Japanese generally know two things about the city of Okazaki in Aichi Prefecture.

It is the birthplace of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), founder of the Tokugawa shogunate that ruled Japan from 1603 to 1867, while the local economy is now heavily dependent on the Toyota Motor Corp. group.

But the city, which has a population of some 330,000, is also garnering kudos abroad as a center of Japanese-language excellence.