they did, most of them asking "doshite no?" or "what's the matter?"
https://twitter.com/i/#!/search/?q=I...t...+&src=typd

I think the average Japanese High School graduate has enough knowledge of English to translate or get the gist of a simple sentence like "It just might happen earlier than I thought...". Those are simple words that are used to construct sentences.

I saw fan made this on twitter, kawaii~
http://i.imgur.com/QI9sK.jpg

Well, not really. Japanese retain very little English after high school unless they use it everday...

Well I'm speaking from the Japanese people I've met, I've had plenty of decent English conversations with the ones I've met while living in China. They've all had a decent level of English once you get them past the shyness thing.

Plus if you actually check the replies and retweets to that thing, there are plenty of Japanese that have managed to decipher Ayu's mysterious message written in ancient code/language. (that's sarcasm)

^ and.... the ones in china have to use english for business which is probably why they are there?

Honestly, I dont the your story, I'm just going by my friends that are ATL's in Japan right now...
the average population there really dont speak the language that well unless they use it on a daily basis.

Same as my experiences living in Japan for 3 months. English is not as common as I heard it was before going there, but there are alot of japanese people with better english skills than what they're taught in school.

Plus in school they don't learn to speak english, but they do learn to read it. The ones who speak english have gone for extra schooling.

I agree. This wasn't a difficult sentence at all und Japanese people should be able to read and understand this very basic words.

When I lived in Japan the only Japanese people I met that spoke any English were the ones married to American men. But, I did live on the American base, so...

Actually, there was one girl who studied English very hard and she was very easy to talk to, but we had nothing in common. The best friend that I made spoke English very poorly, but we had the most fun being crazy. Crazy is universal.

But, I suppose with the sheer number of fans Ayu has its possible a few of them knew what she was saying.

I was fortunate to be at a guesthouse where the managers were in their last years of school to become english teachers. But I also ran into a few who spoke english when I was walking around Tokyo & attended a church where most were bilingual.

Since returning from Japan, I joined a facebook group with a few japanese celebrities in it, one who has been bilingual her whole life & a few trying to learn english. One also has a boyfriend from England who has taught me alot from his experience living and working in Ibaraki.

^ tokyo is really different because thats where most of the english speaking crowds are..

its a huge English epeaking business hub

^^Like, super famous Japanese celebrities? Or people like Miray, Mini and Sifow?

^From what I was told by those I spoke with there, it's not even common in Tokyo. They will usually be able to read a message you write in english capital letters, but unless you happen to find someone studying english like those at the guesthouse, don't count on anyone understanding a word you say. Outside the guesthouse and church, I found only 3-6 japanese people who understood spoken english in 3 months. But they are almost all very kind and generous people, which makes being there much more enjoyable than being here.

No, the most famous one I spoke to was Sora Aoi. They are mostly from JAV, 2 of them retired. They lost alot of family in the Tohoku Quake & Tsunami including 1 who lost her entire family. So I tried to stay in contact with them & contact missionaries who knew my late pastor's family when they were missionaries there for 25 years to help find missing family members. But before they could help it was discovered half the list of names had been killed.

English speaking Japanese people tend to find you, lol.

My friend was sitting in a laundromat one day, a woman walked in, got an EXTREMELY happy look on her face, ran out of the laundromat and returned with an English phrase book to talk to my friend, lol.

It's much easier to play spot the foreigner than spot the English-speaking-Japanese :D

But I mean in general, from my experience living here, Japanese people are a.) very embarrassed about their English and don't want to use it, or b.) could care less about it because they don't need to learn it/retain it

^I noticed that with talking to those learning english on Facebook too. It's like they don't know how well they are doing at it because they are afraid to use it. The week I met one of the retired JAV stars, I helped her figure out how to block an american that was harrassing her online & we ended up having 2 hour talks each day for the next 2 weeks & even though her grammar was slightly off she was doing much better thn she gives herself credit for.

And yeah they can get really excited when they see an opportunity to use english.

Well... I have some japanese friends, who are able to understand and speak english. So.. it is same like in Germany, I think. We learn it in school.. but I also know a lot of people, who are not able to understand it any more.
It depents on the person, if they keep the skills or loose it, I think.

I think Germany is hard to generalize because we have 3 school systems that all teach English on a different level - and then you have the choice to take advanced English (Englisch LK) in Gymnasium. Most people from Hauptschule probably won't retain a good English since they learned it for a shorter period of time and on a lower level than someone from Gymnasium who may have even had English LK.

So, then do you think that most of Ayu's Japanese Twitter followers would be able to understand her English tweets?

^ I dont think you can really generalize a population like that...

everyone is going to be a different case

No, that not really true. I know people from a Hauptschule, which English is better than from people from the Gymnasium. As I said.. it depents on the person. And I know people, who was at the same school, one speaks good English, the other don't.
Well.. when I was in school, we begun learning English from the 5th year on. No matter what school you went to. Now, they start from the first year of school.
And... in the Hautschule, there are two different couses, for learning English.. normal and advanced. It was called "E" and "G" Kurs.
So... you can't say, people from the Hauptschule had a lower level. That's not really true.