[KyleGoetz]

There are also a surprising number of Japanese people studying Spanish. When I attended university in Tokyo, it seemed that after English and Chinese, Spanish was the most popular (I heard my alma mater Japonica was known for its international studies program).

In fact, on my airplane ride to Japan to begin classes, the guy sitting next to me was Japanese and flying back from studying in Peru or somewhere in South America. We ended up having some kind of English/Japanese/Spanish conversation.