It's been said time and again: 日本人は英語がダメ (Nihonjin wa Eigo ga dame, The Japanese are terrible at English).

In spite of the strong emphasis on 英語教育 (Eigo kyōiku, English education) instilled in a rigorous school system and the numerous 英会話学校 (Eikaiwa gakkō, English conversation schools) scattered across all the major cities, the fact remains that many of us have no idea how to say "right" and make it sound different from "light." In fact, many Japanese still associate English learning with the あまりに古典的な (amari ni kotentekina, all-too classic) phrase "This is a pen" found in textbooks of old, and find it difficult to move on from that sentence.

実際に (Jissai ni, actually), "This is a pen" was taken out of English textbooks decades ago but the phrase has stuck around as the embodiment of all that's wrong with the way the Japanese learn English. Thirty-nine-year old Kenji Yoshida says that in his 中学時代 (chūgakujidai, middle school years) in Okayama Prefecture, his seventh grade English textbook began with "Hello. I am a boy," which struck him as being just as ridiculous as "This is a pen" and also reeked of gender discrimination. 酷い教科書だった (Hidoi kyōkasho datta, It was an awful textbook), sighed Yoshida. そこでもう、英語はつまらないものと思ってしまった (Sokode mō, eigo wa tsumaranai mono to omotte shimatta, At that point, I thought English was dull).