Some questions when asked have nothing but bad intentions behind them, and this is one of them. Note that there are only two types of people who ask me this question. One is students in language lessons who are supposed to only deal with me in English and my Japanese language ability has nothing to do with them (as I'm not going to speak Japanese to them regardless). The others are native-English-speaking foreigners who want to judge me based on what they believe my abilities "should" be. Foreigners in particular like to use other foreigners to size up their linguistic skills so they can feel superior (or decide if they are inferior). This question is a bit like someone asking another person's weight. It's none of their business and is only asked as a way of judging you.
I won't miss being asked about my Japanese language capability.
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