Common English Mistakes Japanese Speakers Make (and How to Fix Them)

Two very different grammars

If you are a Japanese speaker writing English, your mistakes are not careless — they are transfer from a language built on opposite rules. Japanese is verb-final, uses particles instead of prepositions, has no articles, does not require plural marking, and drops the subject whenever context makes it clear. It also leans on the passive voice and on hedging for politeness.

That contrast is what makes the common English mistakes Japanese speakers make so predictable. On top of the grammar sits wasei-eigo: English-looking words that mean something else in Japanese. Below are the ten patterns that cause the most trouble, each with the Japanese habit behind it and a fast fix.

1. Missing or wrong articles (a, an, the)

Japanese has no articles, so writers omit them or insert them unpredictably. Definiteness in Japanese comes from context, not from a separate word.

Off: "I saw movie yesterday. Please send me document."
Native: "I saw a movie yesterday. Please send me the document."

Treat every countable noun as needing an article or a plural. The full decision system is in the guide to a, an, and the for article-less languages.

2. Plural marking and countable nouns

Japanese nouns do not inflect for number, and quantity is shown with counter words. So the English -s drops, and uncountable nouns get treated as countable.

Off: "I have three cat and I need a few information."
Native: "I have three cats and I need some information."

Add -s for more than one. Keep information, advice, and furniture singular; to count them, use "a piece of".

3. Prepositions (particle interference)

English prepositions map imperfectly onto Japanese particles, and the abstract uses of in, on, and at are the hardest.

Off: "I am in the station and I will discuss about this topic."
Native: "I am at the station and I will discuss this topic."

Note that some English verbs take no preposition at all: you discuss something, not "discuss about" it.

4. Dropping the subject

Japanese is pro-drop: the subject disappears whenever context recovers it. English needs an explicit subject, including the dummy "it".

Off: "Is raining now. Think it is a good idea."
Native: "It is raining now. I think it is a good idea."

If a sentence has no subject, it almost always needs "It" or "I".

5. Word order (verb-final habits)

Japanese puts the verb last and builds long modifiers before the noun, so the verb drifts late and question order gets scrambled.

Off: "Do you know where is the station?"
Native: "Do you know where the station is?"

Use subject-verb-object order, and keep statement order inside where, what, and how clauses.

6. Verb tense and aspect

Japanese marks tense and aspect differently — time is often carried by an adverb — so the past ending drops when "yesterday" is already there.

Off: "I eat lunch yesterday. I live here since 2019."
Native: "I ate lunch yesterday. I have lived here since 2019."

If a time word points to the past, the verb must agree. Use the present perfect with "since" and "for".

7. Over-using the passive and hedging

Japanese uses the passive far more than English, and politeness favors softening. In English this produces vague, agentless, over-qualified sentences.

Off: "It is thought by me that maybe the plan perhaps has some problem."
Native: "I think the plan has a problem."

Name the agent, use the active voice, and keep at most one hedge per sentence.

8. "Almost" in front of a noun

Japanese lets ほとんど (almost) modify a noun directly. English does not, so "almost" needs "all" or a switch to "most".

Off: "Almost students passed the exam."
Native: "Almost all students passed the exam." (or "Most students passed.")

Keep in mind that "almost" works fine as an adverb on a verb: "I almost missed the train."

9. He, she, and subject-verb agreement

Japanese rarely uses gendered pronouns and does not conjugate verbs for person, so he/she slips and agreement errors are common.

Off: "My sister is kind. He is a teacher. My friend live in Osaka."
Native: "My sister is kind. She is a teacher. My friend lives in Osaka."

Check each pronoun against the real person, and give third-person singular verbs their -s.

10. Wasei-eigo (Japanese-made English)

These loanwords look English but carry a different meaning in Japanese, so they surface confidently and confuse native readers.

When a word feels borrowed from English, double-check it. "I live in a mansion" usually means "I live in an apartment".

A quick self-check before you send

How Diglot helps Japanese speakers

Diglot is built for the bilingual workflow, where you think in Japanese and write in English. That is exactly where missing articles, dropped subjects, and over-hedging come from. Rather than only flagging a mistake, it shows the natural version and the reason, so the pattern sticks.

• Catch L1-transfer errors in context. The grammar checker for Japanese speakers is tuned for the article, plural, subject, and word-order slips above.
• Rewrite indirect, passive sentences. The Japanese-speaker paraphrasing tool turns hedged, translated-sounding lines into direct, natural English.
• Learn, do not just accept. Each suggestion explains the fix. See why translated text reads off in why your English sounds translated.
• One workspace for the whole task. Explore the full ESL writing tool built for non-native writers.

Your English is already good enough to communicate. Closing this short list of grammar gaps is what makes it read as fluent. Add the article, restore the subject, cut the hedge, and your writing stops sounding translated and starts sounding like you.

Try the grammar checker for Japanese speakers