People who work with automobile sector, information and technology industry, and manufacturing industry are among the top learners of the language
With India strengthening its relations with Japan, the role of people who know the language has been on a constant rise and the number of learners, according to the statistics available, has increased five times in the last 10 years.
People who work with automobile sector, information and technology industry, and manufacturing industry are among the top learners of the language. The region that tops with highest number of learners is Pune with over 3,000 people learning the language. The city also has three government institutes, Savitribai Phule Pune University, where the language is taught.
Talking to DNA on the sidelines of the India-Japan Global Partnership Summit, Ashwini Sathaye, a Japanese language teacher from the city said, "Pune is a hub for people learning Japanese language because there are similarities between Marathi and Japanese in terms of the phonetics and pronunciation, people from Maharashtra find it easy to learn the language.
The language has picked pace among foreign language learners in the recent past with more students opting for it instead of going for European languages like French, German and Spanish. The reason behind this, Sathaye believes is the growing employment opportunity in Japan.
The problem with Indians learning the language, according to the Japanese, is that the students in India are not being taught the language in a way that would help them deal in a work and business environment when they are employed with Japanese companies.
"We interviewed a lot of people from India in the last couple of years, and found that even if they learn Japanese language they are unable to cope up with the Japanese work environment as they are unable to understand the nuances. For that they should be taught business communication and how to deal with situations in work place," said Aya Kondoh, Professor, Graduate School of Language Education Faculty of Foreign Studies Reitaku University.
"We have developed case study based learning method for teaching the language to people who want to work in Japanese companies. Teaching them things like the basic conversation will not work, most importantly because the Japanese employers pay a lot of attention to communication skills of a candidate while hiring them," she added.
In India, most of the institutes offering a Japanese language course are private institutes, as their is a lack of good trained teachers.
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