Japanese is the de facto official language of Japan. It’s easy to see why: Over 99% of Japanese people speak it as their primary language! Japan has historically had a low level of immigration, resulting in a linguistic landscape that is nearly homogeneous. But what languages make up the final 1%?
In major cities, you may find people who also speak more common languages, including the most spoken languages in the world (English and Mandarin Chinese). However, among the Japanese Indigenous communities, you’ll also find a language that’s so unique, it’s the only one in its language family. Find out what languages you can expect to hear and see in Japan before you visit!
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What is the official language of Japan?
While Japan does not have a formal official language, the Japanese language is the de facto national language. In Japan, 99.1% of the population speaks Japanese, which amounts to about 122 million native speakers.
How many languages are spoken in Japan?
Five major world languages and eight endangered languages are spoken in Japan. Because the Japanese language is so dominant, all other languages spoken in Japan total less than 1% together.
The five most widely spoken primary languages in Japan are:
- Japanese: 99.1%
- Korean: 0.5%
- Mandarin Chinese: 0.2%
- Filipino (Tagalog): 0.1%
- English: 0.1%
UNESCO also recognizes eight endangered Indigenous languages in Japan:
- Ainu
- Hachijō
- Ryukyuan languages
- Okinawan
- Yaeyama
- Yonaguni
- Amami
- Kunigami
- Miyako
Most spoken languages in Japan
The vast majority of people in Japan speak Japanese. However, depending on where you are in the country, you may hear a few other languages from Japan’s neighboring countries: Korean and Mandarin Chinese.
Japanese
Japan’s population as of 2026 is roughly 123 million, meaning approximately 122 million (99.1%) people in Japan speak Japanese.
Japanese used to be considered a language isolate, meaning it was categorized as an independent language family with no other related languages. However, modern linguistics categorizes Japanese as the main language in the Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages.
Although the Japanese language itself is unrelated to Chinese languages, the Japanese writing system was adopted from the Chinese writing system. The Japanese phonetic alphabets were developed within Japan based on those characters, but the kanji (漢字) writing system still looks nearly identical to the traditional version of the modern Chinese writing system. The word kanji even means “Chinese characters.”
Korean
Korean is the second-most widely spoken language in Japan, but only about 617,000 (0.5%) people speak it as their native language.
Koreans make up the largest minority group in Japan at about one million people. The largest Korean communities are in the Kansai area (Osaka and Hyogo Prefectures) and Tokyo. The initial Korean population in Japan was made up of Koreans who were brought in during Japan’s occupation of Korea (1910-1945). The communities that still exist in Japan are largely their descendants.
Mandarin Chinese
Only 0.2% (about 247,000 people) of the Japanese population speaks Mandarin Chinese as their primary language, but it’s still the third-most widely spoken language in Japan. That being said, just over 930,000 Chinese people held Japanese residency as of 2025, making them the largest group of immigrants to Japan.
Japan has three historic Chinatowns, each located in Yokohama, Nagasaki, and Kobe. The Chinese community in Tokyo is also increasing as more people move to Japan from China.
Indigenous languages spoken in Japan
Japan has several endangered Indigenous languages. Outside of Japan, each of these is considered to be a language. However, with the exception of Ainu, the Japanese government formally refers to them as dialects (hōgen, 方言) rather than languages.
Ainu
Native to the island of Hokkaido and its surrounding islands, Ainu is only spoken by about 300 people as of 2023. Out of that small group, only 4.6% felt they could teach it to another person.
In 1870, there were about 15,000 people who spoke Ainu natively on the island of Hokkaido (which is now part of Japan), and the language has become increasingly endangered since.
Ainu is unique in that it is currently an undisputed language isolate (per Ethnologue). While all members of the Ainu community who speak Ainu are at least bilingual, efforts are being made to preserve the details of the language (by compiling Ainu dictionaries, for example) for current and future generations.
Hachijō
About 1,700 people speak the Hachijō (八丈) language (2013) in the small Hachijō subprefecture, a group of islands a little over 250 miles to the south of Tokyo.
Linguistic evidence suggests that Hachijō is derived from an old form of Japanese (Eastern Old Japanese), although it sounds different from modern Japanese. For example, Japanese verbs end in an “u” sound, but in Hachijō and in Eastern Old Japanese, they end in an “o” sound.
Ryukyuan languages
Several languages are used in the Okinawan islands in the far southern reaches of Japan, and they’re collectively referred to as Ryukyuan languages. Each of these languages is endangered, and they’re mostly used only by older adults.
- Okinawan (沖縄)
- Yaeyama (八重山)
- Yonaguni (与那国)
- Amami (奄美)
- Kunigami (国頭)
- Miyako (宮古)
A 2020 survey by the Okinawa prefectural government found that 43.2% of Okinawa’s population (the total population being 1.47 million in 2023) were bilingual speakers of Japanese and an indigenous Okinawan language.
Japanese uses two other terms for these languages: Shimakutuba (しまくとぅば) and Uchinaaguchi (ウチナーグチ). Shimakutuba refers to all Indigenous languages in the Okinawan islands, while Uchinaaguchi generally refers to the languages spoken on the main island of Okinawa and the nearby surrounding islands.
Frequently asked questions about what language is spoken in Japan
If you visit Japan, you’ll want to learn Japanese words and phrases for basic conversations to navigate and communicate effectively.
Is English spoken in Japan?
Some people speak English in Japan, and English is a mandatory subject in most schools. However, in practice, English proficiency for Japanese adults is usually limited to basic greetings and loanwords. Japan, overall, is considered to have low English proficiency by the EF English Proficiency Index.
Do Japanese people speak Mandarin?
In general, Japanese people do not speak Mandarin Chinese. Only 0.2% of the Japanese population speaks Chinese as their mother tongue. It’s offered in some schools, but it’s not a compulsory subject.
What is the actual Japanese language called?
In Japanese, the Japanese language is called nihongo (日本語). Nihon (or Nippon in some official contexts) is the native name for Japan, and -go (～語) is a suffix meaning “language.”
How do you say ‘hello’ in Japanese?
The most common way to say “hello” in Japanese is konnichiwa (こんにちは). It also means “good afternoon,” so it’s most appropriate to use it during the day. You can use other Japanese greetings to say hi, like ohayō gozaimasu (おはようございます) for “good morning” and konbanwa (こんばんは) for “good evening.”
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