Japanese on English is like Americans on healthcare.

And that's an achievement, of a sort.  The link below wouldn't be worth reading, except the one article encapsulates most of the fallacious arguments for Japan's poor... pathetic?... ludicrous?... English performance.

Abe assaults Japan’s culture by forcing English language

The arguments, such as they are, are entirely refuted by every nation successful at foreign language learning:

- "Most Japanese graduates will work for Japanese firms in the domestic economy."  If they get work at all...

- "domestic companies should have equal access to highly educated graduates who may either be barred from university because they fail the English requirement or refuse to subject themselves to the requirement and, thus, forgo university."  First of all, 'highly educated' in Japan means the opposite of 'innovative', as in: what Japan requires.  Second, if a non-Anglo has had university education and speaks no second language, they are an abject failure (if an Anglo, a failure of a different kind).

- "A better policy would be to offer scholarships, funded by the corporations, to those students who desire to learn English and show individual initiative and English proficiency in high school.  This would result in a more dedicated body of students and create an environment of competition and excellence."  Nope, they stay abroad, marry Gaijin, and/or work for foreign companies in Japan, because you won't accept them back and treat them as a threat.

- "[Japanese] is the means by which the Japanese culture is transmitted from one generation to another...  To speak Japanese is to be Japanese."  'There's your problem.'

- "many – especially English-speaking foreigners – would argue that the Japanese need to talk and think differently (mostly so that these foreigners don’t feel so…well…foreign), it is not for them to determine."  Guilty as charged.  I couldn't give a fuck how you make me feel, and I am out of here, but you losers aren't.

- "The threat to the Japanese culture is the wholesale conversion of the educated class into English-speaking and English-thinking after this policy has been in force for a generation."  Yeah, just like the multi-lingual, split-personality Dutch and Nordic peoples.  Dumbfuck.  Listening to Japanese talk about language-learning is like listening to Americans talk about healthcare.  Fuckwits, everybody else does it better.  Look abroad!

- "Rather than allowing mismanaged and bankrupt banks and companies go under when the asset bubble burst, the government bailed them out at the expense of deflation and economic stagnation....  This English language policy is no different."  Yeah, about that, you know how South Korea's and China's business people speak English?  They are also kicking your ass.

- "the damage done to the psyche of the Japanese children... by forcing them to learn a foreign language, children quickly figure out that the Japanese language is not sufficient in this world  [because... it isn't].  The next step in the logical thought process is to assume that being Japanese is not good enough [because... it isn't].  Perhaps it is already evident in the general malaise found in the Japanese youth."  No, that's probably got to do with the structure of your own culture, and the decline in all Japanese indicators of a life worth living.  Just saying...

- "The government is supposed to be inhabited by the best and brightest that Todai can produce…and this is the best they can do?"  You don't even realize what you have just said.

- "It is not because the Japanese people are lazy or too stupid to learn another language.  It is because they are Japanese and proud of it."  Bullshit.  They aren't.  Japan's like the kid posturing at school because he's a redneck loser, except Japanese can't fight.

Fucking Gaijin is the only way to really learn English for Japanese, but of course, then they learn too much to be 'good Japanese' anymore.  On the other hand, since 'tail' is the best motivator for cultural exchange, maybe this is the textbook they should use...  Yankee would become the most fluent.