Japan has more tourists pouring in than ever. It also has more foreigners taking up residence. Like it or not, English tends to be the lingua franca that bridges cultures. However, a recent survey by a language education company reveals that some Japanese people don’t feel at all confident in their English abilities. Tourists to Japan, however, seem to think that they’re doing just fine.
76.5% cite “no confidence” in their English abilities as reason to refuse communication
The survey is run by Speak Japan, an AI-powered English language teaching app. Frequent readers know what I think about AI language apps (spoiler alert: not much). However, these survey results are interesting enough to deserve a shout-out.
In its summary of the survey results, Speak says many in Japan are hesitant to speak English unless they feel they can do so “perfectly.” This seems to be backed up by their numbers. In a survey of 400 Japanese people, a full 45.8% said they often (10.3%) or have sometimes (35.5%) declined to speak with a foreigner who tried to talk with them in English out of the blue.
Of the 183 who said they’ve refused to speak to an English-speaking foreigner, 76.5% said it’s because they had no confidence in communicating something in English. An additional 47.5% blamed their poor listening skills. 19.1% said they were plain embarrassed, while 8.7% said they were either busy or “afraid of foreigners.”
Additionally, 69.8% said they were hesitant (50%) or extremely hesitant (19.8%) to speak English.
70% of tourists think Japanese speak English just fine
What’s interesting is that the reaction from tourists to Japan was the polar opposite.
When the company asked 130 foreigners visiting Japan what they expected before they came to Japan, 49.2% said they expected people’s English comprehension to be low (6.9%) or fairly low (42.3%). However, once they arrived, they found English communication with Japanese people to be either easy (59.2%) or extremely easy (10.8%) to understand, for a total of 70%.
Foreigners and Japanese people share something in common: nervousness. Both were asked how they feel when speaking a spoken language. 58.4% of Japanese and 50% of foreign visitors said they felt nervous. Additionally, 48% of Japanese people said they felt afraid (only 25.4% of foreigners said this).
Perhaps not surprisingly, foreigners felt happier speaking a foreign language than Japanese people. 33.1% said they felt happy when using a foreign language like Japanese; only 14.7% of Japanese respondents felt the same. 28.5% of foreigners went so far as to say they feel “pumped” (ワクワク; waku-waku) when speaking a foreign language, compared to a mere 4.3% of Japanese people.
Expert: Blame English education in Japan
Speak asked Professor Mori Hideo of Reitaku University about the results. Mori took aim at Japan’s approach to English education.
“Japanese people spend lots of time memorizing grammar and words, but their opportunities to speak English are limited. In addition, most English education is geared towards test-taking. That makes people think they have to speak perfectly. So when someone speaks to them in English, they think, ‘If I’m not confident I can communicate something, I don’t want to speak.'”
Mori emphasized that “output is crucial in English conversation studies.” “You need to speak without being afraid of making mistakes – it’s fine to use simple language.”
Indeed, the lack of English-speaking confidence has consequences for business and tourism in Japan. It’s proving to be a limiting factor, for instance, in restaurants offering services to foreign tourists.
The takeaway from this study? If you’re an English-speaking tourist traveling to Japan, be effusive with your praise of people’s English ability. Let them know they’re doing well – and that you appreciate the effort.
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