4 ms·

I moved to Japan to do research for my CS master thesis at one of the top5 universities. While I knew English is not spoken by most Japanese, I was honestly sur

by ascar 8y ago

I moved to Japan to do research for my CS master thesis at one of the top5 universities. While I knew English is not spoken by most Japanese, I was honestly surprised that nearly all the CS students in my lab lack the English skill for daily conversations, let alone have a technical discussion. Considering how international and English dominated CS is and only Japans best students get a place at this university, that is a very bad basis to create top software engineering talent.

ekianjo 8y ago
There's been a trend for Japan to close upon itself in the past 15 years or more already, so going overseas and learning english has become more uncommon than ever. That, and the utter lack of interest to whats happening beyond their borders, is really damaging the future outlooks for Japan.
- Ultramanoid 8y ago
  While I agree wholeheartedly with the closing part, and things are much different and insular than 30 or 20 years ago, I do not necessarily think this affects Japan economically seriously. We've been hearing about the coming collapse of this or that in Japan and the aging Japanese society apocalypse consistently, but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on every trip overseas or to Europe. And more so now than I did 20 years ago.
  - ascar 8y ago
    > but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on every trip overseas or to Europe. And more so now than I did 20 years ago. What do you mean by that? That the living standards in Japan became comparably higher? I can only speak about the comparison to Germany, but the only thing that comes to mind are japanese toilets. Other than that they are pretty similar in my experience, with a few small advantages for one country or the other in different areas. E.g. Germany has way better building heating and isolation standards than most of what I have seen in Japan. On the other hand nearly every building in Japan has AC. This comes from the situation that Germany needs heating for about 6 months a year, no cooling for about 5 months and cooling only for about 1 month. Kansai region on the other hand only needs heating for about 4 months, but cooling for about 6.
    - Ultramanoid 8y ago
      I don't dispute any comparison with Germany in particular as I have been there only for brief periods, and not for at least a decade. But I just can't see any country I've visited or lived in, whether in Western Europe or North America, getting anywhere close to the combined levels of public safety, quality affordable healthcare, excellent ubiquitous transportation, education, technology, extremely reasonable cost of living ( much as economists fear and malign deflation, much as foreigners keep falsely claiming Tokyo is expensive.. ), lack of social unrest, lack of inequality, lack of terrorism, lack of unemployment, etc. Japan is not perfect, and has massive social problems, for sure. Pervasive and severe alcoholism, karoshi, women are second-class citizens, et al. A quake, a typhoon, or a volcano might wreck lives every so often. Not everything is cheerful and rosy. But leave the economy and aging society out of it. For thirty years I've been listening to the aging problem and the stagnating economy. And every single year I see our lives and the lives of those around us not getting worse at the very least, and mostly improving, if ever so slightly. I can't say the same for anyone I know in the States or Europe, especially from 2008 until now.
      - ascar 8y ago
        From my personal experience in the last five months in Japan, I mostly agree with you. By your metrics Germany is probably on par and a few other countries lack the economic power and/or the political will (e.g. the US could afford all that, but chooses not to). > education The general education seems to be good apart from the tendency of karoshi, already beginning with stuff like prep-schools. But as has been noted in the comments here (also by me) the English education really lacks behind. Surprisingly, I personally met more elderly with conversational English skills than students at one of the imperial universities. > extremely reasonable cost of living (much as foreigners keep falsely claiming Tokyo is expensive.. ) Toyko is expensive. It's not a false claim. Yes it's affordable and the rent might be reasonable, if you lower your standards to accomodate for that. The average living space per person in Japan is 22.3m² and below 20m² in big cities [1]. In contrast to that the average living space per person in Germany is 43.8m². Nearly twice as much. On the other hand a 15m² flat 30min away from Toyko station costs about 45000 Yen per month [3]. That's 3000 Yen or 24€ per m². A 1-2 person flat 20min from Munich center (one of the most, if not the most, expensive city by rent in Germany) costs ~15€ per m². So I'm living closer and get 60% more space for the same money. Now consider that foreigners expect more space (see [1] vs [2]) and Toyko really is expensive for foreigners. [1] https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/how-much-living-space-does-the-average-household-have-in-japan/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/how-much-living-sp... [2] https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/SocietyState/IncomeConsumptionLivingConditions/Housing/Tables/Tables_AverageLivingFloorSpacePerPersonFormer.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/SocietyState/IncomeC... [3] https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/cost-living-single-person-tokyo/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/cost-living-single...
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    Living standards in Japan? You mean the minuscule apartments? The notoriously bad heating system (lack of isolation)? Overpriced food in general in supermarkets (with products made using 10x the levels of pesticides/fertilizers compared to other countries)? The fact that Japan rejected nuclear and now used coal and petrol to power its electrical grid (hence aerial pollution)? Don't get me wrong, there are positive aspects to living in Japan, but there's a lot of trade-offs as well and level of life wise it's far from being all rosy in Japan.
