7 common English mistakes often made by Japanese speakers

To begin with, what causes spelling mistakes in English?

In web production, benchmarking is essential for creating high-quality websites, and through our daily work, we have reviewed a wide range of sites—from competitors to companies in entirely different industries. In doing so, we have often come across Japanese websites that use incorrect English expressions.

No matter how refined the design may be, the use of incorrect expressions can undermine the overall impression of a site and may even invite criticism from those who are proficient in English. This is quite unfortunate. To ensure that the effort put into creating a website is not wasted, it is important to be mindful of correct expressions from the outset.

In Japanese, foreign words are often written in katakana, but these katakana representations frequently differ from native pronunciation. One of the main causes of spelling mistakes is writing these katakana words directly in romanized form without understanding the difference. Additionally, since many English sounds do not exist in Japanese, it is easy to become confused when trying to spell such words.
Now, let us take a closer look at some commonly confused points and examples.

Looking ahead, more Japanese companies will expand overseas, while the number of international visitors and foreign residents in Japan will continue to increase. As a result, opportunities for foreign users to view Japanese websites will grow, and the use of English in web production will inevitably become more common.

In such a context, there is no disadvantage in using correct English expressions. On the contrary, proper usage can further enhance the overall quality of a website’s design. Moving forward, by being mindful of the common pitfalls introduced in this article, and by developing the habit of verifying English expressions with a dictionary rather than relying solely on katakana, we can effectively avoid spelling mistakes.