"When a Japanese and a Chinese person negotiate they are already using English"

What language do you think they use?

All Japanese people learn English at school; few learn Chinese as you can verify by reading about the Japanese school system from various sources including Wikipedia.

Similarly in China, English is the only mandatory foreign language taught at school.

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jfaat 19 hours ago | parent [-]

> What language do you think they use?

Frequently, Chinese or Japanese. For example companies in these countries employ translators. Are you suggesting they rely on primary school-level English to negotiate?

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const_cast 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Other countries have competent language programs, the US is pretty unique in having unbelievably shit education in foreign languages.

That is to say, I would not be surprised if, in China, people are quiet fluent in English.

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umanwizard 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Who says they only study it in primary school?

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jfaat 18 hours ago | parent [-]

You claimed, without a source other than wikipedia, that everyone in Japan learns English in school. I see this [0] on wikipedia which says "a select number of public primary schools ... have mandatory English classes"

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_education_in_...

	▲	umanwizard 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Japan#School_subj... > The following is the set of compulsory subjects currently taught in the Japanese education system from the primary to secondary levels: > * Foreign languages: English (rarely: Korean, Spanish, Arabic, French, German, or Chinese)