How Do Foreigners Study Japanese?

How do foreigners study Japanese?

What makes them study effectively?

Graduation Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of the Department of

English Language and Literature

Notre Dame Seishin University

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirement for the Degree

Bachelor of Arts

By

Yuka Nitta

2017

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Contents

Abstract

Chapter One: How do foreigners study Japanese?

1.1 Introduction1

1.2 The ranked reasons for studying Japanese3

1.3 The experts view of the ways people should learn Japanese 4

1.4 Previous research on the ways people learn Japanese6

1.5 Research Questions 7

1.6 Conclusion7

Chapter Two: The Questionnaire

2.1 Introduction9

2.2 The Questionnaire9

2.2.1 Introduction to the experiment9

2.2.2 Method9

2.2.3 Results11

2.3 Summary20

Chapter Three: The Discussion

3.1 Introduction21

3.2 Summary of the results21

3.3 Discussion of the results23

3.3.1 The subjects’ background23

3.3.2 Subjects’ situation of Japanese learning and frequency of use 24

3.3.3 The ways of subjects study Japanese25

3.4 Answering Research Questions27

3.5 Implications29

3.6 Limitations of the Experiments29

3.7 Further research29

3.8 Conclusion29

References31

Appendices32

Abstract

Today, English is spoken everywhere as a world common language. We also study English to live in the globalized world. We have a lot of difficulties when studying English, and it takes a lot of time to master it. These days we can see many foreigners who speak Japanese very fluently. How long did they study Japanese? Why did they study Japanese? In this thesis, we reveal those questions and look at the ways learners of Japanese study it.

In Chapter One, we looked at the present state of Japanese learning and foreigners who are learners of Japanese in Okayama Prefecture.

In Chapter Two, we looked at the result of a questionnaire. The questionnaire was given to 8 subjects, and they reported their ways of studying Japanese.

In Chapter Three, we discussed the result of the questionnaire and research questions in detail. We can compare expert’s view and the ways learners of Japanese actually do.

We found that learners of Japanese have clear aims for studying Japanese, and they try to study it in their ways. However, they don’t know effective ways to improve their Japanese ability. They would be good Japanese speakers if they try to communicate with Japanese people more and more.

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Chapter One: How do foreigners study Japanese?

1.1. Introduction

The world is becoming globalized more and more today, and many Japanese people learn English. Therefore, English education in Japan has been changing recently. For example, elementary school students in fifth and sixth years started learning English as a required subject in 2011. Also, the Japanese Ministry of Education announced a new guidance plan of English education for junior high school and senior high school four to five years ago. Today, students in Japan are required to study English harder than before. On the other hand, there are many people who learn Japanese around the world, too. It is said that more than four million people are learning Japanese nowadays. Despite Japanese are spoken in almost only in Japan, why do they learn it? Also, how do they learn it?

According to Wochi Kochi Magazine,a result based on a survey by Japan Foundation, the number of Japanese language learners increased 127,167 (in 1979) to 3,985,669 (in 2012). It became 31.3 times larger in 33 years.

Table 1 shows the data for the percentages of top ten countries where many people learn Japanese.

Table 1: World’s ranking nation of Japanese language learners (The total is 3,985,669 people around the world in 2012.)

1. China 26.3% / 6.America 3.9%
2. Indonesia 21.9% / 7. Thailand 3.3%
3. Korea 21.1% / 8. Vietnam 1.2%
4. Australia 7.4% / 9. Malaysia 0.8%
5. Taiwan 5.9% / 10. The Philippines 0.8%
Others 7.5%

Source:

About 70% account for the top three countries. Also, more than half of them are East Asian people. In this thesis, we will conduct research about Japanese language learning of foreigners in Okayama. We often see foreigners in Okayama nowadays. There are also a Korean school and a Brazilian school in Okayama Prefecture, and some communities of foreigners exist around us. The population of foreigners was 22,439 in the end of 2015, and it was 1.2% of all population of Okayama prefecture. There are more than 10,000 new people in these ten years. The half of them are permanent residents, however.On the other hand, the number of exchange students and technical interns from Vietnam, Indonesia, Nepal and other countries are increasing every year. With this situation, there are 36 Japanese teaching organizations in Okayama prefecture. They teach Japanese to foreigners for free or at low cost because they run their teaching classes by each municipality.

