3 ms·
English fluency matters less for Japan, for what it’s worth. They have their own Japanese versions of everything.
by adastra22 2y ago
English fluency matters less for Japan, for what it’s worth. They have their own Japanese versions of everything.
- KeplerBoy 2y agoThey don't have their own japanese versions for a lot of stuff? They still use the same software as the west (iOS, Android, Windows, Chrome, ...). Most of these cornerstones of modern Software maintain Japanese, Chinese and Korean documentation, but there is no way those docs are as good as the English ones.
- adastra22 2y agoI wasn’t talking about translated docs. There are whole stacks of software used in Japan which are not used anywhere else. Sometimes it predates western adoption of similar ideas (like the media phones Japan had years before the iPhone, which to some degree Apple was copying), sometimes it Japan that adopts something western and then forks it. It is a recognized and studied phenomenon: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_syndrome There is some advantage to speaking English as you then get access to two separate development cultures and can pick the best of each for the job. But it is not a hard requirement like it is for the rest of the world. Only a small minority of engineers work on the latest western technology stacks like we do.
- ranger_danger 2y agoThe report in question is the "world digital competitiveness ranking". I think it's safe to say that you can't get very high on that list without having very good English skills. In that way I would say English fluency very much matters for Japan if they want to stay relevant with the rest of the world.