Difficulties in language acquisition of english and japanese all at once

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DIFFICULTIES IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH 
AND JAPANESE ALL AT ONCE 
Nguyen Dang Nhu Y, Hoang Thai Thanh Truc 
Faculty of English, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH) 
Supervisor: Huynh Thi An (MA) 
ABSTRACT 
Our modern society with increasing demands for integration of economy and new technology 
requires us to be proficient in certain commonly used languages as a prerequisite for graduates, as 
well as to create higher job opportunities for applicants. Meanwhile, a set of considerable 
differences regarding four aspects which are the alphabet, pronunciation, writing forms, and 
communication styles, prevents learners from studying languages effectively. This study, aims to 
better identify and arrive at a thorough understanding of the major difficulties in bilingual learning, 
particularly English and Japanese, based on their major differences. The paper, furthermore, highly 
recommends feasible solutions by being an autonomous learner and utilizing various available 
supports. The study was conducted by synthesizing and analyzing a great number of scholarly 
articles, journals and books. It is fully hoped that this study will motivate bilinguals to deny their fear 
on the path of learning languages. 
Keywords: English, Japanese, difficulties, feasible solutions. 
1 INTRODUCTION 
There have long been a creasing demands for people to learn foreign languages as this is not only 
one of compulsory courses at school, but it also pens up more chances of working in international 
companies. Language is a powerful tool to connect people all over the world. Learning a foreign 
language also means exploring its colorful culture. Moreover, it is an essential means of accessing 
the knowledge of science, and technology of other nations. As the crucial importance of English and 
the modern industrial economy of Japan have been spreading out all over the world, taking 
courses of Japanese and English has become the top priority of a great number of students at 
universities. The differences between these foreign languages, however, easily prevent leaners 
from pursuing and achieving what they have expected. 
A recent survey carried out by our team revealed that a number of students have been getting 
troubles with the language acquisition of English and Japanese all at once. This study aims at 
raising language learners’ awareness of obstacles that they need to face, and recommend certain 
effective learning methods probably suitable for students. 
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2 DISCUSSION ON DIFFICULTIES IN ENGLISH-JAPANESE LEARNING ACQUISITION 
GROUNDED IN THEIR DIFFERENCES 
2.1 The Alphabets 
According to International Phonetic Alphabet (1888), there are 26 Latin characters in English while 
Japanese has three different types of characters: Hiragana, Katakana,and Kanji with pictographic 
words. In particular, Kanji has thousands of characters borrowed from Chinese, and each of them 
has a different meaning. There are 46 phonetic symbols used for inflected endings, and 
grammatical particles in Hiragana. Katakana also has 46 different phonetic symbols from hiragana 
used for writing foreign names and emphasis. 
Kenwoethy (1987) mentioned that English vowel letters have different vowel sounds identified as 
monophthongs (single vowel sounds) such as [i:], [ɪ], [e] and diphthongs (double vowel sounds) like 
[ei], [ai]. Unlike English, Japanese has only five vowels in its vowel inventory. 
In general, English has a wider range of syllable types than that of Japanese, and it also allows the 
occurrence of consonant clusters both at the word-initial and final position (Avery & Ehrlich, 1992). 
Japanese words follow the restricted component of CV-CV-CV (CV: one consonant and one vowel) 
whereas the other has diverse components like CVC, CCVC, CCVCC, CCCVCC (Reiney & Anderson-
Hsieh, 1993). 
Some examples are as follows: 
+ Sit => CVC 
+ け( Hair in Japanese ) => CV 
It is clear that learners have to interact with distinct kinds of alphabets and items of vocabulary at 
the same time. 
2.2 Pronunciation 
A difference noted by Vance (1987) pointed out that vowel pairs in the English phonetic transcripiton 
indicated the long sounds by a colon (:) while that of Japanese shows one character (あ、い、う、
え、お) on the right side of the words. 
Some examples are given below: 
+ English: Keep /ki:p/ 
+ Japanese: おかあさん (mother). 
Regarding the consonant sound system, ‚There are more consonants in English than in Japanese‛ 
(Avery & Ehrlich, 1992; Kenworthy, 1987). They also mentioned that the following sounds /f/, /v/, /θ 
/, /ð/, / ʃ /, / ʒ /, /ʧ/, and /ʤ/ (affricates and fricatives in English) do not exist in the Japanese 
consonantal system. In addition, Winifred Strange (1995) recommended that there are /l/ or /r/, /b/ 
or /v/ in English but Japanese only has /l/ and /b/ (the /v/ is replaced by /b/). 
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For instance: Television becomes テレビ (Terebi). 
When speaking or reading, English is categorized as a stress-timed language, and Japanese is a 
syllable-timed language (Catford, 1977). The amount of time to say a sentence depends on how 
many syllables the sentence contains, not how many stressed syllables it has as in English. 
Language learners, therefore, can easily get confused in the acquisition of both receptive and 
productive skills of both languages. 
2.3 Writing forms 
Another problem students probably face is about the reading and writing styles. Japanese is written 
form right to left, which is opposite to English (Michel Paradis, 1985). Halpern (1941) identified the 
right-to-left or left-to-right direction of reading may be difficult due to the side of a hemianopia and 
vertical presentation of words. This is because Japanese is a normally horizontally written language 
to counter the scanning direction effect in bilingual reading tests with the infectious consequence 
that the top-to-bottom presentation is unnatural compared to the horizontal style. In terms of word 
order, Japanese tends to follow the following structure of Subject, Object, Verb whereas this is 
reversed in English (Sergei Nirenburg, Harold Somers, & Yorick Wilks, 2003). 