Kurashiki Nihongo Kyoushitsu, which is one of those organizations, is the Japanese teaching class for foreigners. Teachers are volunteers there, and basically, one-on-one guidance is done, but there are not enough teachers under the present conditions. The classes are held 5 days every weeks, except Mondays and Fridays. From 10 to 11:30, students study with their teachers. Students and teachers go to the class whenever it is convenient for them. It costs only 100 yen for one month to attend the classes. Foreigners who come to Japan only for studying Japanese would go to school as exchange students. However most foreigners who attend the Japanese class such as Kurashiki Nihongo Kyoushitsu have reasons which they cannot go to school. The most reason is that they have jobs. They go to the class on their holidays. Also, some students study there to enter Japanese school which needs the license of JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test.)

Table 2: Foreigner’s nationality(who live in Okayama Pref.)

1. China 42% / 4. Philippines 7%
2. Korea 27% / 5. Brazil 4%
3. Vietnam 8% / 6. Indonesia, America 2%
Others 8%

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Korean who have lived in Okayama prefecture as special permanent residents are decreasing year by year. On the other hand, technical interns mainly from Vietnamese are increasing rapidly in these years. The number of latter is almost same as the number of former.

1.2 The ranked reasons for studying Japanese

Here’s a ranking which shows why foreigners study Japanese.

1. Interests for Japanese language itself
2. To communicate in Japan
3. Likes Japanese culture (manga, anime, and J-POP etc.)
4. Interests for Japanese history and literature
5. For job hunting
6. Institution policy
7. Studying in Japan
8. For understanding different culture
9. Sightseeing trip to Japan

10. Preparing for entering exams (university)

(Total: 4 million people who are learners of Japanese around the world)

Source: Wochikochi.jp

Amazingly, more than half of percentages are “interest in Japanese itself.”

1.3 The expert view of the ways people should learn Japanese

1.3.1 List of the aspects of language we need to master

There are many aspects of Japanese which are needed to master Japanese. Without these aspects, people cannot learn or use Japanese correctly.

・Reading

・Writing

・Speaking

・Listening

・Grammar

・Vocabulary

・Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji

・Pronunciation

・Honorifics (Keigo)

Japanese is said to be the difficult language for English speakers, and it is said that it takes more than 3800 hours to master Japanese for them. Then, what is difficult for foreigners concretely?

Source: (

1.3.2 List of difficulties when learning Japanese

There are also many aspects of learning Japanese which foreigners should understand well though those are difficult for them.

・Japlish (Japanese-English)

・verb conjugation

・giving and receiving expression

・intransitive verb and transitive verb

・long sounds, the syllabic nasal, and double consonants

・counting system

If we talk with learners of Japanese, we can find some mistakes in the ways they speak Japanese. It is difficult to tell about the detail of those aspects for Japanese people despite they can use them with no difficulty.

Namba (personal communication) who has taught Japanese more than 15 years, said to teach the nuance is most difficult, and how teachers tell what incomprehensible from textbooks to learners of Japanese is very important.

1.4 Previous research on the ways people learn Japanese

The author visited Nihonngo Kyoushitsu in Kurashiki City to know the ways people learn Japanese. The ways people learn Japanese according to their aims, but most of them start with hiragana and katakana. Japanese has three kinds of characters, hiragana, katakana, and kanji. In other countries, they are not familiar at all, and maybe they are troublesome for learners of Japanese. However, they cannot study Japanese without remembering them, so they study hiragana and katakana as a first step.

Most people study Japanese by using textbooks for JLPT, Japanese-Language Proficiency Test. There are many learners of Japanese who learn Japanese starting with the fundamentals for JLPT because people are needed to possess the qualification for JLPT for getting job or entering school in Japan. People can learn not only grammar, but also kanji by the textbooks. Many learners of Japanese have difficulty to memorize kanji except Chinese people. Memorizing kanji is indispensable to live in Japan, and many learners of Japanese are interested in kanji, so they seem to study it hard.

Recently, Japanese culture is very popular and widely spreadaround the world. There have been opportunities for some foreigners to start learning Japanese. They watch their favorite anime or listen to J-POP music many times, and they can learn Japanese phrases gradually. They look up the words which they do not know, and make the words lists. In this way, it seems many learners of Japanese study Japanese by themselves, but this way is not enough to master Japanese.

1.5 Research Questions

The research questions for this thesis are:

1. What ways do experts say students should study Japanese?

2. Are students of Japanese learning in these ways?

1.6 Conclusion

In this chapter, we looked at the present state of Japanese language learning. Many foreigners who are living in Okayama Prefecture nowadays are from countries where learning Japanese is common. Also, we found that their aims for learning Japanese are for their interest. It seems that Japanese culture is unique and interesting for foreigners. In Chapter Two, we will look at the questionnaire about howforeigners study Japanese.

