Japanese English learners part 2

We discussed how good the Swedes were at learning English, and then started looking at why the Japanese, on average, have a more difficult time. I mentioned the greater language ego of the Japanese compared to the Swedes. Very few Swedes think their culture is unique and their language the most difficult to learn. These sentiments are common amongst Japanese people.

Let's look at other factors. It is certainly true that the sentence structure, vocabulary and pronunciation of Swedish is very close to English. This is not the case with Japanese. Japanese has relatively few sounds compared to many other languages. This will make it more difficult for Japanese learners to acquire new sounds, since they are not familiar with as many sounds as, say, the Swedes. The Japanese would have an easier time with Spanish where the vowels are similar to Japanese. They would still face the problems of sentence structure and vocabulary and lack of confidence.

The Kana writing system is another obstacle. In the Kana phonetic systems, each symbol stands for a syllable. Many Japanese learn other languages with Kana as a phonetic guide, a disaster. A combination of using Kana and a Japanese teacher's pronunciation as  phonetic guide would certainly put the Japanese learner at a disadvantage. With modern mp3 technology and The Linguist (!!) available, there is no excuse for this kind of education.

Young Swedes hear a lot of English on TV and radio, and even if they hardly ever speak English, they understand it, often repeat words and phrases from pop culture, and are ready to speak as soon as they need to. They pick up the natural phrases of English. This may include slang, but need not. It is just the natural phrasing. The Japanese seem to do more translating from Japanese, and their phrasing reflects this. They seem more reluctant to just attempt to use the phrases that they hear in English. Observing, identifying and learning phrases needs to emphasized much more, as we do at The Linguist.

Japanese people generally have less perpsonal exposure to English speaking culture, or any non-domestic culture, than Europeans. They usually feel these cultures to be  much more foreign. If they travel to South East Asia or Europe, they often feel a little threatened by the local and culturally different people. This is true for travelers from all countries to an extent, but I feel that it is more common among Japanese people than among Europeans.

You need to have confidence to use a new language. You need to just jump in and use what you heard, without worrying. Many of our outstanding Japanese learners here at The Linguist do just that. It is certainly something that Japanese are quite capable of doing.

Perhaps it is not fair to compare Japanese people with Swedes when it comes to learning English. It would be interesting to compare Japanese and Swedes in learning unrelated third languages, or even languages like Chinese or Korean which have a lot of vocabulary in common with Japanese.

I think the differences that arise will be individual differences of attitude and learning method, not of innate learning ability, nor differences of nationality. Everyone can be a linguist if the really want to be, and if they treat it is an enjoyable adventure.

Comments

[Richard]

Perhaps it might be more helpful to ask why would anyone in Japan (excluding Okinawa) need to learn English, apart from passing TOEIC.

I don't think Japanese are that bad in languages. It's just that many of them are forced to learn English in order to pass entrance exams, with no genuine motivation nor real need to communicate in English.

[ELE-Student]

Steve,
You've got the explanation in the PopVox of the JapanToday.

http://www.japantoday.com/jp/popvox/102
(http://www.japantoday.com/jp/popvox/716)

[Steve]

Richard,

I am talking here about people who want or need to learn English. Those who do not really do not matter here.
I began my first post by making reference to Japanese international business people and immigrants to Canada whose English is often quite poor.
As to why people learn languages, the reasons are many.

[Vitaly]

Interesting point about feeling "uniqueness of the culture". I think it applies to quite a lot of nations as well. German, French, English. Not sure how French people in France can speak English but French people in Quebec (outside of Montreal) very often can not speak it all. Although there is no lack of English language TV there. As well as there is no lack of French language TV in the rest of Canada.

Ethnocentrism is quite unproductive.

[Steve McGill]

Hi Mr. Kaufmann. I was pleased to see your article. I'm doing a research paper on Japanese acquisition of English. In addition, I plan to compile lesson plans using the Natural Approach (Krashen) for use here and overseas.

Do you have suggestions for resources that I might use for this paper?

I appreciate your consideration and time.

Take Care,
Steve McGill

[Steve Kaufmann]

Steve ( I like your name)

I do not know about resources. We have a lot of Japanese learners. If you want us to send out a questionnaire to our Japanese learners, via our mailing list, we may be able to do this for you.

If you follow the Natural Approach the way we do it at The Linguist then there are no "lesson plans". There is reading, listening,writing and speaking and vocab review. Please feel free to ask specific questions.

[Lauren]

Mr. Kaufmann,
I found you article interesting and a real eye-opener.
How would you compare Japanese and Korean students?
Thanks!