In October 2007 the Japan Foundation announced a 26.4% increase over the past 4 years in the number of people studying Japanese around the world.

The Foundation cited the dissemination of Japanese pop-culture, including anime, movies, and video games, as a major reason for the increase. Countries with the highest number of students were: Korea, China, and Australia. The most common reasons for learning Japanese were “to gain more knowledge of Japanese culture” and “to become able to communicate in Japanese.”

Source: Daily Sun New York No.1212, 11/01/2007