[4][5][6] Japan's invasion of Indochina began in September 1940; by July of the following year, they had reached the southern end of Vietnam.
The courses in Haiphong was more intense, with ten contact hours per week; a total of 270 students enrolled.
[1] The teaching materials, locally published after the invasion, were written largely in romanisation or katakana and aimed at comprehension of simple spoken language.
[10][11] Various tie-ups between industry and universities have resulted as companies seek to resolve their labour issues; VINASA are working with Hanoi's FPT University to set up a Japanese language programme for students of the university's embedded software faculty, while Japanese software development corporation Sorun plans to open a Japanese language school in a joint venture with the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, with the aim of reducing their own shortage of engineers; they plan to sponsor the top 10 graduates to come to Japan to work at their Tokyo headquarters.
Until 2005, the pattern of examinees differed between the two cities, with the Level 2 examination, aimed at students who have completed 600 contact hours of instruction, being most popular in Hanoi, while the easier the Level 3 examinations, aimed at students who have completed 300 contact hours of instruction, received the largest number of examinees in Ho Chi Minh City.
[15][18][21] Most graduates of university-level Japanese courses take the Level 2 examination, which is demanded by factories selling products to Japanese buyers; however, employers in the hospitality and tourism industry feel Level 3 examinees possess sufficient ability to deal with their job requirements.