Is English widely used in Japan?
Is it Important to your career?

Not at all. English is not commonly spoken in Japan. You might only need it if you’re working in an international firm.

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Paese o regione Giappone

Almost 100% of the Japanese living in Japan speak Japanese as their native tongue and almost 100% of their colleagues and customers are native Japanese speakers. No need to speak English at all, if they can speak other languages they may have options to work in/for foreign countries/companies though.

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ryouru

Paese o regione Giappone

Reading and writing English would be important to some occupations like IT engineers, doctors, professors and so on.Because, they have to read English papers or sometimes write papers.

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Paese o regione Giappone

@ryouru Really? Important for what kind of engineers and professors?

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teotyrov

Paese o regione Grecia

@chiui I've come across papers about machine learning and aerodynamics that were in English and have authors with Japanese looking names. Most of them were co-written with researchers from other countries though. Some electronics companies have global patents in English too.

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Paese o regione Giappone

@teotyrov It shouldn’t engineering in IT.

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teotyrov

Paese o regione Grecia

@chiui What do you mean by that?

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Paese o regione Giappone

@teotyrov It’s simply lie that English is important for IT engineers working in Japan.

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teotyrov

Paese o regione Grecia

@chiui It's not crucial, but it undeniably helps. There is a huge community of English speakers anyone can seek help from, with sites like stack overflow. IT engineers also have to be able to understand the documentation of tools and stay up to date with the the latest platforms and technologies of today.

I was mainly focusing on researchers on my previous post though.

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Paese o regione Giappone

@teotyrov Aren’t you talking about other engineers? “Patent”. This is a word barely used in the IT field.
If you have read through 100 job ads for IT engineers, you should have noticed none or just a few of them require English.
That person above tends to lie about things he doesn’t really know.

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Leggi ulteriori commenti

Paese o regione Giappone

Thanks for all the comments.

However, would I gain any benefits from it? Maybe something likes a higher salary, better offers, etc

Paese o regione Giappone

@Yan_William First of all, you need to be fluent in Japanese. Or you can’t be hired.

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Paese o regione Giappone

@teotyrov I totally agree with that, no matter what kind of knowledge, it's always good for us.
I just want to know the situation in Japan.

Paese o regione Giappone

@chiui
Now I'm a university student in japan. Maybe it's too soon to consider about it but i would like to work in japan for a few years. That’s why i asked such kind of question.

I don't know if i good enough in Japanese... But i I've learned it for a couple years

Some professors told me that it would be tough to work in japan but i still want to try it...

Paese o regione Giappone

@Yan_William If you can’t ask questions in Japanese here, you shouldn’t be fluent enough.
No companies would hire an interpreter for a rookie.

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5 gen 2019

Paese o regione Giappone

I apologise if you found any offences of this.
I aimed to collect the opinions for different groups, (locals, foreigners work in Japan, etc) and I consider maybe some of those people might not speak fluent Japanese. Thus, I used English instead of Japanese.
It might be true my Japanese is not fluent enough at this moment.
I just want to know if I can gain any benefits if I can speak fluent Japanese and English in Japan.

cuervotengu

6 gen 2019

Paese o regione Spagna

I saw this question many times in this Web and others. and the answers are always more or less the same. about the fact that English is not needed in Japan. and Japanese people speaks only Japanese. so when you find a Japanese that has fluency in English think that this person is in the top. I don't work or live in Japan. but I read and watch all I can about japan. by the way many people who can write English very well doesn't have speaking fluency in it. I study Japanese and my level is still low but this low level helped me much more than English when I went to Japan(as a tourist). 僕はスペイン人です。日本語が好きです。でも。ぜんぜん分かりません。I don't know anything.

0 likes 1 disagree

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cuervotengu

6 gen 2019

Paese o regione Spagna

@hayabusa6797 what I know is more than what you think that I know but less than what I would want to know. I know that I don't know. I don't know anything.

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