The Japanese Language

In India, Japanese companies were among the first foreign investors in India. Today, almost all the large Japanese MNCs have significant presences in India, across sectors such as automotive, heavy engineering, IT hardware, and consumer durables.

Japanese industrial houses like Mitsubishi, Sony, Toyota, Honda, Fujitsu and Panasonic are household names in India. This strong and deep business relationship has created a healthy demand for the Japanese language in India.

Chennai has a particular relevance as more than a third of the Japanese Companies in India have a presence in Chennai. Japanese is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities.

While the language is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, there are sizeable emigrant communities in other parts of the world, with over 1 million Japanese-speaking people each in USA and Brazil.

Other countries in which there are Japanese emigrant communities include Peru, Argentina, Australia, Canada and the Philippines. As Japan has been an economic superpower ever since the second half of the 20th century, this has driven interest in learning Japanese the world over.

Knowledge of Japanese is a very important asset for those who have business dealings with Japan and Japanese corporations, especially given the limited knowledge of English among the Japanese.