Some schools in Japan have been teaching English since shortly after the end of the samurai-dominated Shogunate era in 1867. One compelling story that dates from the 1930s relates how students in one school were charged with memorizing every English word in a Japanese-English dictionary. When some of the more determined students finished memorizing each page they tore the page out and ate it in the hope that literally digesting the words would help.

Until recent times Japanese English language students—in private schools as well as in-house corporate settings—were handicapped by the fact that their teachers themselves could not speak the language fluently; although they could read it well. Another factor that had traditionally played a role in keeping most Japanese “tongue-tied” was a sincere disinterest in studying English and a cultural bias against it.

All of that began to change in mid-1900s, and the more global Japan’s economy became the more need and pressure there was for a continuously increasing number of Japanese to learn how to communicate in English with adequate skill.

By the 1990s this pressure had become so compelling that the need for more Japanese to learn English had become a national priority—and yet still today the Japanese are far behind the South Koreans, Chinese and other Asian nationalities in their efforts to make English a second language for  the younger generations.

In South Korea this effort became so powerful, so demanding, that a national law was passed to prevent after-hours private English language tutoring schools from staying open after 10pm so their students could go home and get some sleep!

By the middle of the first decade of the 21st century the need for more English speakers in Japan had become so compelling that some companies took extraordinary steps to achieve that goal—with the huge online shopping company Rakuten taking the lead by making it a policy that  business in the company would be conducted in English, and that  new hires would already speak English or take steps to learn it quickly once they joined the company.

Prior to this other companies in Japan had already initiated emergency programs to deal with the language problem. As early as 2001 Accenture Japan initiated a policy that all management meetings would be conducted in English. The attempt failed, resulting in the company bringing in simultaneous interpreters to make sure their meetings went smoothly.

However, the company continued to hold meetings in English when the majority of the participants were English-speaking foreigners.

One of the fundamental problems that the Japanese face in doing business in English is that there is a significant difference in the cultural nuances and uses of key Japanese words and their equivalents in English. This difference ranges from subtle to dramatic in both the meaning and the spirit that is incorporated in the two languages. To speak English “fluently”—that is to be culturally correct—the Japanese [and any other foreigners involved] must know how to “think” in English, with all of the cultural overtones this implies.

That ability requires a profound shift in the mindset of the Japanese that generally comes only after several years of living in and functioning in an English speaking culture—meaning that “English-speaking” Japanese who have not lived abroad are still handicapped in dealing with native English speakers.

Another side of this factor is that generally speaking older Japanese in particular do not want to give up their cultural essence in order to communicate with foreigners. They understandably value the “spirit” that is inherent in the Japanese language.

And yet, there is growing awareness that as long as the Japanese are linguistically and culturally tongue-tied Japan will not be able to compete in the global economy on an equal footing.

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Copyright © 2012 by Boyé Lafayette De Mente

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Boyé Lafayette De Mente is the author of 70-plus books on the business practices, arts, cultures and languages of China, Japan, Korea and Mexico; on the degradation of American culture, and on the destructive nature of male dominance in particular.

     De Mente is a graduate of Jōchi University in Tokyo and Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona, and wrote the first books ever on the Japanese way of doing business: Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business [1959] and How to Do Business with the Japanese [1961].

     His current bestselling books include SPEAK JAPANESE TODAY! – a Little Language Goes a Long Way! and AMERICA’S FAMOUS HOPI INDIANS! – Their Spiritual Way of Life & Incredible Prophecies! To see a full list and synopses of his books go to: BoyeDeMente.com and/or Amazon.com.

An insightful discourse on the extreme sexuality of Mexican girls and women and how they use it to “burn” men. One of over 100 key terms in the author’s new book, THE MEXICAN MIND – Understanding & Appreciating Mexican Culture.

I Owe Steve Jobs.

Samurai Principles & Practices for Preteens & Teens.

 Now approaching his 83rd birthday, De Mente published his first book, Japanese Simplified, in 1951 while he was serving in the Tokyo headquarters of the Army Security Agency [ASA], an intelligence branch of the U.S. Army.

 In the mid-1950s he became the editor of the Tokyo-based trade magazine The IMPORTER. His second book, Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business, did not come out until 1959. That was followed in 1961 by How to Do Business in Japan and in 1962 by Bachelor’s Japan and The Tourist & the Real Japan—all pioneer works in their fields.

 De Mente retired from salaried employment in 1962, and has since averaged 1.5 books a year for a total of 74 titles—some 50 of which are still in print, including the 8th edition of Japanese Etiquette & Ethics in Business.

 He says that much of his success as an author resulted from the fact that all of the book-writing foreign correspondents and businessmen residents of Asia who were active in the 1930s and 40s have passed on and their books are long out-of-date, and most of the new crop of writers who came along in the 1950s and 60s are also either dead or no longer publishing.

 “A new crop of writers began appearing in the 1970s and 80s but the majority of them have been rewriters rather than authors of original material, particularly those who came from academia,” he added.

 In the 1980s and 90s De Mente summed up the insights he had gained about the mindset and behavior of the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Mexicans in a series of “cultural code word” books that explain why they think and behave the way they do.

 The books consist of detailed glossaries of the cultural nuances and uses of several hundred key words in each language—words he says that created and control the traditional etiquette and ethics of the people.

 De Mente maintains that it is key words in the languages of people that program them to think and behave the way they do, and that knowledge of the cultural nuances and uses of these words is essential for understanding them

His primary publishers are McGraw-Hill, the Periplus-Tuttle-Berkeley Publishing Group, Phoenix Books/Publishers—an imprint he himself created in the late 1960s—and over a dozen Asian, Latin and European publishers that have brought a number of his books out in Chinese, Croatian, French, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

His latest book: HOW & WHY MALE DOMINANCE PLAGUES HUMANITY! – The Ultimate Challenge for Females!

 Authorsonlinebookshop.com  includes a list and synopses of his books, in both digital and print editions, that are available from Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble and other booksellers.