Abstract
The present study investigated the effect of living in the target language country and that of the age factor on the acquisition of English by Japanese learners. Three subject groups participated in this study: Native speakers of American English, Japanese returnees who had lived in the U.S., and college students who had never lived overseas. For measuring listening and reading abilities, we employed official TOEIC® scores. We also examined two factors of durational control: ISI durations and stressed vowel shortening. The results showed significant differences in all parameters examined between the returnees and general college students. We also observed that the age factor had an effect on the different degrees of attainment of the production proficiency and on listening ability of the returnees, but not on their reading ability.
