Quote:
Originally Posted by evanny
i dont remmember from where but i heard this statment that..well japanese in general actually do not speak english well or any other language at all. i know that this probably isnt the case in this forum, but the idea is since the nation is big that more or less they are like americans, english, french or russians who simply do not have the need to learn other languages like, for example, were in estern europe its normal for a person to speak 2 or 3 languages.
so it got me wondering...is there any truth to this?
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It's true: most Japanese do not speak English well at all.
I know a few my age who speak excellent English and a few who speak decent French/Spanish.
There are highly educated people who speak great English or other languages, though. I heard a few corps there are instituting policies requiring English in board meetings. Uniqlo, Sony, and a few others come to mind.
But just like in the US, the average Japanese person does not speak a second language well at all. But at least the average Japanese knows a few words of English. The average American may know "hola" and "taco" or something.
But, to be fair, it's easy to be very successful in either country while only knowing the home language, so there's not a lot of real
reason to learn a second, until you travel up Maslow's hierarchy of needs.