Japan ranks 92nd in English proficiency, lowest ever: survey (mainichi.jp)
from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 21 Nov 02:22
https://lemmy.world/post/22263482

Summary

Japan’s English proficiency ranking dropped to 92nd out of 116 countries, the lowest ever recorded.

The decline is attributed to stagnant English proficiency among young people, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Netherlands ranked first, followed by European countries, while the Philippines and Malaysia ranked 22nd and 26th, respectively.

#world

threaded - newest

PugJesus@lemmy.world on 21 Nov 02:27 next collapse

tbf, the Japanese proficiency of English-speaking nations is probably lower.

procrastitron@lemmy.world on 21 Nov 02:46 next collapse

This was in line with my immediate thoughts too.

It seems grossly unfair to judge Japanese people on their ability to speak English.

falidorn@lemmy.world on 21 Nov 03:52 next collapse

What are you on about? This is a survey of every country where English isn’t their primary language. This article is from Japan about Japanese proficiency in the English language.

NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io on 21 Nov 03:59 collapse

That's a very idealistic position. English is either useful or necessary in many situations and fields, and having a population that doesn't know English can and will cause problems. How well people in a country speak English is an important metric for that country's development, otherwise nobody would care about it.

Gork@lemm.ee on 21 Nov 03:54 collapse

It is a tricky language. Almost nothing in common with Indo-European languages except loan words. Completely different grammatical structure. Three different writing scripts.

At least the pronunciation isn’t too bad coming from English as all the usual sounds are represented within our phonology. Compared to Spanish rolling R’s, Russian and Arabic consonant clusters, Chinese tonality, and other difficult to pronounce languages.

Rune_Walsh@lemmy.world on 21 Nov 02:57 next collapse

It’s still higher than the United States.

Frog@lemmy.ca on 21 Nov 04:11 collapse

Funny. Joking aside, I don’t think England, Ireland, the US, and Canada were tested.

UnpopularCrow@lemmy.world on 21 Nov 03:54 next collapse

Here is the link to the report. It wasn’t in the article.

www.ef.com/wwen/epi/

ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 21 Nov 05:22 collapse

I wonder what the methodology is. There’s no way Turkey is higher than Lebanon unless the metric is something specific that we have terrible data coverage for (which is very likely)

Virkkunen@fedia.io on 21 Nov 07:36 collapse

I also refuse to believe Hungary is in 17 when it feels like people here have a phobia of English (or a second language)

Irremarkable@fedia.io on 21 Nov 04:24 collapse

the English proficiency of young people in the country is stagnant compared to other countries and regions.

Seems like my gut was right, that it's less because they're regressing, and more because other countries have been increasing theirs.