7/11/2017 Why Japanese people are poor speakers of English

              I think Japanese people are the poorest speakers of English in the world. There are several reasons for the poor ability.

The first is that Japanese and English are completely different languages. The word orders of the two languages are almost opposite. For example, an object is placed before the corresponding verb in Japanese.

The second is that there are virtually no etymological similarities between the words of the two languages. * Hence, it is hard for Japanese to memorize English words.

The third is that few Japanese people have necessity for English speaking ability. Most university students can learn their specialized fields using Japanese textbooks only. Almost all businessmen work speaking Japanese.

The fourth is that Japanese people rarely have opportunities to practice English. There are many Japanese who are interested in English and would like to speak it. However, an average Japanese does not have even one chance to speak it in a few months, though there are many foreigners in Japan.

I think that Japanese is a beautiful and efficient language that foreigners can learn relatively easily. I want to talk about it later.

*I would like to inform Western language maniacs that there is at least one Japanese word that has common etymology. My dictionaries say that the English word ‘aqua’ is from Latin and that the Japanese word ‘aka’ is from Sanskrit. The latter means water that is put on a Buddhist altar. This Japanese word began to be used more than a thousand years ago but is seldom used today.

Comments are welcome.

Kazuhiro Arai’s Japanese blog:         　https://araikazuhiro.blogspot.jp/

Kazuhiro Arai’s Japanese home page:   http://araikazuhiro.world.coocan.jp/