Japanese Speakers
Japanese is spoken by more than 120 million people around the world. More than 90% of Japanese speakers are Japanese people living in Japan. Curiously, the Japanese don’t have official status in Japan. However, it is obviously the only national language in Japan.
Japanese-speaking population outside Japan
There are nearly 120 million Japanese speakers in Japan. It was surveyed that there are 7 million Japanese speakers that spread in different countries such as:
- United States of America
- United Kingdom
- Brazil
- Philippines
- People’s Republic of China
- Canada
- Singapore
- Australia
- Mexico
- Taiwan
- South Korea.
Japanese speakers in United States of America
In the early 19th century, Japanese populations had settled in the United States, and then a majority of the Japanese population immigrated to the United States in the 2nd half of the century. There are nearly 1 ½ million Japanese-speaking populations in America now. This Japanese population is mainly concentrated in the states such as:
- California
- Hawaii
- New York
- Illinois
- Washington
California has the highest number of Japanese groups, followed by Hawaii.
Importance of Translation
Though being migrated to a nation with major communications in English, more than half of the American-Japanese-speaking population prefers to study and communicate with each other in the Japanese language. Thus, the importance of English to Japanese translations, even for Japanese people living in the United States.
The earlier generations of these populations that had migrated to the United States were mainly workers. Still, today, the situations have changed, and Japanese immigrants that have settled in recent years have excelled in diverse professional fields, whether it be aerospace technology or politics.
Considering the potential Japanese-speaking consumer groups in the United States and their affinity towards the Japanese language, the corporations interested in tapping this consumer market should use professional Japanese translation services to gain success in marketing their products and services effectively.
Japanese-speaking consumers in Brazil
The Japanese population in Brazil has settled in the last hundred years. There are over 2 million Japanese populations in Brazil. This Japanese-speaking population is found mainly in the states of Sao Paulo and Parana in Brazil.
The earlier Japanese generations had migrated to Brazil, mainly for better prospects as the economy of Japan was going through a bad patch during the early part of the 20th century. Also, these generations settled in rural areas of Brazil, which has changed drastically in modern times. Today, nearly 95% of the Japanese population stays in the big cities of Brazil. In Brazil, a major portion of the Japanese-speaking population follows the religion of Roman Catholicism; about 1/3 of the Japanese practice Shinto and Buddhism.
Japanese to Portuguese and Portuguese to Japanese are the two main translation services used to connect the two countries and their people.