Abstract
The effects of word familiarity rated by Japanese learners on English-to-Japanese word translation accuracy were examined In Analysis I, a total of 1,674 English words were analyzed and a significant correlation between word familiarity and translation accuracy was obtained Confidence level had a higher correlation with translation accuracy, suggesting that confidence level is also useful in studying English lexical processing for Japanese learners. Analysis 2 investigated 165 words of the 1,674 mentioned above and revealed that confidence level and Imagery rated by Japanese learners accountedfor about 80% of the variance of translation accuracy. In Analysis 3, components of word familiarity were investigated Usefulness, importance, and limitations of word familiarity in second/foreign language lexical processing are discussed and compared with those of confidence level. The possibility of utilizing word translation accuracy as an independent variable, not as a dependent variable, is suggested
