Japanese Culture????????

Travel Info
Why is it that injapan theres a lot of english letters everywhere like on signs and clothes and stuff,andthere are a lot of our products still remain in full english language?And is it true that a lot of japanese people speak english?

Travel Tips

All Japanese people STUDY english. They are required to take it in school for three years in Jr. High Scool and at least two years in High School (though many schools require three), and then often take another 2+ years in college. Of course this does not mean that they can actually speak it very well.

In large cities, especially Tokyo, Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, there are a number of folks who can speak a little english, but when you compare their ability to other non english speaking coutries that have english as a compulsory subject (the Netherlands, Finland, the Philipines, etc.) Japan's average English ability is just slightly better than piss poor.This is not to say that no one can speak it though. Again in big cities all large hotels have desk staff who speak english as do most banks. People are highly encouraged by the government to learn it, but there are most likely many more people who cannot speak english than who can.

The reason there is so much English everywhere though is that simply, they think it looks cool. If you look at the top ten box office hits in Japan all time, more than half are American movies. American music stars are huge here. They're cool. They speak english. So english is cool and stuff with english on it sells.

It isn't always comprehensible English of course. If you'd like to see some really funny examples of Japanese butchery of the English language, I recommend you check out;

http//www.engrish.com

Really funny stuff. Source(s): 6th year living in Japan
Other Travel Tips

How else do you think they got so rich? They export most of their cars, toys, gadgets to US...that's the least they can do for us making them so rich
A lot of people can't speak English, but almost everyone has studied English for some amount of time (3 - 10 years) in school.
The letters in English are on typical signs only. Deitaled information are still in Japanese only.
Have you ever traveled other Asian countries? You'll find English signs are much more, especially in Hongkong and Singapore. Even in Taiwan, English menu is available in the tourist area, but Japan is not enough.
Japan had been refusing to put up English signs for long time, compared with other Asian countries.

And 90% of the ppl do NOT speak English.
Japanese students have to study English from elementary school through to university (the government has only recently changed the elementary school curriculum to include English). That being said, most people can not speak English well - they may know some basic words but have trouble with conversation. Of course there are some Japanese people who speak English really well and are willing to help foreigners who look like they need translators. As for the writing, they are also taught to write the English alphabet at school (they call it "romaji"), and many companies use English lettering in their signs and displays as its "popular".
http://www.mustseesights.com