    - Ultramanoid 8y ago
      With the exception of the ( usual, but not everywhere ) bad isolation, I can't quite agree at all. Maybe we don't go to the same supermarkets. I'm baffled by how expensive food is in Europe when I can buy the same products for less in Tokyo despite being imported ( Italian olive oil for instance ) and even niche ( the organic kind ) so there you go. Agreed they compensated the closing of nuclear plants with coal and gas, as I already pointed out myself in another thread. But I'll take Tokyo's air any day over that of a European capital. Have you seen the grey mushrooms over them ? It's a world of cars and smog, not of trains. Madrid, Paris, Milan : https://ep01.epimg.net/politica/imagenes/2016/12/28/actualidad/1482960219_284942_1482961151_noticia_normal.jpg https://ep01.epimg.net/politica/imagenes/2016/12/28/actualid... http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1407323/thumbs/o-EUROPE-SMOG-facebook.jpg http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1407323/thumbs/o-EUROPE-SMOG-faceb... http://i.cbc.ca/1.3383314.1451440205!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_620/aptopix-italy-smog.jpg http://i.cbc.ca/1.3383314.1451440205!/cpImage/httpImage/imag... Not to mention the fact that in many Western capitals you literally walk on garbage.
      - ascar 8y ago
        > Not to mention the fact that in many Western capitals you literally walk on garbage. The discipline Japanese have in regards to garbage is astonishing. Especially if you consider how much plastic wrap they use. I was so surprised seeing basically no garbage on the streets, but also basically no public trash bins! > I'm baffled by how expensive food is in Europe when I can buy the same products for less in Tokyo despite being imported ( Italian olive oil for instance ) I would be genuinely curious what part of Europe you are talking about here and what's the prices for what kind of quality of olive oil are in Toyko. I can imagine that for the UK or Ireland the prices are similar. Italian olive oil is imported and shipped to an island to the UK/Ireland as much as it is to Japan and the distance actually has a non-significant impact on shipping costs in that case. Olive oil also ranges vastly in quality levels. I can buy the mid level for about 150en per 700ml, while I have to pay 600en per 500ml for "native oilive oil extra". The difference in taste is worth the four times price increase though. In general I found Japanese supermarkets be way more expensive and eating out way less expensive than compared to Germany (can't speak for other European countries) as I have also pointed out here [1]. E.g. rice can be vastly more expensive, with rice in Germany being available in 1kg sizes for 120en/kg (even cheaper in larger sizes), while in Japan rice in 5kg or 10kg bags for 200en/kg is a bargain. Average rice prices are even cited at 466en/kg here [2] and foreign rice at 295en/kg cited as 20% cheaper and a good deal here [3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19238414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19238414 [2] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Japan https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou... [3] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Japan-s-price-conscious-consumers-turn-to-foreign-rice https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Japan-s-pri...
niztk 8y ago
Indeed, Japan consistently ranks dead last in terms of English proficiency among OECD countries. Heck, it’s even last among Asian economies including developing ones. There’s hardly any i18n for apps/services/portals implemented in Japan barring very few exceptions with minimum and rough execution. The few times I tried to hire Japanese engineering talent, I was shocked by the extreme lack of English aptitude for those out of CS curriculums and we are talking about top universities such as Tokyo University (Todai) and other prestigious institutes of technology. I can’t help but think that Japan will sink deeper into mediocrity if they don’t fix their language problem.
- ascar 8y ago
  It already starts at school. Learning English with Katakana leads to such an incorrect pronunciation that they basically have to relearn talking in English, when they eventually meet foreigners. I have been to multiple school visits as part of the university program and it's a sad state. But in my experience they are trying to improve it, e.g. by bringing us foreign students to the schools and raising awareness.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    For "Sukiyaki Western Django", I've read that Miike just had his Japanese actors memorize the classic western drawl. And that's what it sounds like, to me.
- tokyodude 8y ago
  This is also IMO one of the big reasons Japanese salaries are so low. The Japanese only know Japanese so they can't jump to better labor markets.
  - tjpnz 8y ago
    It's getting better at least in Tokyo where the job market has been heating up of late. People aren't as prepared to accept the same shitty salaries that they used to and companies that want to do well are realising that they need to pay their people properly. The companies that haven't have already lost their most capable devs with only the most mediocre, last cab off the rank types remaining.
discordance 8y ago
I recently finished up two years working for a large cloud provider in Tokyo, where we would help Japanese companies build on our cloud... so I had a lot of exposure to different Japanese tech company practices. The hardest part for Japanese folks working in tech is that most documentation for any service, framework or any paper is in English. This puts a high reliance on sites like qiita.com. It often resulted in an unintended power hierarchy between engineers who could read the official doco in English, and those who became reliant on the English speaking in their team. Occasionally this would result in cases of pawa-hara or teku-hara.

by ascar 8y ago

ekianjo 8y ago

There's been a trend for Japan to close upon itself in the past 15 years or more already, so going overseas and learning english has become more uncommon than ever. That, and the utter lack of interest to whats happening beyond their borders, is really damaging the future outlooks for Japan.

