Japan ranks 92nd in English proficiency, lowest ever: survey - The Mainichi
mainichi.jp
TOKYO -- Japan ranked a record low 92nd in the 2024 English proficiency ranking of 116 countries and regions where English is not the native language,

Summary

Japan’s English proficiency ranking dropped to 92nd out of 116 countries, the lowest ever recorded.

The decline is attributed to stagnant English proficiency among young people, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Netherlands ranked first, followed by European countries, while the Philippines and Malaysia ranked 22nd and 26th, respectively.

  • loppy@fedia.io
    2·
    7 hours ago

    You are correct (for standard Japanese 標準語 hyoujungo; other dialects can be quite different). NoneOfUrBusiness’s response is not a great take. Every word has an accented syllable or no accent at all (and it really is based on syllables, not mora). The accent is realized as a relatively sudden drop in pitch after the accented syllable with no (necessary) change in length or loudness. The drop can complete within the next syllable or after. Usually at the beginning of an utterance you start low, climb up in pitch to a certain point, and then either hit an accent and drop suddenly or gradually drop across a longer period of time if there’s no accent.

    The precise pitch does not matter, and it’s definitely possible to have two accents close together resulting in a high-mid-low kind of pitch pattern.

    Things are also complicated by the fact that Japanese likes devoicing certain syllables. Devoiced syllables can still be accented even though they can’t carry pitch in the same way as voiced syllables.