Rakuten has made English its official language for all meetings and cafeteria menus. Board members must be able to speak English within two years or they will be fired. Rakuten has 6,000 global employees of which 400 are non-Japanese. The CEO is pushing English usage throughout the company and 200 employees take English lessons, though demand is higher. Achieving certain scores on the TOEIC English test will be required for promotions depending on job title. Rakuten believes using English is important as it expands globally.

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Yusuke Sato

2. 1.Make English its official language.
Rakuten's all meeting will use an English whether
foreigners are present or not. President of
Rakuten has said that board members who can't
speak English in two years will be fired. Cafeteria
menus are now in English.

3. 2.Rate of
employees
The Rakuten group has 6,000 employees
globally, of whom about 400 are non-
Japanese. The firm doesn't keep track of how
many non-Japanese it has in Japan, while the
16 board members at its headquarters in
Tokyo are all Japanese.

4. 3.Japanese companies and English.
● Japanese companies looking to expand
their overseas sales don't deny the merit of
having employees proficient in English, but
none has gone as far as to require their
Japanese employees to speak English to
other Japanese employees.

5. 4.What' mean about Rakuten's
news?
● The significance of Rakuten's announcement
was that Mikitani forced the employees to make
the commitment.

6. 5.Rakuten is able to push English.
● Rakuten is one of a very small number of
Japanese companies able to push English
as its official language . Because Rakuten's
president is fluent in English and is very
charismatic.

7. 6.Rakuten employees learn English.
● -part 1
akuten employees are under a lot of
pressure to learn English. Rakuten said that
200 employees out of 3,000 working at the
headquarters take lessons from Berlitz
Japan Inc., a language school chain that
has an exclusive contract to send English
teachers to Rakuten.

8. 7.Rakuten employees learn English.
● - part 2
A lot more people applied for the lessons,
but Rakuten had a capacity of only 200 due
to space limitations. Adding that other
employees are taking English lessons
elsewhere. Everybody spends their own
money for lessons and is committed to
learning English.

9. 8.What need for International
Communication, will be required for
promotion?
● Achieving certain scores in the TOEIC, or the
Test of English for International Communication,
will be required for promotion, Rakuten said.
The range of required TOEIC scores is from
600 to 750 depending on job title, but workers
in the lowest two levels don't need TOEIC
scores.

10. 9.At the end. Rakuten think a great
deal of use the English.
● Rakuten make English its official language and
Rakuten's employees learn English and be able
to push English. It is important for Rakuten to
use the English.