Assessment for the Difficulty of Speaking English by the Japanese People

Introduction
[1] “Almost Japanese get English education at a middle and high school. But the Japanese cannot speak English. Because Japanese educational administration regards grammar as important, but not speaking and listening” (Nangi, 2008).
[2] Japanese people are labeled poor English speaker. Japanese people are well-known as diligent people. And Japanese students got good marks in an achievement test which was given all over the world. But there is a single weak point: English. While Japanese students are comparatively good at English Grammar, they are especially weak in speaking ability. This recent research paper gives people especially students the perceptions and comprehensions about the difficulty of speaking English by the Japanese. Japanese students experience great difficulty in studying English, one major reason being the great differences between English and Japanese. Japanese word order, the frequent omission of subjects in Japanese, the absence of articles, the absence of plurals, as well as difficulties in distinguishing l and r all contribute to substantial problems using English effectively. Indeed, Japanese have tended to score comparatively poorly on international tests of English. An additional factor has been the use of English in daily life for "decorative" or "design" rather than functional purposes. That is, for Japanese consumption, not for English speakers per se, and as a way of appearing "smart, sophisticated and modern". Indeed, it is claimed that in such decorative English "there is often no attempt to try to get it right, nor do the vast majority of the Japanese population ever attempt to read the English design element in question. There is therefore less emphasis on spell checking and grammatical accuracy." Thus exposure to English encountered in daily life in Japan is unlikely to be helpful as a learning aid.