In the context of chatting with someone whom you have never met before, Japanese always give you the courtesy of complimenting your language skills. In a non-business context, my response is sometimes 「いやいや、不束者{ふつつかもの}です、私。」That almost always gets a smile out of the person that I am addressing.
I'd always assumed that using the word 「不束者」 demonstrated that, while my grammar is extremely poor, I have made the effort to memorize strange vocabulary. It is a backhanded self-compliment (if your Japanese were poor, then you would not know such a word), and that causes the smile. But, now I am thinking that my usage of 「不束者」 is so wildly out of context, it just sounds ridiculous.
So, is saying 「いやいや、不束者です、私。」 a clever sounding way to decline a compliment? Or, does it just sound comical?
