“Studying Japanese”: Introduction

More People Studying Japanese

The number of people studying Japanese as a foreign language is increasing. According to a 2009 survey on Japanese language instruction overseas, approximately 3.65 million people are studying Japanese around the world, taught by around 49,000 Japanese language instructors. This marks a considerable increase from 2006, when there were roughly 2.97 million students and 44,000 teachers. According to the Japan Foundation, some 610,000 people took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in Japan and other countries in 2011.

Students of Japanese are often people with an interest in Japan—or at least people who will come into contact with the country through its language, out of personal choice or otherwise. In that sense, the increase in the number of students should probably be welcomed. But we should remember that it is not necessarily impossible to understand Japan without knowing Japanese. And in some cases, the language can actually serve as a barrier to entry into Japanese society—as many trainee nurses from Indonesia, the Philippines, and other countries have discovered.

But there is surely no doubt that students of Japanese who become interested in Japan and come to understand the country through its language are an important “medium” through which to introduce Japan and Japanese culture abroad. Nippon.com is an internationally minded site that aims to reach readers in six languages, including Japanese. The content on this site is precisely the kind of thing that ought to be of interest to people studying Japanese in this country and around the world. One assumes that such people are one of the site’s most important groups of readers.

Why Study Japanese?

In this series of essays, we turn our focus on foreign students of Japanese. What is it that makes increasing numbers of people around the world want to study the language? What are they hoping to gain, and do they actually achieve their aims? What issues do they face during the learning process? And what difficulties, if any, do they encounter when they attempt to use their Japanese ability to interact with and understand Japanese society? Japanese native speakers are often surprisingly unaware of these issues.

In the past, the main motivation for most people studying Japanese was the economy: there was a widespread expectation that knowing Japanese would be an asset in the job market. In recent years, the situation has changed, and popular culture is now a more important attraction for many. Knowing this from newspaper reports and hearsay is one thing. But it is much more difficult to imagine how people who study Japanese out of an interest in computer games or manga will make use of that knowledge later in life. Do they simply go on playing more games and reading more manga, or will they become interested in other aspects of Japan?

Seeing Japan Through New Eyes

This special report will try to answer these questions about foreign-language students of Japanese. We hear from Japanese-speaking foreigners working in Japan and overseas. Our contributors look back on their early encounters with Japanese and the role that their relationship with Japan has played in their lives to date. For this section, we were fortunate to secure the assistance of four people at the top of their chosen fields: Shen Caibin (China), a well-known economic analyst; Marei Mentlein (Germany), presenter of a German language television program on NHK; Shirin Nezammafi (Iran), a novelist who writes in Japanese; and Angus Lockyer (Britain), who teaches at SOAS in London.

I hope you enjoy reading the articles. If the series can make a small contribution in terms of encouraging people to take a fresh look at the language and culture of Japan, I’ll be very happy.

(Originally written in Japanese.)