I think that one of the things that Japanese students have the most difficulty with is writing in English in a way that reads naturally to native English-speakers. I think I would like to take the time to discuss this.

I have found that many students tend to write in a way that does not seem natural, and I think that part of the reason for this is that they do not have anyone around them that can tell them that their writing is unnatural. When actually learning another language, having someone who is fluent in that language who can check your work is a very valuable resource. These types of people will be able to tell you about the quality of what you have written, or what you say, in case you are asking for critique of your speech. This is very valuable information, not only because it helps you learn what you are doing wrong, but also because you can learn how to identify what you are doing wrong. Without such a person present, it may be difficult or perhaps even impossible to determine if you are making mistakes or writing in an unnatural manner, which in turn makes it difficult to correct this.

I think one additional aspect that may be contributing to this is that many Japanese-speakers might try to translate what they are thinking directly to English or even use a machine translator to help. In truth, sometimes this can be helpful, but there are times in which this does not work out very well, and could lead to sentences feeling very awkward, as there are things that make perfect sense in a given language but do not work properly at all in a different language when translated directly. Of particular note is the definite article “the”, which I have found that many Japanese people struggle with. There is no Japanese equivalent to this article, and I think that this contributes greatly to the difficulty involved in its use by Japanese people. Other European languages have equivalents, like German’s der, die, and das, but Japanese has nothing of the sort, much like how English and other European languages lack something equivalent to は, が, and を, making it difficult for non-Japanese people to understand how to use those particles properly. It is not uncommon to see frequent misuse of “the” by Japanese people who are writing in English, but, like most things, this can be overcome with practice and someone to help you identify your mistakes.