Ultramanoid 8y ago
While I agree wholeheartedly with the closing part, and things are much different and insular than 30 or 20 years ago, I do not necessarily think this affects Japan economically seriously. We've been hearing about the coming collapse of this or that in Japan and the aging Japanese society apocalypse consistently, but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on every trip overseas or to Europe. And more so now than I did 20 years ago.
- ascar 8y ago
  > but I shudder at the comparison between our living standards and the other so-called developed nations on every trip overseas or to Europe. And more so now than I did 20 years ago. What do you mean by that? That the living standards in Japan became comparably higher? I can only speak about the comparison to Germany, but the only thing that comes to mind are japanese toilets. Other than that they are pretty similar in my experience, with a few small advantages for one country or the other in different areas. E.g. Germany has way better building heating and isolation standards than most of what I have seen in Japan. On the other hand nearly every building in Japan has AC. This comes from the situation that Germany needs heating for about 6 months a year, no cooling for about 5 months and cooling only for about 1 month. Kansai region on the other hand only needs heating for about 4 months, but cooling for about 6.
  - Ultramanoid 8y ago
    I don't dispute any comparison with Germany in particular as I have been there only for brief periods, and not for at least a decade. But I just can't see any country I've visited or lived in, whether in Western Europe or North America, getting anywhere close to the combined levels of public safety, quality affordable healthcare, excellent ubiquitous transportation, education, technology, extremely reasonable cost of living ( much as economists fear and malign deflation, much as foreigners keep falsely claiming Tokyo is expensive.. ), lack of social unrest, lack of inequality, lack of terrorism, lack of unemployment, etc. Japan is not perfect, and has massive social problems, for sure. Pervasive and severe alcoholism, karoshi, women are second-class citizens, et al. A quake, a typhoon, or a volcano might wreck lives every so often. Not everything is cheerful and rosy. But leave the economy and aging society out of it. For thirty years I've been listening to the aging problem and the stagnating economy. And every single year I see our lives and the lives of those around us not getting worse at the very least, and mostly improving, if ever so slightly. I can't say the same for anyone I know in the States or Europe, especially from 2008 until now.
    - ascar 8y ago
      From my personal experience in the last five months in Japan, I mostly agree with you. By your metrics Germany is probably on par and a few other countries lack the economic power and/or the political will (e.g. the US could afford all that, but chooses not to). > education The general education seems to be good apart from the tendency of karoshi, already beginning with stuff like prep-schools. But as has been noted in the comments here (also by me) the English education really lacks behind. Surprisingly, I personally met more elderly with conversational English skills than students at one of the imperial universities. > extremely reasonable cost of living (much as foreigners keep falsely claiming Tokyo is expensive.. ) Toyko is expensive. It's not a false claim. Yes it's affordable and the rent might be reasonable, if you lower your standards to accomodate for that. The average living space per person in Japan is 22.3m² and below 20m² in big cities [1]. In contrast to that the average living space per person in Germany is 43.8m². Nearly twice as much. On the other hand a 15m² flat 30min away from Toyko station costs about 45000 Yen per month [3]. That's 3000 Yen or 24€ per m². A 1-2 person flat 20min from Munich center (one of the most, if not the most, expensive city by rent in Germany) costs ~15€ per m². So I'm living closer and get 60% more space for the same money. Now consider that foreigners expect more space (see [1] vs [2]) and Toyko really is expensive for foreigners. [1] https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/how-much-living-space-does-the-average-household-have-in-japan/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/how-much-living-sp... [2] https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/SocietyState/IncomeConsumptionLivingConditions/Housing/Tables/Tables_AverageLivingFloorSpacePerPersonFormer.html https://www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/SocietyState/IncomeC... [3] https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/cost-living-single-person-tokyo/ https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/cost-living-single...
- ekianjo 8y ago
  Living standards in Japan? You mean the minuscule apartments? The notoriously bad heating system (lack of isolation)? Overpriced food in general in supermarkets (with products made using 10x the levels of pesticides/fertilizers compared to other countries)? The fact that Japan rejected nuclear and now used coal and petrol to power its electrical grid (hence aerial pollution)? Don't get me wrong, there are positive aspects to living in Japan, but there's a lot of trade-offs as well and level of life wise it's far from being all rosy in Japan.
  - Ultramanoid 8y ago
    With the exception of the ( usual, but not everywhere ) bad isolation, I can't quite agree at all. Maybe we don't go to the same supermarkets. I'm baffled by how expensive food is in Europe when I can buy the same products for less in Tokyo despite being imported ( Italian olive oil for instance ) and even niche ( the organic kind ) so there you go. Agreed they compensated the closing of nuclear plants with coal and gas, as I already pointed out myself in another thread. But I'll take Tokyo's air any day over that of a European capital. Have you seen the grey mushrooms over them ? It's a world of cars and smog, not of trains. Madrid, Paris, Milan : https://ep01.epimg.net/politica/imagenes/2016/12/28/actualidad/1482960219_284942_1482961151_noticia_normal.jpg https://ep01.epimg.net/politica/imagenes/2016/12/28/actualid... http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1407323/thumbs/o-EUROPE-SMOG-facebook.jpg http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1407323/thumbs/o-EUROPE-SMOG-faceb... http://i.cbc.ca/1.3383314.1451440205!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_620/aptopix-italy-smog.jpg http://i.cbc.ca/1.3383314.1451440205!/cpImage/httpImage/imag... Not to mention the fact that in many Western capitals you literally walk on garbage.
    - ascar 8y ago
      > Not to mention the fact that in many Western capitals you literally walk on garbage. The discipline Japanese have in regards to garbage is astonishing. Especially if you consider how much plastic wrap they use. I was so surprised seeing basically no garbage on the streets, but also basically no public trash bins! > I'm baffled by how expensive food is in Europe when I can buy the same products for less in Tokyo despite being imported ( Italian olive oil for instance ) I would be genuinely curious what part of Europe you are talking about here and what's the prices for what kind of quality of olive oil are in Toyko. I can imagine that for the UK or Ireland the prices are similar. Italian olive oil is imported and shipped to an island to the UK/Ireland as much as it is to Japan and the distance actually has a non-significant impact on shipping costs in that case. Olive oil also ranges vastly in quality levels. I can buy the mid level for about 150en per 700ml, while I have to pay 600en per 500ml for "native oilive oil extra". The difference in taste is worth the four times price increase though. In general I found Japanese supermarkets be way more expensive and eating out way less expensive than compared to Germany (can't speak for other European countries) as I have also pointed out here [1]. E.g. rice can be vastly more expensive, with rice in Germany being available in 1kg sizes for 120en/kg (even cheaper in larger sizes), while in Japan rice in 5kg or 10kg bags for 200en/kg is a bargain. Average rice prices are even cited at 466en/kg here [2] and foreign rice at 295en/kg cited as 20% cheaper and a good deal here [3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19238414 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19238414 [2] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?country=Japan https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou... [3] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Japan-s-price-conscious-consumers-turn-to-foreign-rice https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-trends/Japan-s-pri...

