Journal of Japanese Language Education and Linguistics

Educational Quiz Game Media Nazo nazo for Basic Level Choukai Learning

Juniardi Ikhsan — 2025-08-28

Nazo-nazo is a type of riddle game that is quite popular in Japan. This game is usually designed for children, where they guess an object through images or riddles narrated by others. However, in this study, nazo-nazo is used as an educational quiz game media for basic Japanese listening learning, as games specifically designed to improve Japanese listening skills are still relatively rare. This study aims to determine the listening skills of basic Japanese learners before and after the implementation of the nazo-nazo game media and to identify which listening skill instruction is more effective between the experimental and control classes through a comparative statistical test. Additionally, it evaluates students' responses to this game. The research method used is quantitative. The total sample consists of 42 participants, divided into two groups: 22 students in the experimental group and 20 students in the control group. The results show that the post-test scores were higher than the pre-test scores in the experimental class, with an average post-test score of 82.95, compared to an average pre-test score of 64.56. The t-test calculation resulted in a value of 4.945, which is greater than the t-table value of 2.02 (at a 5% significance level). This indicates that using the nazo-nazo quiz game as a media for teaching listening skills is more effective than teaching without it. Additionally, the questionnaire results show that respondents gave positive perceptions of the nazo-nazo quiz game media, as it creates a new learning atmosphere and increases learning motivation. Therefore, this game can be applied as an alternative method for teaching basic Japanese listening skills.

Analysis of Japanese Proverbs Using the Words “Mizu” and “Ame” and Sundanese Proverbs Using the Words “Cai” and “Hujan”

Fahmi Akmal Pratama — 2025-08-29

This comparative research delves into the analysis of kotowaza in Japanese that incorporate the lexical elements 'mizu' and 'ame' , alongside paribasa in Sundanese containing the equivalent words 'cai' and 'hujan' . The primary focus of this study is to explore the layers of semantic meaning and understand the cultural context underpinning the formation of these idiomatic expressions in both languages. Through a contrastive approach, this research seeks to highlight fundamental similarities and differences in how both cultures conceptualize and utilize the concepts of water and rain in their verbal expressions. By carefully examining the connotative and idiomatic meanings inherent in each proverb, this study aims to enrich a more comprehensive understanding of Japanese kotowaza and Sundanese paribasa. The implications of this analysis are expected to provide significant insights into the linguistic specificities and cultural values embedded within each system of proverbs.

Challenges and Pedagogical Implications in Teaching the Japanese Spatial Expression “no ue” to English-speaking Learners: A Corpus-based Study Using I-JAS

Jiaan Xu — 2025-08-29

This study addresses the insufficient attention paid to the Japanese spatial expression “no ue” in research on English-speaking learners, even though spatial particles and locative nouns have been widely studied in second language acquisition. It investigates the use and misuse of “no ue” with the goal of identifying pedagogical challenges and proposing instructional improvements. Using the International Corpus of Japanese as a Second Language (I-JAS) developed by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, 49 examples of learner production—including both spoken and written data—containing “no ue” were extracted via the “Chunagon” search system. Among these, 21 instances were identified as erroneous, all of which were categorized into six error types; 19 representative cases are illustrated and discussed in detail based on lexical, syntactic, and semantic features. The results revealed frequent errors related to unnatural placement expressions, structural confusion, and semantic mismatches with the English preposition “on”. These errors stemmed from a combination of factors, including spatial concept misinterpretation, vocabulary misuse, syntactic misunderstanding, and first-language interference. By systematically analyzing these tendencies, this study not only contributes to existing research but also highlights its novelty by directly linking error patterns with pedagogical implications, such as improving the teaching of spatial nouns and particles, emphasizing contextual meaning, and incorporating contrastive approaches with English.