世論 What Japan Thinks

But, to my English teaching readers, don’t all start patting yourselves on the back yet, as this survey from iShare on foreign languages also reveals that less than one in fifteen feel capable of stringing more than a few words together.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 25th of November 2008 430 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.5% of the sample were male, 13.3% were in their twenties, 54.4% in their thirties, 23.5% in their forties, and 8.8% in their teens or fifty or older.

Note that at least those in their twenties and thirties should have studied English for all six years in high school.

One wonders how much degree of racial bias is in the answers of favourite language, as Asian languages are rated much lower than Western ones. On the other hand I do find Chinese and Korean pretty rough on my ears, but then again, German can be too. I wonder, though, why exactly is knowing a language rated as cool? Is it due to perception of difficulty or association with having travelled to countries or moved in circles associated with the language?

Research results

Q1: Can you speak a foreign language? (Sample size=430)

Yes, conversationally (to SQ)	6.5%
Yes, just simple phrases (to SQ)	25.8%
Can hardly speak	67.7%

Q1SQ: What languages can you speak? (Sample size=139, multiple answer)

English	92.1%
Chinese	5.0%
German	5.0%
Korean	4.3%
French	4.3%
Italian	2.2%
Indonesian	2.2%
Spanish	2.2%
Thai	2.2%
Filipino	2.2%
Russian	2.2%
Other	1.4%

Q2: Do you think people who can speak a foreign language are cool? (Sample size=430)

Yes (to SQ)	68.1%
No	31.9%

Q2SQ: What do you think is the coolest spoken foreign language? (Sample size=293)

English	64.8%
French	13.0%
Italian	5.1%
German	5.1%
Spanish	2.0%
Latin	2.0%
Arabic	1.4%
Chinese	1.4%
Korean	1.0%
Thai	1.0%
Russian	1.0%
Portugese	0.7%
Other	1.4%

Q3: Have you ever been abroad? (Sample size=430)

Yes (to SQ)	72.3%
No	27.7%

Q3SQ: Which was a problem when abroad, talking or reading and writing? (Sample size=311)

Talking	70.1%
Reading and writing	12.5%
Neither	17.4%

I’m not really sure why “both” isn’t an option above!