Everyone studies it in school. I know that it's mandatory for all three years of high school, and in the places I've seen it's also mandatory in all three years of middle school. Even elementary schools and nursery schools have ALTs to play English games with little kids.
Just because they study it for 6+ years, however, does not mean they can speak it. There are high school students who still can't answer "How are you?" (Usually this results in a blank/terrified stare, but I have, on more than one occasion, gotten back answers of "Yes.")
Do all students study a second language in Japan? And what are languages do they commonly study?
English is the only mandatory second language as far as I'm aware. My current school also offers Chinese and, I believe, Hungarian. (That's if I'm reading the katakana correctly.) Korean is steadily growing in popularity, and I think some places have German.
In our area, there are a lot of people from Brazil, so Portuguese is a common third language on official documents. I don't think they offer it in schools, though.
no subject
Everyone studies it in school. I know that it's mandatory for all three years of high school, and in the places I've seen it's also mandatory in all three years of middle school. Even elementary schools and nursery schools have ALTs to play English games with little kids.
Just because they study it for 6+ years, however, does not mean they can speak it. There are high school students who still can't answer "How are you?" (Usually this results in a blank/terrified stare, but I have, on more than one occasion, gotten back answers of "Yes.")
Do all students study a second language in Japan? And what are languages do they commonly study?
English is the only mandatory second language as far as I'm aware. My current school also offers Chinese and, I believe, Hungarian. (That's if I'm reading the katakana correctly.) Korean is steadily growing in popularity, and I think some places have German.
In our area, there are a lot of people from Brazil, so Portuguese is a common third language on official documents. I don't think they offer it in schools, though.