I've always had this burning question. I'm sorry this may be sensitive, but I am wondering: How well can the Japanese speak English?

I see that on the net, there are quite a few people who know Japanese and English, but what are the ratios of Japanese speaking good English to other races speaking good Japanese (as in being fluent in the language, can be used in Japan standard)? Well, not to be racist or anything, but I get the feeling that many Japanese do not speak English that well, even at high school level?

Please enlighten me.

EDIT: Put less bluntly, I mean this post as in what 'English' means to the Japanese, as in do they normally take classes in English, what does the gowvernment say, etc. I don't mean to insult anybody, much less Japanese folk viewing this post.

Lego & manga. The building blocks of life.

The few Japanese people I know speak fairly decent English, enough that I can hold a conversation with them easily enough. Odd words are unknown but that's to be expected. However thay are studying in England so fluency in our language is kind of a requirement. IEven so 'd imagine more Japanese people can speak decent English than English-speaking countries can Japanese (if that makes sense).

The wide-spread use of English as an international language allows many English-speaking people to not bother to learn a different language fluently or even conversationally. Considering the fact you're asking this in a manga forum you're probably going to get a high number of people who are able to speak/read English and Japanese albeit at varying degrees of fluency so it may seem like a lot of Westerners know Japanese but personally I know very few people outside the manga world who even know a word of Japanese. That's just my experience though.

The pen is mightier than the sword...and considerably easier to write with.

Outside of the big cities, most Japanese people don't speak English very well. They can be decent enough at reading and writing, and to some extent listening, but speaking does not seem to come easily. Probably because they don't get a lot of practice and they think it's embarrassing. (Get them drunk and it works slightly better, though.)

Why on Earth you'd think "Japanese" is a race is beyond me, though. You should really get out of the country more.

Quote from pnyxtr

Why on Earth you'd think "Japanese" is a race is beyond me, though. You should really get out of the country more.

I don't get you there. Are you saying that they belong to a larger group of 'race', or that we are all human beings? From my point of view, Asians do have different races, though maybe it would be 'ethic group' to you.

Lego & manga. The building blocks of life.

From what I see, in general Japanese don't speak English as nicely as people from other Asian countries. I've learned Japanese for 4 years, and I think it's due to their language pronunciation, it's cute, but too monotone and there're many consonants they don't have. The more flexible your mother tongue is, the better you can speak other languages.

Quote from bwfas

From what I see, in general Japanese don't speak English as nicely as people from other Asian countries. I've learned Japanese for 4 years, and I think it's due to their language pronunciation, it's cute, but too monotone and there're many consonants they don't have. The more flexible your mother tongue is, the better you can speak other languages.

yeah.. i agree with him/her.. 😀

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Quote from pnyxtr

Why on Earth you'd think "Japanese" is a race is beyond me, though. You should really get out of the country more.

I don't get you there. Are you saying that they belong to a larger group of 'race', or that we are all human beings? From my point of view, Asians do have different races, though maybe it would be 'ethic group' to you.

It would be ethnic group to everyone. The "Japanese" race would be Asian, and humans are a species. You could probably fit it all into a tree graph. You wouldn't call the French a race, would you?

I wouldn't at least.

Anyways, I believe English is taught to several Japanese students from a young age, so most, at least in populated areas, are probably fairly fluent to an extent. I could be wrong though, never been to a Japanese school. Don't even remember where I heard that.

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well i'm a japenese
but i can speak & write pretty ok
yeah mostly japenese ppl don't think its a must to know english, cuz u don't get to use much of english in day to day life in japan, so its not compulsory...
but its not like ppl r not trying
& it'll take them some amonut of time to get a grip on the language & b fluent
saying all japenese ppl's english sucks would be biased >.< 😔

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Quote from pnyxtr

Why on Earth you'd think "Japanese" is a race is beyond me, though. You should really get out of the country more.

I don't get you there. Are you saying that they belong to a larger group of 'race', or that we are all human beings? From my point of view, Asians do have different races, though maybe it would be 'ethic group' to you.

