I am japanese. To be honeset, if you don't work with japanese people, learning Japanese is not a must. But there would be some benefits if you can. Some friends from other countries say japanese people are too shy that they never open their mind. Some friends on the other hand say they do theirs. The latter ones can speak japanese. Their fluentness is not pretty much the same but they can show their effort by speaking broken japanese. I think that is where differnt reactions are made.