English Reference

have for Japanese speakers — pronunciation and common errors

Pronunciation

Japanese phonology lacks the /v/ sound, so speakers substitute it with the voiced bilabial plosive /b/. This causes the word to be pronounced as 'habu' /habɯ/.

Grammar

Japanese verbs like ある (aru) and いる (iru) express existence or possession regardless of the subject's person. Because Japanese lacks subject-verb agreement (e.g., 'have' vs 'has'), learners often produce 'He have' by carrying over the invariant Japanese verb structure.

Collocations

In Japanese, 薬を飲む (kusuri o nomu) literally translates to 'drink medicine'. This L1 structure leads to the error 'drink medicine' instead of the standard English collocation 'have medicine' or 'take medicine'.

Full entry for have →