English in Japan: Why 125 Million People Mostly Can’t Speak It
By Yoshi | Japan Unveiled
Japan has been teaching English in its schools since the Meiji period — since the 1870s, when the deliberate adoption of Western languages and Western knowledge was a central component of Japan’s modernisation strategy.
Japan currently requires all students to study English from elementary school through the end of high school — approximately nine years of mandatory English education for every Japanese person.
And yet: a foreign visitor who arrives in Japan expecting to navigate the country comfortably in English will discover that their expectation is systematically incorrect. Outside of tourist areas in major cities, and outside of the small population of Japanese people who have developed functional English through study abroad, professional necessity, or sustained personal effort — the ability to communicate in English with ordinary Japanese people is significantly more limited than nine years of mandatory education would suggest.
This gap — between the years invested in English education and the functional communication ability that education produces — is one of the more interesting puzzles in Japanese education culture. Understanding it requires understanding specific things about how English has been taught in Japan, what English has been expected to be useful for, and why the specific demands of Japanese social life have consistently worked against the development of spoken English fluency.
The Examination System and What It Produces
The most fundamental explanation for Japan’s English communication gap is the specific form that English education has historically taken in Japanese schools.
Japanese school English — particularly through the pre-university years — has been organised primarily around the demands of university entrance examinations. These examinations test reading comprehension, grammar knowledge, and vocabulary — the specific skills that can be assessed accurately in a multiple-choice or short-answer written format.
They do not test speaking. They do not test listening. They do not test the ability to communicate spontaneously in an unfamiliar context with an unfamiliar person.
The result: Japanese students develop highly functional passive English skills — they can read English texts of moderate difficulty, they have extensive grammar knowledge (often more explicit knowledge of English grammar than native speakers possess), they have substantial vocabulary in its written form — and very limited active communication skills. They have learned a language for analysis rather than a language for use.
This is not the fault of individual teachers, most of whom teach competently within the system they are embedded in. It is the systematic consequence of an examination system that rewards the skills it measures and that has historically not measured spoken communication.
The ALT System: Good Intention, Limited Effect
Japan has maintained a system of foreign English teachers — Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs), most famously through the JET Programme (Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme) — since 1987. The JET Programme brings several thousand native English speakers from English-speaking countries to Japan annually, placing them in schools across the country to assist Japanese English teachers with pronunciation, conversation practice, and cultural context.
The JET Programme is genuine and in many individual cases genuinely effective — the specific teachers who are enthusiastic, well-supported by their school, and who build genuine relationships with their students do measurably improve those students’ spoken English comfort.
The systemic impact is limited, for several reasons. ALTs typically teach alongside a Japanese English teacher in a team-teaching model, but the communication activities they lead occupy a small proportion of the total English instruction time. The examination pressure — the priority of teaching for tests — means that even conscientious Japanese teachers deprioritise spoken communication when time is limited. And the one or two lessons per week with an ALT cannot by themselves develop the consistent spoken practice that communicative fluency requires.
The Social Anxiety Factor
Beyond the educational system, there is a specific social dynamic that significantly inhibits the development of spoken English in Japan even among people who have substantial English knowledge.
Japanese social culture places high value on accuracy and on the avoidance of visible failure. The person who speaks English imperfectly — who makes grammatical errors, who cannot find a word, who produces sentences that are grammatically correct but communicatively awkward — is, in their own perception, performing publicly and failing. The specific quality of social discomfort that accompanies visible failure in Japanese social life is high, and the specific quality of courage that it takes to speak a foreign language despite certain imperfection is accordingly high.
Many Japanese people who have significant English reading ability and reasonable grammar knowledge are effectively paralysed in spoken English contexts — not because they do not know the language but because the specific social and psychological barriers to producing imperfect speech in public are, for them, prohibitive.
This is not a cultural defect. It is the specific application of a general social value — the value of accuracy and composure in public — to a context (foreign language learning) where accuracy and composure are impossible for beginners and difficult for advanced learners. The application is understandable. Its effect is that significant English knowledge does not translate into spoken communication ability for a substantial proportion of the Japanese population.
The Changes: What Is Happening Now
The English education system in Japan has been changing — slowly, with genuine resistance from within the examination-centred system, but genuinely changing.
The 2020 revision to Japan’s Course of Study — the national curriculum guidelines — mandated a shift from grammar-centred to communication-centred English instruction at all school levels, with a specific emphasis on spoken communication skills and a gradual introduction of English as the language of instruction in English class (rather than the previous practice of teaching English primarily in Japanese).
The university entrance examination system has been adding English speaking components, which — given the Japanese student’s extraordinary responsiveness to what examinations require — is likely the most effective single lever for changing what English education prioritises.
The COVID-19 pandemic produced a significant expansion of online communication in English — video meetings with international colleagues, the adoption of English-language social media platforms, the expansion of English-language content consumption on streaming services — that has given more Japanese people more casual exposure to spoken English than the formal education system typically provides.
The result is that the English communication gap in Japan is narrowing, particularly among younger people in urban areas and among people in industries with international exposure. The narrowing is real. The gap remains large.
The Tourist’s Practical Guide
For visitors to Japan who want to navigate the English gap practically, several observations from my experience watching foreign visitors navigate Japan.
Major tourist areas in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka — most staff at hotels, major tourist attractions, and restaurants catering to international visitors in these areas have functional English. The tourist infrastructure has been deliberately built for international visitors, and English signage and English-speaking staff are relatively reliable in these contexts.
Train stations — major JR stations and subway stations in major cities have English signage and English-language kiosk systems. The IC card system (Suica, Pasmo) is navigable without Japanese. Staff at station information desks in major cities frequently have functional English.
Regional Japan outside major tourist areas — English is much less reliably available. The restaurant owner in a rural town, the taxi driver, the convenience store staff outside major cities — English communication may be significantly more limited. Preparation is valuable: having your destination written in Japanese, using translation apps, and accepting that some communication will require patience and creativity.
The kindness factor — the Japanese person who does not speak English but encounters a foreign visitor who needs assistance will, in the vast majority of cases, make a genuine and sustained effort to be helpful. Gestures, smartphones, tourist maps, and the specific human creativity of two people who want to communicate successfully and do not share a language — these are frequently sufficient.
Japan is more navigable without Japanese than its linguistic isolation would suggest, because the Japanese social value of omotenashi (hospitality) produces a sustained effort to bridge the gap that pure linguistic analysis does not predict.
— Yoshi 🗣️ Central Japan, 2026
Enjoyed this? You might also like: “First Time in Japan: 20 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me” and “How to Order at a Japanese Restaurant When You Can’t Read Japanese” — both available on Japan Unveiled.
