An analysis of wago/kango predominance in Swedish students’ Japanese vocabulary

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the lexical type predominance between Japanese-based wago and Chinese-based kango within the vocabulary of Swedish learners of Japanese, comparing those who have studied in Japan and those who have not. The translation task was structured to ask participants to fill in suitable translations in the blank for the pronunciation of Japanese words based on the meaning of a corresponding Swedish word. A test consisting of a cued translation task was conducted in order to evaluate lexical type predominance between wago and kango.