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What are some of the problems that Japanese encounter when learning English? Japanese learners encounter many problems when studying the English language. Some of these problems are a result of writing styles, pronunciation, sentence structures and the difference in the overall grammar in the English language and the Japanese language. Writing style for Japanese is completely different from that of English, Japanese writing system used combination of characters known as logographic kanji ( which was taken from Chinese alphabets) and kana; hiragana used for native Japanese words and katakana used mainly for foreign words and names, while the English system is simpler than that. Traditional Japanese writing is different also in the structure of sentence, for instance; books are printed in columns from top to bottom and right to left and also books are read from back to front which is totally opposite to English layouts and structures of books and sentences. With all of this said, it is difficult for Japanese students in English language when writing sentences. It can be confusing especially for the children. The English alphabet consist of twenty six(26) letters and each has its own sound even though some are similar to others. From the 26 there are 5 vowels and 21 consonant letters. Japanese alphabet however consist of sounds rather than singling out letters. They have 5 vowels sounds and 15 consonant sounds, and their alphabets system is based on them. There are some letter sounds that are in English that is not found in Japanese such as: R and V, because of this the pronunciation of words are different, example my name is Rayon with a “R” sound but in Japan it is pronounce as Layon and “very” would be “berry”. Teachers have to take time when teaching the alphabet and enunciate well. Students have major problems with this and it causes them to miss spell words. Japanese pronunciation is also constant while in the English language the pronunciation varies and some words have letters that are silent. Grammar is also a big problems for students because Japanese language doesn’t have auxiliary verbs, so the formation of the tenses and questions are different and can be confusing. Japanese verbs do not change for persons or numbers, because of this Japanese learners may be tempted to use the present simple to convey future events because it is how it is done in their native language; such as “I go with you to the supermarket”. Also there are no words in Japanese equivalent to the English articles “a, “an and “the” so when using a sentence to example; “I want a book”, Japanese would just say “I want book”. Enpitsu is the word for pencil in Japan and it is used in all cases whether plural are singular because there are no plural forms. Japanese verbs comes towards the ending of a sentence while the English verbs comes towards the beginning of the sentence; this can cause problems for Japanese learners. They are used to a structural pattern in their sentences; for example “watashi wa Rayon des”, which is “My name is Rayon”, “des” would represent “is” and its used to end most statements or responses. In Japan when referring to a person, you call them san after their first or last name whether they are male are female, married or unmarried for example, I would be called Cato san while in English I’m Mr. Cato. The difficulties that Japanese learners may experience many difficulties but these can be rectified with a lot of practice and patience on both the part of the teacher and the learners.