niztk 8y ago

Indeed, Japan consistently ranks dead last in terms of English proficiency among OECD countries. Heck, it’s even last among Asian economies including developing ones. There’s hardly any i18n for apps/services/portals implemented in Japan barring very few exceptions with minimum and rough execution. The few times I tried to hire Japanese engineering talent, I was shocked by the extreme lack of English aptitude for those out of CS curriculums and we are talking about top universities such as Tokyo University (Todai) and other prestigious institutes of technology. I can’t help but think that Japan will sink deeper into mediocrity if they don’t fix their language problem.

ascar 8y ago
It already starts at school. Learning English with Katakana leads to such an incorrect pronunciation that they basically have to relearn talking in English, when they eventually meet foreigners. I have been to multiple school visits as part of the university program and it's a sad state. But in my experience they are trying to improve it, e.g. by bringing us foreign students to the schools and raising awareness.
- mirimir 8y ago
  For "Sukiyaki Western Django", I've read that Miike just had his Japanese actors memorize the classic western drawl. And that's what it sounds like, to me.
tokyodude 8y ago
This is also IMO one of the big reasons Japanese salaries are so low. The Japanese only know Japanese so they can't jump to better labor markets.
- tjpnz 8y ago
  It's getting better at least in Tokyo where the job market has been heating up of late. People aren't as prepared to accept the same shitty salaries that they used to and companies that want to do well are realising that they need to pay their people properly. The companies that haven't have already lost their most capable devs with only the most mediocre, last cab off the rank types remaining.

discordance 8y ago

I recently finished up two years working for a large cloud provider in Tokyo, where we would help Japanese companies build on our cloud... so I had a lot of exposure to different Japanese tech company practices. The hardest part for Japanese folks working in tech is that most documentation for any service, framework or any paper is in English. This puts a high reliance on sites like qiita.com. It often resulted in an unintended power hierarchy between engineers who could read the official doco in English, and those who became reliant on the English speaking in their team. Occasionally this would result in cases of pawa-hara or teku-hara.