Can Top 1% Students in Japan Speak English? | Street Interview

The top .5% would be studying abroad at an American ivy league school.

英語力と学力は関係ないもの。東大の世界ランキングは異様に低いと思う。

They all good... look English first language country ... University students never speak other language 😅

I remember I tried to ask a Japanese girl about how to get to the train station in Osaka, she screamed and ran away😂 (I am woman)

I'm an old man with adult responsibilities and a family trying to learn Japanese, and it's oddly comforting to relate to 20 year old students struggling to speak English.

as a chinese , i would say that it's also the same case in china

面白かった

まず英語と日本語が全く違う言語やから難しいんやと思う

My Stanford SNU (Seoul National University) father can speak better English compared to most white Americans, and that's sad when too many Americans do not know the name of their own language calling it American. I believe most Koreans at SNU have a stronger command in English.

まあ、英語を学ぶ意味はあんま無いし、まず中一から英語の勉強始めて英語を話せって言われても無理があるよね。少しの英語を理解出来ればそれでいいような気がするな。自分も英語学んでたけどモチベ無くて諦めた

They all spoke English very well! 👏 They just need be confident and speak! It's ok to make mistake. That's how I tried to speak Japanese while in Japan. 😊

さすが東大生やな。
普段英語を話す機会がないのにこれだけ話せるのもすごいし、Lの発音とか出来てる人いるのも凄い。

あと文法も間違いはあれど、少し高度な文法がすぐ出てくるあたり、ちゃんと英語の土台が身についてるのが伝わる。

As a Japanese, I think the reason why Japanese are not good at speaking is not because their personality but because the systems of education. In Japan, most of the universities carry out the entrance exam which focus on the reading, grammar and vocabulary skills. Thus, most of the students learn only reading skills for their entrance exams. The university of Tokyo or other kinds of famous Japanese universities carry out listening and writing examinations, so students who go to the famous universities in Japan tend to be good at writing and listening. However, even these famous universities don’t carry out speaking exams. Thus, Japanese are not good at speaking even if they are good at reading and writing.
When Japanese, who are not good at speaking speak English, we tend to compose a sentence in our minds and read out it. This is why our English is not fluent, I think😭
Moreover, we are not get accustomed to the linking, so when you speak English to Japanese who are not good at speaking, please do not connect the words🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

그랜드화자 그랜드마자

I’m Japanese and this is how English education in Japan is sucks

日本では英語を話すための授業があまりないのでもっと増やすべきです😢でも彼らは自分自身で勉強しているのに発音が綺麗です!!

Studying 10 hours a day is insane to me!!!
Much respect!

in my country we need to learn at least to speak basic English. One person at least must know how to communicated in national language which is Bahasa Malaysia & English. Most of Malaysian able to speak in 3 languages or more. i think it is because of the diversity in my country. to learn a language you need to speak, its okay to made a mistake, you will learn from your mistake.

When I hear someone say that very qualified young people are not accepted I am frustrated. In this new world we live in there is no excuse that the system can't teach every willing motivated student. On line and in person via camera lectures are everywhere.

Such a shame 😭

European language is really hard to study for Japanese people, I think. When I started to learn French one year ago, I was surprised how easy to study french compared with when I started to study English
despite it's more conplicated than English. Since I had already known English in a measure (it's still terrible tho!), I didn't need to be used to the Latin grammar which is completely different from Japanese. Japanese isn't defined by the order of the words but we just use particles so I had to know the order like "subject verb object etc..." when I was in junior high school. I know there are a lot of reason but i think one of the reason is because it's too hard for Japanese

Love these language-testing videos, so fun!
- I made videos testing both Colombians and Argentinians too - always fun to see

My experience as a tourist is that they seem to understand what u are saying but they feel uncomfortable with speaking. But they were very helpful anyways. I was there in 2014 though. Maby they speak more now? 😅

I mean why only english? Do english speakers speak other languages? They should be tested too

The young man with the glasses and hoodie that was interviewed at night actually had good pronunciation. I think he just lacked confidence. With only a bit of conversation with native English speakers I think he would be pretty fluent.

It's like any foreign language - you must want to learn and then have the opportunity to listen and speak it.

Everyone comes alive at night in Asia ... There is something glitterily light that empowers us.

No one in Japan learns anything remotely approaching competence in English just by going through the school system, university included. English pedagogy in Japan is truly awful, most English teachers are not fluent speakers themselves and there are very few professional teachers from overseas who are interested in working in Japan. The only Japanese people who become English speakers are the tiny minority who, for whatever reason, are motivated to make the effort on their own.

country is obsessed with covid - move on

India🇮🇳 super Asia 🌏2024

if your 10 is native speaker， i can give myself 3 or 4. if your 10 is the best student in this University。 i give myself 100

after see fudan student , tokyo uni is more suck !! lol

they all did well! i can understand that they may not get many interactions to use their english.

its interesting and great that his brain immediately thought that piano (a personal activity) was an answer. its rare for japanese folks to give up any information that makes them appear lazy (eg. a personal activity not related to school or work). we got to see a mental shift from japanese to english.

They were not so bad.. In essence yes, not practicing, even by yourself as watching TV shows, movies, listening to music... Singing along. Any type of practice. Even apps and repeating, repeating, repeating...

IDK this feels a little mean

Ahhh yes, the benefits of cliche East Asian rote learning, i.e. 'memorisation for exams' with ZERO focus on REAL learning... This, folks, is why Asians can't compete with Caucasians and Indians in STEM fields outside of university and outside of Asia. I work in IT/Software Development, and the vast majority of my colleagues are Caucasian and Indian. I've not worked with a single East Asian in my 16 years in the tech industry in Australia or Europe... Their parents spend SO MUCH MONEY sending them to western universities, only to have them cheat their way through the IELTS (English) exam to get into the university to begin with, then pay huge sums of money to essay writers and exam sitters in order to get through the university work. They also lean HEAVILY on local students to do group assignements for them as they CANNOT read the English instructions for the project, and this puts HUGE stress on the local student, and then when it comes time to defend the thesis someone else wrote for them, they can't even put into words what they are pretending that they wrote.

You know Tokyo Univ. students are best scored peoples. But they also scare for social atmosphere that it's afraid to mistakes. They are wiser people so they can make a new opinions that mistake isn't worry things, but they don't.This indicate that Japanese university is not contribute to making for good society that don't need hesitate to share an any opinions.

In most of these instances, their pronunciation is very well!

日本人は英語に苦手意識持ってる人が多いのと
高校までで学習するのは受験用の英語だし流暢に話せるようになるのは難しい
それこそ海外に留学でもしないと英語をペラペラに喋れる人はほぼいない
まぁ東大まで行ってる人たちは大学内で海外の留学生とコミュニケーションとってすぐに上達するだろうけどね

Imagine if Sora the troll was there

japanese people find English tough for them but we find japanese language so cryptic and confusing with so many characters to learn 😂😂😂

Nah 25% isn't hard when foe me while preparing for something with 0.1% acceptance rate

日本では一位でも世界では４０位くらい　井の中の蛙大海を知らずですね。
相手の目を見ない自信のなさが垣間見えるし、相手にとても失礼な態度になってます。
残念です。

These peoples' English was fantastic. They should all give themselves more credit, any English speaker travelling/living in Japan would have been very happy to run into them if they needed help. (Big shout out to the guy on the bus in Okinawa who stepped up to help my friend and I understand the bus driver!)

I was an exchange student in Todaï for a few months and I can confirm that their English is not so good. However, my Japanese is even worse so who am I to judge ^^'.

Can Top 1% Students in English Speaking Countries speak Other languages?