Keywords

Japan is the only country which uses Japanese as the official language. So we can say that almost all of the webpages written in Japanese were written for Japanese people (and for the very few foreigners who speak Japanese). According to this page, 295.4 million of Internet users are native English speakers. And 67 million of native Japanese speakers (i.e. Japanese people) are using Internet. This is the fourth largest numbers of Internet users after Chinese speakers (110 million) and Spanish speakers (72 million).

Now, suppose that we search a certain Japanese keyword with Google. Probably, this hit-count will reflect how much Japanese peoples are interested in the keyword. If we also search the same keyword in English and compare both hit-counts, we will be able to find out how each people in two language zones have different degree of interest in the keyword.

I tried it using various keywords. The following is the list of some keywords that brought obvious results. Of course, not only the simple hit-counts, but the ratios of the hit-counts in the number of each language users are shown. These ratio will show us what Japanese people are interested in or not. How about trying this also with your native language?

(These hit-counts are the numbers of the moment where I searched them)

Language	keyword(s)	hit-count	ratio of hit-count to language users(%)	ratio of bigger to smaller
Eng	"fortune telling" OR "foretelling" OR "prophesy"	922,000	0.31	1.0
Jpn	"" (URANAI)	6,010,000	8.97	28.9
There are no people like Japanese who are crazy about fortune-telling.
Eng	"blood type" OR "blood types"	627,000	0.21	1.0
Jpn	"" (KETSUEKI-GATA)	1,220,000	1.82	8.7
Read my past article about this.
Eng	"minus ion"	4,920	0.0017	1.0
Jpn	""	523,000	0.78	458.8
Read my past article about this.
Eng	"perversion" OR "pervert"	769,000	0.26	1.0
Jpn	"" (HENTAI)	877,000	1.31	5.04
This result seems to show us that Japan is filled with perverts. But, see below!
Eng	"hentai"	20,700,000	7.01	5.35
Jpn	"" (HENTAI)	877,000	1.31	1.0
Hey! Are there this much hentais in the world?
Eng	"school truancy" OR "school refusal"	36,200	0.012	1.0
Jpn	"" OR "" (FUTOKO)	376,000	0.56	46.7
Japanese students really hate their schools.
Eng	"aging of population" OR "aging of society"	8,640	0.0029	1.0
Jpn	"" (KOREIKA-SHAKAI)	243,000	0.36	124.1
In Japan, every two workers will have to support one retired person by 2025.
Eng	"declining birth rate" OR "declining birth rates" OR "declining birthrate"	40,500	0.014	1.0
Jpn	"" (SHOUSHI-KA)	311,000	0.46	32.86
In this year, population of Japan decreased for the first time from 1950.
Eng	"health food" OR "healthy food"	3,770,000	1.28	1.0
Jpn	"" (KENKO-SHOKUHIN)	3,120,000	4.66	3.6
Japanese people are sick with wanting to be health.
Eng	"promotion by seniority" OR "seniority system"	26,900	0.0091	1.0
Jpn	"" (NENKOU-JORETSU)	81,400	0.12	13.2
The bad habit is still alive.
Eng	"life time employment" OR "lifetime employment" OR "lifelong employment"	82,600	0.028	1.0
Jpn	"" (SHUSHIN-KOYO)	50,300	0.075	2.68
Japanese office workers used to say "I'm ready for burying my bones under this company!"
Eng	"environmental problem" OR "environmental issue"	641,000	0.27	1.0
Jpn	"" (KANKYO-MONDAI)	2,480,000	3.7	13.7
Every TV commercial says "We're thinking about environment".
Eng	"Iraq war" OR "war in Iraq"	8,130,000	2.75	2.96
Jpn	"" (IRAQ-SENSO)	624,000	0.93	1.0
Since a young hostage was killed by terrorist, at last, Japanese people started to take the war seriously.
Eng	"terrorism" OR "terro"	11,200,000	3.79	1.8
Jpn	"" OR ""	1,430,000	2.13	1.0
We also have experienced the terrorism by domestic left-wing guerrillas many times.
Eng	"United Nations" OR "UN"	34,700,000	11.75	9.5
Jpn	"" OR "" (KOKU-REN)	831,000	1.24	1.0
The corruption of the United Nations is hardly known by Japanese people yet.
Eng	"East Timor"	5,700,000	1.93	13.8
Jpn	"" OR "" (HIGASHI-TIMOR)	92,400	0.14	1.0
Many of Japanese may not even know what this is about.
Eng	"food crisis"	172,000	0.058	4.8
Jpn	"" (SHOKURYO-KIKI)	7,750	0.012	1.0
It must be a serious problem for us because we have only 40% of the food self-sufficiency ratio.
Eng	"starvation"	1,960,000	0.66	1.7
Jpn	"" (KIGA)	262,000	0.39	1.0
If this was 60 years ago, these numbers would be reversed.
Eng	"poverty"	20,100,000	6.8	11.3
Jpn	"" (HINKON)	403,000	0.6	1.0
If this was 50 years ago, these numbers would be reversed.
Eng	"racism"	6,330,000	2.14	24.3
Jpn	"" OR "" (JINSHU-SHUGI)	59,000	0.088	1.0
This word is not so familiar to us because Japan consists of almost one race.
Eng	"anti-Semitism"	733,000	0.25	13.2
Jpn	"" (HAN-JUDEA-SHUGI)	12,600	0.019	1.0
We cannot fully realize a confrontation between religions.
Eng	"patriotism"	2,150,000	0.73	3.3
Jpn	"" (AIKOKU-SHIN)	149,000	0.22	1.0
This word is seldom used because it makes many Japanese people feel "Imperialistic".
Eng	"copyright"	680,000,000	230.2	12.9
Jpn	"" (CHOSAKU-KEN)	12,000,000	17.9	1.0
This result seems to admonish me.
Eng	"Oedipus complex"	53,400	0.018	1.0
Jpn	"" (MAZA-KON)	61,300	0.091	5.1
This Japanese word rather means "a mam's boy".
Eng	"ninja"	7,950,000	2.69	1.0
Jpn	"" (NINJA)	2,070,000	3.09	1.1
There are not so many informations about ninja in Japan!
Eng	"Akira Kurosawa"	342,000	0.12	3.3
Jpn	"" (AKIRA KUROSAWA)	24,300	0.036	1.0
It is no use asking Japanese about Kurosawa!
Eng	"mansion"	6,680,000	2.26	1.0
Jpn	""	8,360,000	12.48	5.5
We use the English word "mansion" more often than native speakers.
Eng	"idol"	4,550,000	1.54	1.0
Jpn	""	5,510,000	8.22	5.3
And "idol", too.