Breakdown of sekaizyuu no hito ha nihongo wo benkyousimasu ka?
Questions & Answers about sekaizyuu no hito ha nihongo wo benkyousimasu ka?
The sentence is:
世界中 の 人 は 日本語 を 勉強します か？
Word-by-word:
- 世界中 (せかいじゅう) – the whole world / all over the world
- の – connects nouns, like of or ’s; here: of the whole world
- 人 (ひと) – person / people
- は – topic marker, as for…
- 日本語 (にほんご) – Japanese (language)
- を – object marker, marks what is studied
- 勉強します (べんきょうします) – (polite) to study
- か？ – question marker, turns the sentence into a yes/no question
Natural English: “Do people all over the world study Japanese?”
The kanji 中 has several readings, including:
- ちゅう (as in 午後中 ごごちゅう – throughout the afternoon)
- じゅう (as in 一年中 いちねんじゅう – all year long)
When 中 means “throughout / all over / the whole …”, it is commonly read じゅう.
So:
- 世界中（せかいじゅう） – all over the world
- 一日中（いちにちじゅう） – all day long
In this pattern “X中” = “throughout all X”, the reading じゅう is standard.
世界中の人 literally is:
- 世界中 – the whole world
- の – of
- 人 – person / people
So structurally: “the people of the whole world”.
Japanese usually doesn’t mark plural with an -s like English. 人 can mean:
- a person (singular)
- people / persons (collective)
In this context (世界中の人), it is clearly plural, so we translate it as “people all over the world.”
は marks the topic of the sentence: what we’re talking about.
- 世界中の人は – As for people all over the world, …
If you used が instead:
- 世界中の人が日本語を勉強しますか？
…it would sound more like you’re identifying who studies Japanese, or focusing specifically/contrastively on them (e.g., “Is it the people of the whole world who study Japanese [as opposed to someone else]?”). It’s possible, but the nuance changes.
In a neutral, general question like this, は is more natural:
“As for people all over the world, do they study Japanese?”
を marks the direct object of the verb: what the action is done to.
- 日本語を勉強します – study Japanese
(Japanese is what is being studied)
If you said:
- 日本語は勉強しますか？
This would be more like:
- As for Japanese, do (you/they) study it?
It brings 日本語 into topic position and often implies contrast, like:
- 英語は勉強しませんが、日本語は勉強します。
I don’t study English, but as for Japanese, I do study it.
So for a plain statement “study Japanese,” 日本語を勉強します is the basic, neutral form.
In standard written Japanese:
- か at the end of the sentence is the grammatical question marker.
- The ？ is punctuation, borrowed from Western writing, and is optional.
You’ll see:
- 日本語を勉強しますか。 – fully correct
- 日本語を勉強しますか？ – also common, especially in more casual or modern writing
The か is required for this polite yes/no question; the ？ just makes it visually obvious to readers that it’s a question.
These differ in politeness and aspect (simple vs. ongoing):
勉強しますか
- Polite (ます-form)
- Simple present / habitual: Do (they) study? or Will (they) study?
- Here: “Do people around the world study Japanese?”
勉強する？
- Casual, non-polite
- Used with friends, family, etc.
- Same basic time meaning as 勉強しますか, but informal:
Do you study? / Are you going to study?
勉強していますか
- Polite continuous/progressive form
- Focuses on an ongoing action or current state:
Are (they) studying (right now)? or Do (they) currently study?
Your sentence is asking about a general habit or general tendency worldwide, so 勉強しますか (simple present, polite) is the natural choice.
Literally, you could read it as:
- As for people all over the world, do they study Japanese?
Strictly, that sounds like “every person,” but in natural usage, Japanese is often less precise about “all” vs. “some.”
Realistically, the sentence is often understood as:
- Do people around the world (in general) study Japanese?
- Is Japanese studied around the world?
If you want to clearly say every single person, you’d add something like みんな:
- 世界中の人はみんな日本語を勉強しますか。
Does everyone in the whole world study Japanese?
Yes, you can say:
- 世界中では日本語を勉強しますか。
Here で marks a place / scope, and は adds topic/contrast:
- 世界中で – in the whole world / around the world (as a location/scope)
- 世界中では – as for “in the whole world” (possibly contrasted with somewhere else)
Nuance differences:
世界中の人は日本語を勉強しますか。
Focuses on the people of the world.
Do people all over the world study Japanese?世界中では日本語を勉強しますか。
Focuses on the places / regions of the world.
Is Japanese studied around the world? / In places across the world, is Japanese studied?
Both are understandable; the original sentence is more “people-focused.”
Japanese doesn’t use a separate “do”-auxiliary for questions or for simple present tense.
- 勉強します already contains:
- the verb 勉強する (to study)
- the polite ます ending
- tense/aspect information
To make a yes/no question, you just:
- keep word order the same, and
- add か at the end (in polite speech).
So:
世界中の人は日本語を勉強します。
People all over the world study Japanese.世界中の人は日本語を勉強しますか。
Do people all over the world study Japanese?
No extra “do” is needed; か plays the role of the question marker.
Japanese usually omits plural markers when the meaning is clear from context.
- 人 can mean person or people.
- You could say 人たち (people), but it often adds a nuance of a more specific group.
For example:
- 世界中の人たちは日本語を勉強しますか。
Sounds more like you’re talking about groups of people around the world in a slightly more concrete or personal way.
The more general, neutral expression for “people all over the world” is just:
- 世界中の人
Yes. The structure is:
- [place/scope] の 人 は [language] を 勉強しますか。
For example:
世界中の人は英語を勉強しますか。
Do people all over the world study English?アジアの人は中国語を勉強しますか。
Do people in Asia study Chinese?アメリカの人はスペイン語を勉強しますか。
Do people in America study Spanish?
You just swap 日本語 for another language name, keeping を勉強しますか the same.