Surge in learners of Japanese
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More than 800,000 Indonesians are currently studying the Japanese language, mainly due to the popularity of Japanese pop culture, anime, manga and mouth-watering Japanese cuisine, according to the worldwide "Survey on Japanese Language Education Abroad" c
The survey, which is conducted every three years, found that the number of people learning Japanese overseas surged to 3,984,538 in 2012, a 9.1 per cent increase from the 3,651,232 in 2009.
China topped the list with 1,046,490 learners, a 26.5 per cent surge on 2009 figures. Indonesia ranked No 2 in the world with 872, 406 learners in 2012, an increase of 21.8 per cent from 2009. Indonesia also pushed South Korea, whose learners of Japanese declined from 964,014 in 2009 to 840,187 in 2012, into third position.
