抄録
This research was designed to examine how the knowledge of kanji characters in their first language influences the processing of Jpanese kanji characters for Koren learners living in Japan. Two experiments were conducted. The first involved kanji characters whose written shapes are similar in Korean and Japanese and the second, characters that are similar phonologically. The experiment adopted a reading-aloud task measuring the reaction time of the Korean learners. The results showed an inhibitory effect of letter shape similarity in the first case while in the second case, no difference in reaction time was observed. This latter result differed from an earlier experiment in which reading phonologically similar kanji characters required less time for learners living in Korea, suggesting that learners actually residing in Japan can read phonologically less similar kanji characters quickly due to their increased opportunities for processing Japanese kanji sounds.
