【9割が知らない】日本人は英語が下手は嘘だった！？その理由を詳しく解説します！

As expected, the level of Japanese English is low. No, no, this is just the magic of numbers. Hello everyone! I'm Dr. Nishizawa Roy of English. On this channel, I teach you how to learn a difficult language in an unconventional way that can be easily changed. Roy-san, I've heard that Japanese English is the lowest level in Asia. Is that true? There is an exam called TOEFL. This is an international exam that is often used when studying in North America. It's from 2005, so it's a pretty old data, but if you look at it, the lowest in 29 countries in Asia was North Korea. And if you ask me what place Japan is in, it's 28th. As expected, the level of Japanese English is low. No, no, this is just the magic of numbers. If you look at the number 28 out of 29 countries and say that Japanese English is the lowest level in Asia, it's clearly weak. Weak? I don't think Japanese English is bad at all. What does the magic of numbers mean? First of all, I will introduce this data in more detail. At that time, the TOEFL exam was a CBT, Computer Based Test, and the full score was 300 points. So, if you look at the data of 29 countries in Asia, 1st place, Singapore. The average score is 254 points. 254 out of 300 points is quite a high level, isn't it? 2nd place, India. 244 points. 3rd place, Pakistan. 235 points. 4th place, the Philippines. 234 points. 5th place, Malaysia. 230 points. So, all the countries so far have English as their official language. So it's natural that the score is good and you can speak English. From 6th place, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan. 14th place, China. 215 points. Well, you may not understand even if you are told only the number 215, so if you convert it to the TOEFL score, it's about 730 points. And 15th place, Hong Kong. 215 points. 16th place, Korea. 215 points. After that, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Tajikistan. 21st place, Taiwan. 205 points. And Laos, Vietnam, Macau, Thailand, Mongolia, and Afghanistan. 28th place, Japan. 191 points on average. If you convert it to the TOEFL score, it's about 650 points. And the last place is North Korea. 190 points. If you look at this alone, you can count from the bottom and it's the second place. It's a math test. One important piece of information is missing. It's the number of applicants. The number of Japanese applicants is 82,438. More than 80,000 people probably applied for TOEFL thinking about studying in North America. 1st to 5th place was English as a second language. 6th place, Bangladesh. I'll announce how many people are taking the exam. 1,649 people. Is that so few? There are 380 people in Sri Lanka, the 7th place. It's true that there is a magic of numbers. Right? The number of applicants in most countries is two or three digits. What does this mean? It's a figure that some elites are taking the exam. In the first place, there are many developed countries in Asia. 6th place, Bangladesh, is one of the poorest countries in the world. They take the TOEFL exam in such a country. In other words, they are trying to study English and study in North America. First of all, the parents are very rich and the elites are spending a lot of money on studying. And because only some elites are taking the exam, the average score is high. I see. But in Japan, 80,000 people are taking the exam. So ordinary people are also taking the exam. I think some high school students are also taking the exam. TOEFL is a very difficult exam for high school students. Anyway, many ordinary people are also taking the exam, not the elites. They are lowering the average score. So based on this data, it is said that the English ability of Japanese people is the lowest level among Asians. It's a ridiculous story. That's true. Anyway, what do Japanese people want to say when they say that the English ability of Japanese people is the lowest level among Asians? What do you want to say? Well, I would like to look at this data again in the form of a collection of only 10,000 people and more countries. Then, China has 18,000 people. Considering that the population is 10 times that of Japan, I think it's not centered around the elites. It may not be very helpful. And one interesting thing is Hong Kong. Even though English is supposed to be a high-level language, it's only 15th place. What does it mean that it's only 215 points, just like China? I wonder what it is. And as data, it makes sense to compare Korea and Taiwan. Korea has 100,000 more people than Japan. And the score is 215 points, which is much higher than Japan. To be honest, Japan has been left out of Korea. That's right. And Taiwan has 26,000 people, which is 205 points. The population of Taiwan is one-fifth of that of Japan. Considering that there are about 23 million people, there are quite a lot of applicants. However, Taiwan is Chinese, so the language order is the same as English. And the pronunciation is also a difficult language. So the hurdle to English is lower than that of Japanese. So considering that there is a little handicap in that area, I think there is not much difference. So, based on the data of TOEFL in 2005, what I want to say is that the low level of Japanese English is a lie. If you say that Japanese people are bad, everyone in the world is bad. On the contrary, there are a lot of things that I thought Japanese people could speak English better. For example, when I went to Thailand, they spoke to me in English in Bangkok, Thailand. First of all, I ordered a local beer. So I asked for a beer please. Then the clerk said this. Do you understand the meaning of I? What do you mean? The answer is that I want to hear ice. I want to hear ice. Oh, ice. But Thai is a language that does not say the root of the word. As a result, you can't say the root of ice and it becomes I. You're not good at English. I'm really bad at it. You think so. So it's not just Japanese. If you don't practice your English pronunciation, everyone in the world is bad at English pronunciation. There are a lot of things like this. For example, I went to Shanghai in 2000. I could hardly speak English. I went to Turkey in 2011. At that time, I could speak English well in Istanbul. Rather, I was often talked to in Japanese. Well, that's a new country. But when I went to the back of the country and tried to change buses at the bus terminal, it was very difficult. I shouted out loud that there was no one who could speak English. I searched for it. Is that so? According to the previous data, Koreans had a better TOEFL score than Japanese. But that doesn't mean that all Koreans can speak English. The other day, I went to a stall in Fukuoka to have a drink. Fukuoka is close to Korea, so there are quite a few Koreans. There were two Koreans sitting next to me at the stall. I talked to them. One of them could speak English normally, but the other one could hardly speak English. I felt like I only knew simple words. So what I want to say is that Japanese people are bad at English. I don't know who started it, but let's stop thinking that way. It's like a group hysteria. Let's stop it. It's not just Japanese people who are bad at English. There are a lot of people in the world who are bad at English. That's true. I think there are about 2 billion people in the world who speak English. On the other hand, 6 billion people can't speak English. They're bad at it. Of course, Japanese is a language that is quite far from English, so it's a handicap to learn it. But that doesn't mean that Japanese people are bad at English. It's weird to be sarcastic like that. Japanese people are said to be modest, but this is not modest or anything. It's just a beard. The real modesty is to hide your nails when you have a brain, or to drool as much as you can. That's what it is. It's completely different from denying that Japanese people are bad at English. Japanese people can speak English. There are a lot of people who can speak English that even ordinary people can communicate with. So I want more and more people to be confident. I used to think that Japanese people were bad at English, but that's not true at all. Even though there is a handicap, I think Japanese people are doing their best and are rather great. From now on, I will not deny my English skills and speak with confidence. Thank you for watching today. Thank you for watching the video until the end. If you find this video helpful, please subscribe to the channel, rate it highly, and leave a comment. It's impossible for only Japanese people to be particularly bad at English. Please leave your comments on this video in the comments section. See you in the next video. This was English doctor Nishizawa Roy. See ya!