Asians speaking english

I have a Japanese girlfriend who has been living in the U.S. for about ten years. Her comprehension of english is very good, but at times awkward. Common problems include use of articles like "a" and "the" and use of pronouns. Her strategy seems to be to simply avoid using them rather than making the wrong choice of word. For example:

She is bitch (I'm not kidding). He is good lawyer. (dropping the article "a")

I hear that is good movie. I want to see.

It seems to me that this is common for Asians speaking english as a second language. Are there any good programs/courses that specialize in common english problems for Japanese that anyone knows of?

In Japanese, they use particles, words that go after the nouns, to denote what part of speech a certain word is. They don't use articles at all. I think most Asian languages find them pretty useless, which they basically are, except when it comes to denoting the difference between definite and indefinite articles. A lawyer is a lot different from the lawyer.

Ryan

When we are taught how to use English, we learn "apple" instead of "an apple" or "apples".

hi i study english two years and i read english three days at the week but i want to exame in tafel what can i do ? thanks a lot

Sum tiemz mi speling iz a lityl auquerd tu but I'm shor yu get whot I meen.

I advise would be to check out what on offer at ESL (English as a Second Language) schools about town.

Jim,

Nice joke.

And I thought Portuguese language sucked.

Saga Son
You apologized for your comments about Portuguese, but you haven't changed your attitude at all. Pity!

There is a website called - englishforjapanese.com - which might be very useful for your friend. It deals with the article and any other problems Japanese students may have when learning English. It has lots of exercises too, plus answers. Try it out. Have fun, and I hope your friend can profit from the info.