What are the most popular foreign languages in Japan?
 

Besides the mandatory English,

What would be the list of foreign languages taught in schools by their popularity?

A survey from 2007 says:

Masaegu, do you know what the age group of the survey is? Do you have any details on it?

I was actually surprised to see that 26% apparently don't have any interest in learning another language.

Actually, I'm surprised to see that 74% are interested!

In America;
* More than 200 million children in China are studying English, a compulsory subject for all Chinese primary school students. By comparison, only about 24,000 of approximately 54 million elementary and secondary school children in the United States are studying Chinese.

* According to the Center for Applied Linguistics, only 31% of American elementary schools (and 24% of public elementary schools) report teaching foreign languages.
79% of those schools focus on giving introductory exposure to a language rather than achieving overall proficiency.
* Only 44% of American high school students are enrolled in foreign language classes as reported by the 2002 Digest of Education Statistics. Of those students, 69% are enrolled in Spanish and 18% in French.
Less than 1% of American high school students combined study Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Japanese, Korean, Russian or Urdu.
* Less than 8% of United States undergraduates take foreign language courses, and less than 2% study abroad in any given year. Foreign language degrees account for only 1% of undergraduate degrees conferred in the United States.

10,504 people; Teens thru over-50.

If you find that graph surprising, Graph # 3 in the link will give you a heartattack.

http://www.myvoice.co.jp/biz/surveys/10211/index.html

I am sure today there are more than 24,000 students in America studying Chinese. It is quite the fad now.

it's the sink-or-swim of the future imo

Do you really think Americans need to learn Chinese to remain a world power? I think that is the least of our problems.

A world power is more like soaring through the sky in the sink or swim analogy.

I'm not sure that America will have the ability to remain a world power, yeah top 10 for sure but not quite the way it has been in the last 50 years. It just feels inevitable to me, like it's time in the spotlight has passed. That's just a feeling though, no facts or proof to back it up.

But yeah I do think that learning Chinese will help America hold it's position a lot longer.

Actually, I don't find that hard to believe at all, considering that only 2% are １０代. I'm sure that some of the 20代 are in college, but only some... and I'm not sure if all of them are studying a foreign language. 10代 + 20代＝21%. People studying a foreign language = more than 24%. That's not too bad. As StonerPenguin pointed out, Americans aren't all that inclined to learn a foreign language.... in my experience only 2 years of high school were necessary! Other than that, nothing. At any rate, that would have been a much more interesting survey had they split the results by age group. Thanks for the statistics though, they're always interesting to look at.

Chinese people who need to speak English speak English. It's a little different from the Japanese boom of the 80s when learning Japanese could actually benefit someone individually and benefit a business.

Many schools are dropping Spanish to pick up Chinese in the US. This is strange to me. The school I used to work at is phasing out Japanese to phase in Chinese... and this is pretty common now. China is a new powerhouse in world economy, but in some ways it is built on a foundation of sand. They have a population, factories, and people willing to work for pennies an hour (unlike Japan and the US) but how long is that going to last? The gap between the upper class and the lower class in China is massive. Japan is still making cars, electronics, etc. that the world wants. America is still making cars and some things the world wants. The world is not looking for Chinese high end items.... and even though all cheap things in the US are made in China, how long is that going to last on the China side? When Chinese people start wanting more, and as long as American corporations are allowed to outsource, it will be NAFTA in reverse. We went from South America to China, and when someplace else gets cheaper, we'll go there. It may be India, it may be Africa, it may be South America again, who knows?

american cars? does anyone besides americans buy them? no one overseas buys large pick-ups with 6liter engine that maybe produces 200bhp with horrible interior. that means if there is no export then there is no added value while china exports most of what it produces.

hmmm..i was under the impression that russian "roshiago" :D would be more popular.

u. found one for my country.

it says that: 95% of people speak at least 1 foreign language. 51% speak at least 2. 14% at least 3 and 5% speak none. the grey chart is for European Union average.

I would buy an American car, except Cadillacs can't be exported out of the US anymore, so fuck it, their loss. :)

However, this ain't exactly true. There's stuff all over coming from the US. They have well-founded industries exporting way outside the country and plenty of brands made in the US are sold overseas. China exports so much only cause it's cheap products that somehow get easily sold. Shitty quality made under shitty conditions by people who get paid shit. Is this the kind of industry you want for your country? Is that how you'd want your country to go from being 3rd world to being a world power in developement? Cause to me that's Human Rights being walked over.

i was bringing it up in comparison. in Europe no one buys american cars when germans (audi, vw, bmw, mercedes) and uk (jag, aston) +italians are next doors. americans can't make (with rare exceptions) cars that appeal to Europeans so they don't get any added value. but china on the other hand, even with people rights violations, makes all of it's money on export since what they make is demanded apparently overseas.

and i am not sure what americans are exporting - at least to europe. there isn't anything that couldn't be built in europe or bought cheaper from asian part of the world. at least in my house there isn't anything with "made in the usa" stamped on it.
these days it reminds me of this image when it comes to american industries.

