The present study is a longitudinal study of the utterance strategy use for problem solving in contact situations with Japanese people. The main participants were three Chinese students who came to Japan for the first time to expand their knowledge of Japanese. The purpose of this paper is to clarify what changes can be observed, quantitatively and qualitatively, on the use of the utterance strategies throughout the participants' period of residence in Japan. An additional goal is to clarify how the change in the strategy usage is related to the change in the learner's linguistic competence and in the learning environment itself.
