Even though Japan is the world 3rd economic power, in terms of proficiency in English, Japan ranks 50th out of 100 countries. The EF EPI (English Proficiency Index) classifies countries and areas based on 5 levels from “Very high proficiency” to “Very low proficiency”. And according to the 2020 edition, Japan is classified in the 2nd category from the bottom: “Low proficiency”. So why Japanese people cannot speak English? Let’s think about the reasons and let’s take a look at Mr. Hishinuma’s experience.

Expressing feelings in normal English conversation is harder than business English.

In trading companies such as Hishinuma Trading, meetings and business discussions are often conducted in English, so it is considered as indispensable in business. If we borrow Mr. Hishinuma’s words, “Similarly to Japanese, English is a communication tool but not something special.”

However, even Mr. Hishinuma, who can conduct normal business discussions in English and lives in Singapore, does not consider his level as high at all. Actually, even now Mr. Hishinuma is still learning through online English conversation school every day for 25 minutes. If it is English used as a communication tool for his work, there is no problem. But at times, he feels like he cannot express what he wants to convey to people. So, the reason why Mr. Hishinuma is learning English even now is to be able to express his feelings even in English.

If learning English is a necessity, if you have courage and if you are enthusiastic, then you will be able to speak English.

However, like Japan, other countries also have their own native language, and still learn and use English. Those people do not seem to be bad at all, so how is it different from Japanese people?

To be honest, it is the same for non-Japanese people, some people cannot speak English. However, foreigners that we meet and with who we have business discussions can all speak English. In addition, even though English is not the native language of most Asian countries, business elites living in cities can almost all speak English. But of course sometimes there are some managers working for local companies in the suburbs that cannot speak English. In such cases, our local staff will help with the translation.

Actually, Mr. Hishinuma, who has experienced a lot of business discussions with people whose native language is not English, considers that “Everyone is at an unfavorable position in the business field, so people are studying English. So even Japanese people who think they are not good in English, will be able to speak if they are in an environment where only English is understood and where it will be a loss not to try. In a word, the only problem is will there be an opportunity where you will have to speak English, and will you use this opportunity or not.” If you connect words, you will be able to convey what you want to say, and even if there are some mistakes, people will be able to understand.

For instance, if a foreigner starts to talk in Japanese with you, even if there are some slight mistakes you will still understand and speak with this person, right? So, if you speak with enthusiasm and good intention, your partner will always listen to you.

In other words, are you really willing to be able to convey your thoughts and feelings to others in English? That is the only problem.

For sure, it is easy to say that Japanese people are not good in English because of the national characters and cultural differences. However, this mere difference of way of thinking between people and countries, such as Japanese and non-Japanese, or even Japanese and American, Chinese and Indonesian, cannot be used as a reason why we can or not speak English. The reason why many Japanese people feel like they are not good in English is because they do not have a strong necessity to speak it. So, if this necessity was more important, Japanese people would be able to speak. It is especially true for small and medium-sized companies which mainly depend on the domestic demand and thus have seldom business discussions with overseas enterprises. On the other hand, Chinese and ASEAN companies, even small and medium-sized ones, are working with overseas companies so they are forced to use foreign languages. In other words, if they can use the same language as their business partners, the working conditions will be better.

Fastest ways of learning English: speak in English and watch movies

If we look at our surroundings, the market scale of the linguistics business is expanding year by year. For instance, you can find English teaching materials on the Web, YouTube and even bookstores. The number of people intentionally boosting their necessity to speak in English is increasing, but it is still said that Japanese people are bad in English. So, what is the quickest way to learn English?

When we asked this question to Mr. Hishinuma, who frequently use English for business matters, he said “At least, there is nothing but to make conversation in English. Also, watching English movies, first with subtitles, then without, is also a good way to learn English. In Japan, in English courses we first learn grammar and words, but it is not interesting, isn’t it? Also, if you come across words or expressions that you do not understand in conversations or movies, I think it is good to look them up and learn them.” Furthermore, “Many Japanese people are shy, so instead of group lessons, one-to-one personal lessons, even online, is another good way to learn English.”

By the way, in his previous job, from the 1^st year, Mr. Hishinuma had to go and stay in Indonesia to conduct inspection works, so he experienced learning the local language from scratch. At that time, he did not understand at all the local language, so everyday he used a dictionary and his notebook where he wrote in katakana all words used by the factory workers. Then, after work he would look up all the words to use them from the next day and checked if his own understanding was correct or not. By repeating this every day, he could apparently start making conversation little by little.

Even though we are all born in different countries and with different cultures, eating different meals, watching different television programs, speaking in different languages, and growing up, we are all being humans with the same heart. Thinking that we can be in touch with those people by using English, we can say that English is a wonderful tool, can we? If we keep this in mind when learning English, the necessity to learn English and our motivation will probably increase.