Both Finns and Japanese saw speaking English as difficult. Reasons for this were, for example, their previous
education that had been too grammar oriented and theoretical, a late onset of learning, a fear of errors, a lack of
practice and experience, and social pressure. Overall, the factors that create problems were instruction and input
related, social and neurological. Accent was also an affecting factor: the standard models of English had a strong
standing in the attitudes of the informants, and the Finnish and the Japanese accents of English were disliked. The
informants with a higher education had stricter attitudes towards English accents.