Matching Strategies for Kanji Readings in Korean and Japanese by Korean Learners of Japanese

Abstract

This paper investigates Korean-learners' strategies for inferring Japanese kanji readings from Korean kanji readings, paying careful attention to the orthographic and lexical distance between the Japanese and Korean languages. The specific purpose of this paper is to clarify the reason and cause for the successes and failures of strategies by examining what tendencies Korean learners exhibit when choosing one of several Japanese readings corresponding to a Korean reading. Results showed that Korean learners tend to make choices based on the on-reading of the Japanese kanji which is psychologically most similar to the Korean reading. They also revealed that Korean learners tend to base their decisions on easy kanji learned in the early stages of Japanese-learning such as N3 or lower levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Moreover, in the situation where such a basis is not found, Korean learners tend to adopt the Japanese Kanji with a reading resembling a Korean reading.