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Jp to english1/18/2024 ![]() “America idealized in Japan at the time as a symbol of freedom and democracy, partly as a result of the success of the American occupation,” writes Takako Yoshida, a Ph.D. This presence of American soldiers at this time exposed the general Japanese public to spoken English. nuclear umbrella of protection from the Soviet Union, further cementing America’s image as a symbolic protector. In the Cold War, Japan came under the U.S. military to implement widespread political and economic changes throughout the country. occupation after World War II lasted for seven years-enough time for the U.S. And while Japan was never a colony of a Western country, the U.S. As countries around the world scramble for widespread English, there’s a fear of losing their own traditions, cultures, and even names.Įnglish became a tool of the Japanese elite throughout Meiji era Japan’s relentless race to catch up technologically with the West. Yet the spread of English has left behind a “trail of dead”: mangled languages, literatures, and identities. “In East Asia, many parents, professionals, and students themselves see English as a prerequisite for attaining the best jobs on the market,” said Minh Tran, the executive director of academic affairs at Education First, a Swiss language-education company that offers classes in Japan. A plummeting population and an inevitable future influx of foreign workers collide with a proud national identity, structural and cultural obstacles to English learning, and enough economic independence to resist what might otherwise seem an inevitable future: an English-speaking Japan.įor years, multinational companies have been mandating English as the common corporate language. Today, Japanese are caught between a belief in the importance of Japanese language and culture and the need to exist in a globalized world in which English carries economic privileges and status associations. They overflow with complaints about young people’s poor Japanese and instructions on how to speak polite and beautiful Japanese. Eikaiwa (English conversation) programs run daily on TV, and accounts featuring videos of Japanese American children speaking English cultivate tens of thousands of Instagram followers.Īt the same time, essays and books about the supposed uniqueness of Japanese language, culture, and identity-a genre known as nihonjinron-are in every bookstore, next to shelves of English-learning books. Top companies such as Rakuten, an e-commerce website and the Japanese competitor to Amazon, place immense weight on English proficiency, whether or not English is needed for an employee’s role. Countless advertisements flaunt white foreigners on TV and use English aptitude as the basis for selling products. ![]() The failure to adopt English is particularly unexpected given that the English language-and the whiteness associated with it-signifies privilege in Japan. Japan ranks near the bottom of Asian and developed countries alike despite constant reshuffling and refinement of the English educational curriculum in schools and the frequent assertions, acknowledged by Japan’s Ministry of Education, that English-language skills are needed to compete in the modern economy. In a 2019 survey, Japan dropped to 53rd in global English proficiency, squarely in the “low proficiency” band. ![]()
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