I LOVE JAPAN. Kazuhiro Arai

              I would like to tell a true story to those who are relaxing in this holiday season.               Japanese people are not good at distinguishing clearly ‘L’ from ‘R’ when pronouncing English. One reason is that the Japanese language does not have ‘L’ and both ‘L’ and ‘R’ in English sound almost the same to Japanese people. Another is that Japanese ‘R’ is different from English ‘R.’ Incidentally, ‘R’ seems to be a consonant which is pronounced quite differently among different languages. For instance, French ‘R’ is different from the above two.               Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s maternal grandfather is Nobusuke Kishi, who was also a prime minister of Japan. Kishi liked to play golf and enjoyed golfing with US President Dwight David Eisenhower (Ike), just as Abe did with Donald Trump.   ...

              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 ...