A small number of Japanese have had Japanese education in their families and Japanese schools in the countries where they live, but most of the third and fourth generations who can speak Japanese learned it as a foreign language.
故に、家庭や居留国の日本語補習校などで日本語教育を受けた人物も少数ながらも存在はするものの、三世や四世の世代で日本語を話すことが出来る人々は主に外国語として日本語を学んだ人々である場合が多い。