





I was curious about what language Japanese people choose for learning the second language besides English in high schools or universities and which language is popular. English is a mandatory language to learn in Japanese school curriculum. Therefore, it’s obviously the most chosen second language for Japanese people. But, what about other languages ?

I analyzed public data to get the answers and made two graphs below.

● Chinese is chosen for the second-most second foreign language after English for Japanese high school students in Japan. The tendency has been continuing for over a decade from 18,000 to 22,000 students who take Chinese courses to learn the language according to the figure “Number of Students for the 2nd Language Class in High School in Japan” above.

● Korean language comes after Chinese language. French had been selected as a third most popular language after English and Chinese from 2001 to 2009, but Korean has been taken over the position since 2012.

● The main reasons for choosing the second foreign language seem to be “The students’ interests in the language or the culture” or “the language seemed useful in the future” in reference to the study by Akiko Majima (2010), The importance of retaining classes for the second foreign languages in the curriculums of technical colleges, Sarejio Kougyou Koutou Semmon Gakkou Kenkyuu Kiyou.

● China and Korea are geographically very close to Japan and easier to visit. Japan has strong historical connections with those two countries. Therefore, the students seem to get interested in those countries in particular. Also, many students may think they can use those languages in business in the future when they choose the second language to learn.

● According to a survey by Mynavi Gakusei, some college students decided to learn Chinese as a second language because “China has a large population and can be the center of world economy” or “Japanese are originated from Chinese and Chinese grammar is similar to English which is a mandatory language for students since junior high school. Maybe easier to learn.“

I personally took Chinese for the second language course in college. In my university, it was required to take a second language besides English. Back then, I thought that there are so many Chinese people in the world and Chinese language would be useful in the future on business and also Chinese would be easier to learn than other European languages since Japanese Kanji is similar to Chinese characters. So, I decided to take Chinese for the required second language course.

It was very surprising to me when I learned Chinese grammar was more similar to English in terms of the order of subject (S), verb (V) and object (O) than to Japanese. Because Japanese language has similar characters to Chinese, I thought Chinese would have the similar grammar to Japanese like SOV, not SVO before I took Chinese course. While V comes right after S in Chinese, V comes last in Japanese. In other words, SVO is a right word order in Chinese while SOV is correct in Japanese. It’s very interesting.

Although I forgot most of Chinese that I learned in my university, it was really fun to study Chinese. There is so much difference between the two languages although some of the characters look similar even nowadays. I imagine each language evolved in a different way over 2,000 years and make completely different languages.







Pocketalk

Nowadays many translation apps and devices are available to communicate with the people all over the world. A translation device called Pocketalk below has been very popular in Japan. In my opinion, this Pocketalk is one of the most accurate translation device and works well. Pocketalk is the AI-powered two-way translator with 74 languages available.

If you are interested in buying the product, you can purchase it through the Amazon picture link below.

