> my guess that English is taught some 2-3 hours per week Neat, but your guess is wildly wrong, and you should therefore discard your conclusions. Japanese mid

> my guess that English is taught some 2-3 hours per week Neat, but your guess is wildly wrong, and you should therefore discard your conclusions. Japanese mid/high-schoolers take about as many hours of English as they do math, science, or Japanese, and most study further hours at cram schools. The fact that very few Japanese people can speak conversation English despite an extremely rigorous education is what people are talking about here - not whether Japanese people "should" (in a normative sense) speak English, as you're trying to imply.