An example is as follows: 
– I ate meat yesterday ( S + V + O + Adv ) 
– きのう わたしは にく 食べました。( Adv + S + O + V ) 
2.4 Communication styles 
There is a big gap between English and Japanese communicative ways. The first aspect to take into 
consideration is the word order used in giving directions, addresses, date, time, name and fractions 
(in mathematics) (Watabe, 1989; Watabe, 2007). American locations are presented in the inverse 
order of that in Japanese. Particularly, according to Tohsaku (1994), Japanese people say the 
country first, then city, town, district, numbered block, and finally the person’s name. This is ‚a mirror 
image represents a perfect inversion of elements on the horizontal axis‛ (Smith, 1978). For instance, 
Hamada (2012) gave two illustrating examples as follows: 
In English: ‚the book on the top shelf in the closet in the bedroom upstairs‛ 
In Japanese: 
二階の寝室のクロ―ゼットの一番上の棚にある本。 
(二階の (2-kai no) [upstairs], 寝室の (shinshitsu no) [in the bedroom], クロ―ゼットの ( kuro~zetto no) 
[in the closet], 一番上の棚に (I-ban ue no tana ni) [on the top shelf], ある(aru) [to be], 本 (hon) [the 
book]). 
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He also emphasizes that the outside frame will be described first and then the target in Japanese 
whereas English points out the outstanding features of the subject first and adds extra elements 
later. 
Another significant difference between these two languages is that Japanese is considered a topic 
and addressee-oriented language while English tends to pay attention to individual objects (Edsal, 
2007; Watabe, 2012). The doer is less important than the perspective of the situation in Japanese. 
Hinds (1986) also indicates, ‚The English speakers like to put person into the subject position while 
Japanese speakers tried to avoid this‛ (p.27). To support for this difference, an example was cited by 
Watabe (2015) as below: 
English verbalizes ‚I found the book‛, but Japanese says ‚hon ga atta‛ (the book was here). 
This is because there is a considerable difference of politeness in the two cultures. Politeness is 
seen as the fundamental rule in Japanese communication (Hill, Ide, Ikuta, Kawasaki, & Ogino, 
1986). Hence, unlike westerners, Japanese people enjoy using different ways of indirectness, 
aiming at maintaining harmony and avoiding confrontations. 
3 EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS IN LEARNING BILINGUAL 
3.1 How to become an autonomous learner 
It is important to be an active learner as it tends to promote critical thinking, the ability to protect and 
prove self-opinion in studying different languages. McWhorter (1998) talks about the characteristics 
of passive and active learners, and the first group is described as students who are only learning by 
following teacher’s directions to get good grades. With this way of study, students are losing their 
inspiration and the ability to understand lessons. In time, language learning will become a burden 
as a duty for passive learners. Moreover, in this day and age, everyone has dozens of things to do 
besides studying like hanging out with friends, being busy at work, and many distractions which 
lead them far away from the study . Learners, thus, need to take responsibility for their own learning 
(Benson, 200; Nunan, 1997; Scharle & Szabó, 2000). They need to make a practical and detailed 
plan about their learning objectives and outcomes and understand their strengths and weaknesses 
as well. It is strongly required for them to carry out strictly what their language study schedule is. It 
will soon become a habit that they do regularly. As a result, they can easily make great 
improvements in foreign language acquisition. 
3.2 How to take advantage of various available supports 
Mayer, Haywood, Sachdev, and Faraday (2008) said that learners do not become effective by 
themselves. They do not have enough knowledge or real experiences, but a small highlight from 
other people sometimes can help them realise greater things. Therefore, language learners should 
find supports from friends and teachers. It is no doubt that a teacher plays an important role in 
facilitating and promoting learner autonomy (Little, 2004; Voller, 1997). The teacher, as an 
accountant, provides reliable sources of information for students when necessary. Also, language 
learners are delivered learning methods through lectures. Furthermore, students commonly believe 
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that they are nessesary to get involved in Japanese and English. We should make friends with 
native or foreign speakers. The more time we are exposed to the target language, the more fluent 
we are in certain languages. Gradually, we can master Japanese and English and raise our 
confidence in daily communication. 
Last but not least, social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Youtube) have many 
benefits for learners through Japanese songs or authentic videos and movies with English subtitles. 
According to an English idiom, a picture is worth a thoudsand words, or an image is more efficient 
than a description. In other words, it is easier for language learners to remember vocabulary and 
grammar by learning through visual aids. Our brain can handle images better than words, so the 
lessons will last longer for learners. 
More importantly, our research also shares some useful sources for self-improvement in English 
and Japanese competency as below: 
https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ (Erin’s challenge I can speak Japanese the Japan Foundation): A free 
website offering Japanese-study that is suitable for different levels. People can learn with visual 
lessons with many language subtitles, including English. 
https://akira.edu.vn/ The site of a prestigious Japanese language center that provides programs 
about vocabulary, grammar and documentaries. 
https://www.facebook.com/nhatnguhutech/ (Asuka Club – Hutech Japanese club) 
https://www.facebook.com/hec.hutech/ (HEC – Hutech English Club): This is where people can find 
friends who share academic language interests, and have the opportunity to communicate with 
English and Japanese native speakers. 
4 CONCLUSION 
The study focuses on the main remedies of studying English and Japanese at the same time. It is 
clearly pointed out that certain significantly different features between the two languages related to 
alphabet, pronunciation, writing forms, communication styles, lead to a number of mentioned 
obstacles in the language acquisition. More importantly, effective ways to improve the current 
issues are clearly highlighted in this comprehensive presentation, including being an autonomous 
learner and taking advantage of available sources. It is hoped that students will have a confident 
outlook with taking lessons in English and Japanese. Moreover, language learners can also find out 
suitable methods matching their learning styles and expectations to get satisfactory results. In spite 
of limited data collections and findings, this research is hoped to be an informative document for 
learners and teachers to undertake in-depth further research in the future. 
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