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Originally Posted by Acajack
Fascinating as always.
I know that a lot if signage in Japan features the Latin alphabet.
What is your rough estimate of the percentage of Japanese people who can actually read that?
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All Japanese students learn the Roman alphabet around the 3rd or 4th grade of elementary school, but the level of actually understanding of English words and phrases varies considerably. Most of them are just Japanese words simply written in the Roman alphabet. I have asked many people why they do that, and the answer is always just, “because we think it looks cool.”
The situation is similar to those who get Chinese character tattoos. They have no real grasp of the language, they just like the foreign look.
As for the topic of stroads, I feel many on here underestimate how common they are outside of North America. The average Canadian seems to think the typical Japanese neighborhood looks like the historical core of Kyoto, when actually the typical Japanese neighborhood when considering the entire country is more akin to what you find in Burnaby or Surrey, BC. In fact the built form of Richmond is eerily similar to suburban Japan.