Chapter Two: The Questionnaire

2.1 Introduction

Chapter One mentioned about how many people study Japanese around the world, and why they do so. To research in more detail, a questionnaire was made to know how foreigners learn Japanese. In this chapter, we will look at the questionnaire.

2.2 The Questionnaire

2.2.1 Introduction to the experiment

The questionnaire was made to know how foreigners study Japanese, it also asked them their backgrounds such as where they come from or their mother tongue, because the level of difficulty is different according to their mother tongue. Japanese is said to be one of the most difficult languages to learn in the world. However, Japanese people actually do not know how difficult Japanese is, because it is their mother tongue, and they use it with no difficulty. Using the questionnaire, we will look at foreigner’s study of Japanese from many point of view.

2.2.2 Method

1) Subjects

People who were given this questionnaire live in Okayama Prefecture, and most of them are the students studying in Japanese class, nihonngo kyousitsu in Kurashiki bunnka kouryuu kaikann in Kurashiki. They are from various countries, and at various ages. The questionnaire asked their home country, and showed many students are from the southeast Asia as chapter one mentioned. In these few years, the number of southeast Asian students have increased suddenly, despite there already being a lot of Chinese students. Nowadays, there are not so many Chinese students.

These students came to Japan for various reasons, and all of them like studying Japanese. They enjoy it, and they say Japanese is interesting.

2) Test design

The questionnaire was made on Google Forms, and it had 18 questions. It aimed to know their backgrounds, such as where students came from, why they study Japanese, what do they think of it, how much do they use it in their daily life, and how do they study it. From some questions, we can see what they do to improve their Japanese ability, and how much efforts students make on studying Japanese. The questionnaire also asked them whether they have tried the JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test.)

The questions were written in English and Japanese because not all of the subjects understand English. To be understood the questions by everyone, easy Japanese sentences were used. The full questionnaire is in Appendix 1.

3) Procedure

The questionnaire was made on Google Forms, so the author could collect and look at the data on the website. Before the questionnaire was given to the subjects, it was shown to some Japanese students and foreigners to check whether the subjects can understand the questions and to get feedback from them. After that, 8 foreigners were given the questionnaire, and they answered questions online. They had unlimited time to answer the questions in any language.

2.2.3 Results

We will look at the result of the questionnaire in this section.

Table 1: Q1. Where are you from?

Vietnam:3 / China:2 / Korea:1
Taiwan:1 / Spain:1

Table 1 shows us that where subjects came from. Most subjects are Asian people.

Table 2: Q2. What is your mother tongue?

Vietnamese:3 / Chinese:3
Korean:1 / Spanish:1

Table 3: Q3. How often do you speak your mother tongue in Japan?

Never / Not often / Sometimes / Often / All the time
Number / 0 / 0 / 2 / 5 / 1
% / 0% / 0% / 25% / 62.5% / 12.5%

Table 3 shows us that subjects speak their mother tongue in their daily life in Japan.

Table 4: Q4. Why are you studying Japanese?

Number of responses
・I’m very interested in Japanese, so I want to know more about Japanese / 1
・For getting jobs in Japan / 1
・Got good grades for Japanese at university / 1
・I want to talk with Japanese people, and for JLPT / 1
・I work in Japan, so I need to study / 1
・I want to go to the graduate school in Japan / 1
・I studied in Japanese department in my homeland / 1
・I like Japanese culture, and I want to live in Japan in the future / 1

Table 4 shows us that each subject has their own aims for studying Japanese, but most of them study it in Japan to use it in Japan.

Table 5: Q5. What is your impression of Japanese?

Easy / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / Difficult
Number / 0 / 1 / 1 / 6 / 0
% / 0% / 12.5% / 12.5% / 75% / 0%

From this data of Table 5, more than half of subjects have the impression that Japanese is difficult.

Table 6: Q6. Why do you think so?

Table 6 presents the data for the reasons why subjects have the impression for Japanese in former question.

Number of responses
・There are a lot of similar words / 1
・The number of kanji is too many / 1
・It is hard to communicate the minute nuances of usage / 1
・Grammar is complicated, and there are too many kanji / 1
・There are some similar points with Chinese / 1
・Honorific (Keigo) is really difficult / 1
・Speaking is not so difficult, but remembering kanji is very difficult / 1
・The way of Japanese people speaking is difficult to understand / 1

Some subjects answered kanji is a very difficult aspect of Japanese. Also, it seems that Japanese nuance is unique for foreigners.

