Cl Tan comments

My country, Malaysia, faces a similar issue. Malaysian society seems to be struggling to juggle the languages they learn at school. Recently, the government scrapped a highly contentious policy to teach Maths and Science in English instead of the local lingo after years of sloppy planning and implementation and resistance from like more than half of the country's population who live in suburbs or rural areas. Then again, this policy has a significant number of supporters concentrated in urban areas and many of which actually speak English in place of their supposed ancestral tongues at home, perhaps a vestige of British colonialism bumped up by overwhelming American pop culture.

On top of that, the Malay language is not in a good shape. Many urban folk tend to mix Malay and English together in colloquial language, and before we knew it, things have gotten out of hand when 'bahasa rojak' as we call it is also used in formal speech! Furthermore, the Malay language regulator also came under fire when the latest edition of the authoritative Malay dictionary, Kamus Dewan, was said to have taken in a mother-load of English loanwords which spark fears over the Malay language's identity crisis.

I hope Japan learns a thing or two from Malaysia's linguistic mess before undertaking any bold step to improve its command of English or foreign languages.