants of Chinese, 上手 /shàngshǒu/, /soeng6sau2/ means something like "uptake". When it is applied to learning, it means being able to take up (grasp) the subject in a commendable timeframe. So, it seems like a perfectly suitable compliment for foreigners who have reached a middling level of proficiency in Japanese.
That is also the reason why when they think that you have spent a considerable more time learning Japanese, the jouzu compliment is dropped.
It seems you are interpreting "Jōzu" (上手) as a derogatory term or a way to make fun of someone, but that is completely wrong. It carries no such meaning.
「It seems you are taking the word "Jōzu" (上手) as an insult, but that is not the case at all. It does not have that meaning.」
Buddy, your comment disagrees with me but its elaboration is a repeat of what I have wrote. 😅
Hi, I might be misunderstanding your previous comment. However, the word 'jōzu' (上手) absolutely does not carry the meaning of 'looking down on people who are studying Japanese overseas.' That is all I wanted to say.
Please don't feel offended when someone tells you, "日本語が上手ですね".
That person just want to praise you. That person is not trying to offend you.
Alright, now we can proceed to talk about where all the derogatory parts are occurring:
1. On YouTube, there are foreigners making fun of their own "Jouzu'd" experience. It's not supposed to be taken seriously. Their primary purpose is to provide entertaining content.
2. In learning, it is good to have a bit of self-deprecation (the mindset of "I'm not good yet"), regardless of the skill level. I think that's a very normal thing to do, and I usually don't have much to comment if that is done in moderation.
3. Japanese people contribute a share of the derogatory, not so much when they say it, but when they stop saying it. Since there is this imprecise definition of jouzu = skillful, foreigners felt short-changed when the compliment is not applied when they reached a higher level of Japanese language mastery (since the English compliment of "skillful" is not used in the same way).
To be fair to Japanese people, learning Japanese is hard for them too. They have spent their entire formative years learning it, and they still have to keep doing that in adulthood. It is one thing to "somewhat know" the nuance on the use of 上手 (a term borrowed from Middle Chinese) and another thing to have the ability to express its full meaning in another (also difficult-to-learn) language. Hence, we arrived at a peculiar situation where a Chinese guy learning Japanese has a better chance of explaining the underlying meaning of the kanji characters used in English.
4. Foreigners learning Japanese get their share of the derogatory (from me), because I said that they deserved to feel offended. Firstly, because they are sticking strictly to the translation method of learning (i.e., thinking "jouzu = skillful" instead of "jouzu = whatever jouzu is supposed to mean in Japanese"). Secondly, for not realizing that the formal Japanese–English dictionary meanings are, at times, laughably inadequate.