Do Japanese speak English? (Japanese person’s view)

Recently Japanese currency gets weak and everything in Japan seems inexpensive and you may think it is time to have trip to Japan to go shopping.

However, you might wonder whether Japanese speak English and

If you are in any trouble in Japan, you also wonder if English is a useful tool to solve or not?

In this article, I cover the following matters.

-Do Japanese speak English

-Why do Japanese not speak English

-Could you do a trip to Japan by speaking English only.

After reading it I hope you will understand overall if Japanese speak English or not and take it into consideration when you come to Japan for a trip.

I post the same content on YouTube as well, so if you are interested in watching it, please refer to the below link.

Do Japanese speak English

According to a survey in 2016 done by Rakuten a famous Japanese e-commerce company, the person who was confident to speak English was only 8.7% (1,000 people were surveyed at that time).

It means that less than 10% of Japanese self-declared they were good at English.

Furthermore, compared with other Asian countries, there are fewer people who speak English in Japan.

Japanese average score of TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) is one of the lowest in all Asian countries.

Japanese average score is 71/120, whereas all Asian countries’ average is 81/120.

https://www.ets.org/content/dam/ets-org/pdfs/toefl/toefl-ibt-test-score-data-summary–2017.pdf

Therefore, less than 10% of Japanese speaks English and we could say this is one of the worst in all Asian countries.

Why do Japanese not speak English

Comparing to other Asian countries, you might wonder why Japanese people don’t speak English and there are several reasons for that as follows.

English ability is not much required when finding a job in Japan

It could be one of the most important reasons that English ability is not much required when job-hunting and still, there are a lot of lucrative jobs available in Japan because Japanese internal market is very large and there are a lot of domestic businesses among Japanese people.

Of course, some companies require workers to a certain ability in English such as manufacturing, trading, logistics, or any foreign-based companies, etc. but most Japanese companies rather check the candidate’s growth potential and communication skills when hiring new workers.

I know some Asian countries mainly focus on outbound business because their country’s domestic markets are rather small and the situations are different from Japan, and in those countries, English skills are often mandatory to reach lucrative jobs and a lot of students concentrate on studying English to be hired by those companies.

Japanese can learn higher education without English

In Japan, students can study at University or postgraduate by Japanese language only, so they don’t need to continue studying English after entering a university.

English is one of the important subject for exam to enter a university, so high school students desperately study English for the tests and after passing the exam, they usually forget the skill because almost all the lectures at University are done by Japanese language.

Japanese school focus on input of English only

There is a curriculum of English in Japanese junior high schools and high schools in Japan, however grammar and reading are mainly focused, and listening, writing and speaking are less prioritized.
This is because the entrance exams for universities mainly have the subjects of grammar and reading, so most students only study grammar and reading.

(Recently listening, writing and speaking has been measured in some universities entrance exam gradually though.)

As a result, most Japanese who studied English in higher education cannot still speak English.

When the first English subject was introduced in schools in Japan more than 100 years ago, reading ability was only focused because in Edo period (1600-1868) in Japan, the government (Tokugawa Shogunate) had a policy of national isolation for the whole Edo period (268 years) and the next Meiji government suddenly need to accept a lot of western technology and civilization, and students needed to read many imported books to study those. Therefore traditionally English reading skill was only required in higher education.

The old way of English education is still continued till today in Japan unfortunately.

Could you do a trip to Japan by speaking English only

After reading above, you now know that less than 10% of Japanese speak English and you might be worried if you could do a trip to Japan by speaking English only.

The answer is that you would not be in trouble even if you only speak English.

If you go to big cities

If you go to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto or any place where many tourists go, you can find that there are many English descriptions and you usually don’t get confused about many things for example which transportation (train, metro, bullet train, bus, etc.) to use.

If you need to ask something to a Japanese person in English

If you are in trouble and need to ask something to a Japanese person in English, please keep in mind the below things.

Ask high school or university students

High school or university students rather understand simple English because they currently learn it and they could possibly understand some English sentences.

Choose easy words and speak slowly

If you try to communicate with a Japanese person in English, please choose easy words and speak slowly.

If you speak quickly as you do to your friend or family, Japanese people feel scared and possibly give up listening to what you say.

Write your request and show them

Japanese people are not good at English verbal communication but good at reading it, so you may show English descriptions through paper or smartphone to them to tell your request.

Conclusion

In this article, I Introduced whether Japanese people speak English and you now understand the situation in Japan.

Hopefully you will enjoy a trip in Japan even if there is a little barrier of language.