It would be ethnic group to everyone. The "Japanese" race would be Asian, and humans are a species. You could probably fit it all into a tree graph. You wouldn't call the French a race, would you?

I wouldn't at least.

Anyways, I believe English is taught to several Japanese students from a young age, so most, at least in populated areas, are probably fairly fluent to an extent. I could be wrong though, never been to a Japanese school. Don't even remember where I heard that.

Well, the thing is, I am Asian, but it's just plain wrong to lump the whole continent together and look at us like we are the same people... Then again, this would be a question of racism again huh? 😢

Quote from buzzaiuta

saying all japenese ppl's english sucks would be biased >.<

Sorry about phrasing it that way buzz, I will take note from now on.

Lego & manga. The building blocks of life.

Quote from FacistHalfNerd

Quote from shaggievara

Quote from FacistHalfNerd

[quote=pnyxtr]Why on Earth you'd think "Japanese" is a race is beyond me, though. You should really get out of the country more.

I don't get you there. Are you saying that they belong to a larger group of 'race', or that we are all human beings? From my point of view, Asians do have different races, though maybe it would be 'ethic group' to you.

It would be ethnic group to everyone. The "Japanese" race would be Asian, and humans are a species. You could probably fit it all into a tree graph. You wouldn't call the French a race, would you?

I wouldn't at least.

Anyways, I believe English is taught to several Japanese students from a young age, so most, at least in populated areas, are probably fairly fluent to an extent. I could be wrong though, never been to a Japanese school. Don't even remember where I heard that.

Well, the thing is, I am Asian, but it's just plain wrong to lump the whole continent together and look at us like we are the same people... Then again, this would be a question of racism again huh? 😢
[/quote]

No, it wouldn't. You're Asian, it's just a fact of life. I'm Caucasian, another fact of life. You can be a certain race and belong to your own unique culture at the same time. Race is just genetics, but it can be misconstrued into something entirely different if you want it to be, which evidently you do.

You can call a Japanese person "Japanese," there is nothing wrong with that. But to call it their race is just incorrect, it's their nationality.

[img]http://s4.tinypic.com/23jr85h.jpg[/img]

im a half filipino and japanese and i also thought that my fellowmen in japan
is not really that go0d at speaking though im half japanese but i grew in philippines ,,
english lessons in philippines were free so we often learn english every day of life,,
and im also an editorial english writer in the news paper in our campus,

its not that im siding on the philippines but japanese really do had a little problem on
speaking english but im amaze of their art work when it becomes to manga not saying that
im a japanese too so i know how to speak both japanese and english..

but seriosly,,some of my country men in japan dont often speak english fluently..
i agree with that,,no hard feelings 😃

wew,,, ^^

I tutor some Japanese and Korean people for English (specifically the pronunciation stuff) and what I've noticed is that they do have trouble speaking the language because of their limited number of syllables. They've gotten used to that so learning new ways of speaking different syllables and words is quite hard for them. But they are very hard working, though. They practice very hard. 😃

I don't know, I find Thai people who speak good English to be far and few plus generalising Asian in one lump is quite a long shot but I don't mind so much, I'd refer to them by country as much as I can but its no different from saying "Americans" instead of naming them based on the states they are from since America itself is a massive place. My Japanese friend says that most words end in a vowel? and it makes it him to actually learn English as a child but then again learning a language earlier on in life is better since you use a different part of your brain to soak up the language skills than say if you learned it when you were around 14-15years old.

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Quote from FacistHalfNerd

How well can the Japanese speak English?

...what?
Why would you even ask a question like this?

They speak English as well as they can.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see the point of this thread and I can't help but feel somewhat offended (or quite annoyed, at the very least)
How well can YOU speak English?
More than half of the people I see on the net can't even communicate in English properly so I fail to see why you're looking at just one particular group.

You don't need to know these things.
Knowing so will not productively "enlighten" you.

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I feel that Japanese people strive for personal excellence so they might feel shy to speak English if they feel that their English is not perfect even though it is often actually quite good. I think that also the fact that the languages are so different that it might be hard to learn at first but once the basics of the language are learned, they speak English very well. I can imagine this to be the case for any group of people learning a second language.