How many people study Japanese?

[anderssonj.com]

I've been trying to find figures on the number of people that are studying Japanese, primarily in universities around the world. I've googled for it with little success; does anyone know where to find such info?

I'm interested in all figures - the US, Europe, Asia...

Any help appreciated!

 

[Grandpa Frank]

Humm???

It says JREF has about 22 thousand members and about 20 thousand of them are studying on their own and here on JREF. Gotta be a million all over the world I bet. I wonder if you could get figures on how many take that JLPT test or what ever it is they talk about here , has level 1-2-3-4 etc. . I think it would be a tough number to get exact. Maybe a figure on textbooks sold would give a hint? Interesting thought!

Uncle Frank

 

[JimmySeal]

I have a book with some figures related to that. I can scan in the graphs on Tuesday and post them up here.

For now, here are the number of learners by region (all learners, not just university)

East Asia - 1,375,598
Oceania - 352,923
North America - 134,761
South-East Asia - 132,409
West Europe - 47,451
South & Central America - 30,076
East Europe - 15,085
South Asia - 10,129
Middle & Near East & Africa - 3,671

These figures appear to be from 1998. More to come.

 

[nice gaijin]

I'm curious about the percentage of foreigners residing in Japan who actively study the language...

 

[anderssonj.com]

I have a book with some figures related to that. I can scan in the graphs on Tuesday and post them up here.

Thanks, that would be great! May I ask which book it is - is it available in book stores?

For now, here are the number of learners by region (all learners, not just university)
[...]
These figures appear to be from 1998. More to come.

Amazing, thank you very much!