Table 7: Q7. How long have you been studying Japanese?

I’m just starting / A few months / About a year / 1-2 years / 2-3 years / Many years
Number / 0 / 2 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 0
% / 0% / 25% / 12.5% / 25% / 37.5% / 0%

Table 8: Q8. How long have you lived in Japan?

I’m just started / A few months / About a year / 1-2 years / 2-3 years / Many years
Number / 1 / 4 / 1 / 0 / 2 / 0
% / 12.5% / 50% / 12.5% / 0% / 25% / 0%

Table 9: Q9. Do you live with people who speak Japanese?

Yes / No
Number / 6 / 2
% / 75% / 25%

Table 9 shows us that75% of subjects live with people who speak Japanese in Japan. However, not necessarily all the people are Japanese.

Table 10: Q10. What is your job in Japan?

Full-time student / Full-time worker / Part-time worker / House
maker / Part-time student and working part-time / Others
Number / 2 / 2 / 2 / 0 / 1 / 1
% / 25% / 25% / 25% / 0% / 12.5% / 12.5%

We can find what subjects do in Japan from Table 10. Most of them work here.

Table 11: Q11. Do you use Japanese in your job? (Please answer if you answered you’re a worker in the previous question)

Yes
(Speaking and listening ) / Yes
(Reading) / Yes
(Writing) / Yes
(S, L, R, W all) / Sometimes / No
Number / 4 / 1 / 0 / 1 / 0 / 0
% / 66% / 17% / 0% / 17% / 0% / 0%

Table 11 shows us which skills subjects use in their jobs. Most of them are needed speaking and listening skills, and only one subject use all, speaking, listening, reading and writing skills.

Table 12: Q12. How much did you study Japanese before you came?

Not at all / A few months / About a year / 1-2 years / 2-3 years / Many years
Number / 1 / 2 / 2 / 1 / 2 / 0
% / 12.5% / 25% / 25% / 12.5% / 25% / 0%

From Table 12, we can find how much subjects studied Japanese before they came. The term they studied varies, and one subject came to Japan without studying Japanese at all.

Table 13: Q13. How much time each week do you spend studying Japanese by yourself?

Less than 1 hour / 1-3 hours / 4-6 hours / 7-9 hours / More than 10 hours
Number / 0 / 3 / 3 / 1 / 1
% / 0% / 37.5% / 37.5% / 12.5% / 12.5%

Table 13 shows us that how much time each week subjects spare their time to study Japanese by themselves. As a result, all of them study by themselves more than one hour each week. We can see their inclination to study Japanese.

Table 14: Q14. How do you prefer to learn?

From a coursebook or teacher / By myself just talking to people / From media (e.g. TV, radio, the Internet)
Number / 4 / 3 / 1
% / 50% / 37.5% / 12.5%

Table 15: Q15. How often do you do these things in Japanese?

Never / Not often / Sometimes / Often / All the time
Reading story books / 3 / 3 / 1 / 1 / 0
Reading coursebooks / 0 / 1 / 3 / 2 / 2
Writing / 1 / 2 / 4 / 1 / 0
Listening only (e.g. TV, radio) / 0 / 1 / 5 / 2 / 0
Speaking and listening / 1 / 0 / 3 / 1 / 3
Trying to memorize kanji / 0 / 0 / 6 / 1 / 1
Pronunciation / 1 / 1 / 4 / 1 / 1
Learning keigo (Honorifics) / 0 / 3 / 2 / 3 / 0
Learning Japanese counting system / 0 / 4 / 2 / 2 / 0
Communicating with Japanese people on SNS (e.g. LINE, Facebook) / 2 / 0 / 5 / 1 / 0
Learning Japanese culture and custom / 0 / 1 / 4 / 0 / 3
Looking up the words you do not know / 0 / 0 / 2 / 4 / 2
Making words list and trying to memorize those words / 1 / 0 / 5 / 2 / 0
Taking tests / 2 / 4 / 1 / 0 / 1
Studying grammar books / 0 / 1 / 3 / 1 / 3
Listening to J-POP music / 1 / 0 / 3 / 2 / 2

Table 15 shows us that how subjects try to improve their Japanese ability. Many subjects answered “Sometimes” in many items, or, they do various things to study Japanese. Most of them do not do “Reading story books” so much. On the other hand, they prefer “Reading course books” or “Studying grammar books.” Also, there are not the subjects who do not try to memorize kanji, even though they seem to know the necessity for kanji in studying Japanese. “Listening to J-POP music” is also a popular way of studying.