What percentage of the Japanese population speak/read english?

I read a number of articles about the english schooling required for Japanese students. However, I was curious to better understand how many would actually search the internet in english.

I would say that I speak french but i never search the internet in french. What's the experience when you search in japanese?

I read a number of articles about the english schooling required for Japanese students. However, I was curious to better understand how many would actually search the internet in english.

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FYI the average Japanese studies English for 3yrs in JHS, 3yrs in HS and for those that go to University 4 more years for a total of 10 years.

I was curious to better understand how many would actually search the internet in english.

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Probably very few. Despite the approx. 10 years of supposed English education, most come out with little more than a knowledge of some basic phrases, simple sentence patterns, and a little vocabulary. Most Japanese, seeing me look at an English website will blurt out "Eigo bakkari" ("all English") in a defeatist manner.


I find searching the web in Japanese to be a bit difficult for two reasons. First, most words can be spelled two or three different ways, so searching with different spellings will yield different results, and the number of possibilities grows exponentially with the number of search terms. The other, more personal reason, is that I'm not terribly fast at reading Japanese, so it's hard to skim search results, and I often feel a sense of information overload.

Although literacy rates in English are high, it seems that few Japanese people are comfortable communicating in English. Searching on the internet is more of a strategic use of vocabulary than a gauge of fluency, so while it does require an understanding of the language (especially to sift through the search results), it's not quite the same as being able to communicate in English. Generally, I find that the only Japanese people I know who will actually do web searches in English are the ones most comfortable speaking and writing in it. Depending on the circles you run in, this number could be extremely low.

Yeah, I agree. Unless one is really interested in studying English, enough to challenge themselves by using only English sites, I think it is much more convenient for the Japanese to use Japanese search engines.

I recently sent an email in English to a friend of mine who recieved an associate degree in the US, and she wrote me that it was a pain in the butt for her to write in English after having lived in Japan for a few years.

Trust me. I've taught in HS and university. Ask students to search the Internet for information, and they'll only use Japanese sites.

The subject line of this thread is misleading. What percentage speak/read English? You would have to define to what level they can do that, and posters like JimmySeal have explained that nicely.

They all say they can't read it and when they look at you reading an English site , they certainly will say "Eigo bakari", but it is all just a big act. If they were told to read up about something in English at work they would do it and be able to grasp the general meaning of what is written. Granted some are just plain hopeless or could not be bothered ,but most will understand it.

As for searching in Japanese, I read it fluently and have no problem searching the net in Japanese , but I will tell you now that I prefer to search in English, why? B/c it is my mother tounge and I feel that their is more info on a topic in English.