The Psychological Constraints of Using Japanese Among Indonesian Students

Abstract

This study discusses the psychological constraints for Indonesian students in using Japanese as one of the student learning processes in order to improve speaking skills. The main obstacle for students is the sentence structure which differs between the mother tongue and the target language. The difference between the Japanese sentence structure and the Indonesian sentence structure can be seen in the learners' speech. The discussion in this study presents the influence of the interference structure of the Indonesian language on Japanese speech. Mother tongue interference then becomes a psychological constraint in the use of Japanese among Indonesian students. Research data were obtained through interviews with elicitation. The results of this study indicate that a number of syntactic elements that affect Japanese speech are found in the fields of phrases, clauses and sentences. This is mostly influenced by structural elements in the different syntaxes of Indonesian and Japanese languages, which actually have different cultural aspects. From this, it is evident that foreign language learners, especially Indonesians, have psychological barriers in speaking Japanese because the language is influenced by linguistic environmental factors related to the way Japanese people express things through their language.