Master list of Marketing Mistakes (Japan Internet Report) -- "In Japan, only 5% of the population reads English comfortably, and even those people understand better when the content is in Japanese. Moreover, a 1998 (don't worry, it's still relevant) study by Forrester found that 1) people are likely to spend twice as much time at Web sites presented in their own language, and 2) they are three times more likely to buy from such sites."