Ah, English. The language that you can probably speak and write in. Japanese people have problems with this particular language. In this post, I'll focus on society and Sentence structure that causes problems.
Society
Japan is a society based on a "Shame Society", Where parents control the children and maintaining order with adults using shame. So when Japanese students tries to speak English to a native speaker*, they would be afraid of pronouncing words wrong, sentences making sense and so on. Such attributes would cause the student to sky away from speaking English.
This can become a huge problem. Since language proficiency comes from constant practice. Without practice, their English language skills will not improve.
English is also misused within the Japanese society. The English words on popular clothing/shops is meaningless and is there for decoration. So any exposure to English in Japan wouldn't be useful.
Sentence Structure
The Japanese language and the English language has a big gap in sentence structure. This is how something in Japanese would look:
私は箱を開けます。
When directly translated to English:
I Box open
In proper English:
I open a box
You see the problem? No? Then let me explain
The Japanese language have what we call an SOV type of sentence, meaning Subject,object,Verb. While English, we have SVO type of sentence, Subject Verb Object. This can be frustrating to some students learning English.
Imagine this: You're working in a factory, you're here to sort items into boxes, the product will go in: A-b-c. You've been doing this for 10 years. Suddenly, I tell you to change the order to "C-A-B". You will have a hard time adjusting to it. That's exactly like what they're experiencing.
It's hard to change habits.
That's about it, I should grab some sleep now (It's 2.10am GMT+8)
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