I'm pretty sure Ford has very decent sales in Europe. While they may be made in European factories under license, they are still considered American cars and are tallied in such a way....

LOL @ the American flag made in China on the moon lol, regardless of what it means it's funny :)

MMM you make a good point that China's power is in fact based on the fact that their labour is cheap.
Invariably if they become a superpower, and their currency is adjusted to reflect their position (which they have been stubborn about doing in a tactically genius way) then their cheap labour will go up in smoke.

In fact, it is commonplace among Japanese businesses to open up plants and factories in south asian countries instead of China because of the prediction that Chinese labour will become costly sooner than later... add in some spite to fuel that fire.

Regarding American export, forget about cars! Coca Cola and McDonalds and Intel etc. That's a foothold that is hard as hell to shake loose of for any country. America has deep-rooted itself into the necessities of everyday life for most of the world, imo.

2 parts are true, but one isn't. The quality issue, it isn't partly true. You know that mostly any brand in the world is produced in China (at least parts of it)? And alot are just a rebranding (relabeled product) of what a Chinese factory produces under higher QC check. In the meanwhile another cheaper line can produce the No-brand names in the same location, no QC at all.
China, quality wise, is exactly as any other country, you get what you pay for.

I was surprised to see that Korean is the 2nd most popular after Chinese. I heard that Spanish and Chinese is the most popular, I guess that is a misinformation?

Spanish? Japan is nowhere near a Spanish-speaking country. At least in Tokyo, which is where I live, it's much easier to find a school that teaches Korean than one that teaches Spanish.

Yeah I thought that was strange myself. The person who told me that was a university student. Perhaps Spanish is most popular 2nd foreign language after Chinese in universities? Or is it all the same.

America needs China to become powerful, we have no one to compete with since the USSR collapsed. The American drive to be number 1 in everything only kicks in when we have a definate rival.

The Lakers can't be the Laker's with out the Celtics.

About Spanish in Japan-- I wonder if it isn't like 2nd as far as recent popularity gain goes. I've heard quite a few people talking about it recently. I met a woman recently who actually married into a Spanish speaking family! As far as "Spanish being far" goes, on the contrary, I never imagined I'd meet as many Filipinos in Japan! I know it may not be their first language, but a lot of the ones I've met can speak a fair amount of Spanish (and really decent English).

By the way, why is English number one? I thought English is required and everyone have to learn it, so having a certain percentage learning English over other languages doesn't make sense, because everyone has to learn English and other languages are being learned in addition to English.

I really wish America would have more diversity in what languages they teach but it's basically like this: if you live near Canada you'll most likely learn French. Live near Mexico, more Spanish options. Up north, most grade schoolers are given the option to learn either Spanish or French from childhood and it's their choice to continue on with it. And about the Filipinos... Oh. Mon. Dieu. They're pretty great at speaking Spanish. Of course when it comes to English, some still retain their accent but I love them talking Spanish.

*plooka plooka*

reply
 

I think Japanies people use to speak japanies and other people use american English.

I disagree. I like the thought of having a language that everyone in the entire world can speak fluently, but I doubt we'll live to see that happen. It'd be very convenient, but I still think it should be thought of as a second language, and we'd still speak our native tongue like we do today.

Oh and also, British English all the way! :mtongue:


EDIT: Does anyone know how popular Swedish is in Japan? I mean, we've got a lot to offer! Like... Caramelldansen, and.. other stuff...

Canadian English rocks British English any given day, ;)

And Swedish is not so popular here (Japan) at all, it's never even entered into any one of the conversations I've had since being here lol.

Pfft!! Yeah, right! Canadian English... hah! ;)

Ahh, that's too bad. I guess I can understand why, though.
I mean, only about 9m people speak Swedish, and like 95% of us speak English as well, so you don't really need to know any Swedish at all even if you were to go here. And besides, I don't even like Swedish, so maybe that's a good thing lol.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to accept that Sweden will always be ABBA, Swedish Fish, snow, reindeer and "hot blonde chicks" (:rolleyes:) to the rest of the world.

The universal trade lanquage is primarily English because England commanded the oceans for so long and the US has run them since WW2, basically both English speaking countries that oversaw world trade. If Spain had won the battle of the Spanish Armada against Britain world trade language might be Spanish, or if France had beaten Britain it coulda been french. If China manages to command the oceans world trade lanquage might become Chinese.

It's basically based on wich ever nation commands the world trade routes.