Language Culture’s Influence on Second Language Acquisition: Take Japanese Students’ Learning in Taiwan for Instance

According to Chinese classical literature, it records “The three moves of Mencius’ mother”. The mother of Mencius moves their residence three times in order to find an ideal place to raise her son. It tells us that how deep and far the environment affects a person. Everyone will internalize what they hear and learn naturally under the influence of environment and culture, and then turn it into personal knowledge. Gradually, it brings stability and habit. As time passes, it becomes harder to change. Winford thinks that language contact results in “imposition” of two circumstances; it appears on phonics, syntax, and sentence structure the most. Because of their first language, Japanese learner who learns Chinese makes more mistakes of phonics and syntax than western people. Due to the retention of partial Chinese-derived words in the Japanese language, Japanese students exhibit a relatively higher incidence of negative transfer from their first language when learning Mandarin. This text will discuss mistakes made by Japanese students as they learn Chinese individually from phonics, vocabulary, and Japanese national characteristics and culture. It helps teachers design their teaching in order to prevent student from making the same mistake, and then accomplishes learning goal.