The reason why Japanese business persons seldom speak English

Nearly five years have passed since I started working for an European capital company in Japan after thirty years of service for aJapanese manufacturing company. The reality of Japanese ”GLOBAL”companies is that English speaking employees in Japan are used as handymen to support (incompetent) bosses who cannot speak English.

What surprised me after joining a foreign capital company is that most of the employees except for upper management are not good at speaking and writing English either.

I think there exists several reasons:
 

1. Necessity: Since foreign capital companies focus on the Japanese marketand customers, there is not so much need to use English as a daily communication tool.

2. Motivation: In principle, performance appraisal is implemented based on individual performance. High performers in non-managerial positions are promoted nothing to do with their English level. They get rattled when reaching upper positions where they must use English to communicate with their foregin counterparts.

 

3. Basic scholastic achievement: In general, proficiency in English for non-native speakers is linked with basic scholastic achievement. In the Japanese corporate hierarchy, smartest talents tend to join Japanese large companies rather than foreign capital companies,  most of which in Japan are small or middle sized ones.

 

4. Shyness: Most of Japanese enjoy watching TV programs on foreign cultureand travel but hesitate to have direct communications with foreigners in foreign languages such as English. They worry themselves thinking“ What shall I do if my English is not understood?” or “Is my pronunciation correct? If not, do native speakers make fun of me?”

We do not have to worry about our pronunciation as long as we can convey messages since English is just a communication tool. To my ears, English spoken by the world leaders(e.g. Secretary General ofthe United Nations) do not always sounds fantastic. But to most of Japanese it is a shame if they cannot speak “perfect” English which is taught in the language schools.
  

Years ago, I participated in a two-week-global leadership program sponsored by a Japanese leading company. All the participants are from big-name companies in the world.  All the lecturers were invited to Tokyo from Harvard. All the sessions were filled with heated discussions led by Indians and Western people but Asian people including Japanese were relatively quiet.

Among the participants, I had a Japanese acquaintance, who was an elite having 5 years working experience in the US with over 950 TOEIC score. To my surprise, he did not speak  one word through the two week programs while the rest of the participants tried to speak up at least few times.

After completing the entire sessions I asked him over a drink “WHY were you silent  all the time?” He said showing signs of embarrassment “Every time I tried to say something, you already spoke up and I could not find any chances…”I guess true reasons were he was afraid of losing face by saying some thing out of focus( a few years later, he was promoted to a company executive ) . I truly hope such too sensitive Japanese leaders in the Japanese  “GLOBAL” firms will have a little more courage to speak up when necessary to compete with tough businessleaders in the world.