Quote Originally Posted by Mikawa Ossan
Japan is certainly more English friendly than say German-friendly.
That is partly the point of this thread. English speakers can't complain. What should someone who only speaks French, Spanish, German, Korean or Chinese say ? In fact, the Koreans and Chinese residing in Japan represent respectively 6.5x and 5x more people than all native English speakers. Even assuming that all Westerners in Japan can speak English (which isn't the case, as I have met French people whose English was really not brilliant), all the Westerners still don't make more than 15% of the Koreans and Chinese combined. So why has Japan become an English-friendly country, when it could have more logically become Korean-friendly or Chinese-friendly ?

I don't think it's just a matter of international image ("kokusaika"), as there would be no need to translate so much, especially outside big cities. I was surprised that even in smaller places like Nagasaki, Shimonoseki or Takamatsu, English signs are as present as in Tokyo. That's quite a lot of money to change tens of thousands of signs just for the sake of "kokusaika". Anyway, most foreign investors and politicians who may care about "kokusaika" probably will never see such rural places.