Do non-native speakers of English find gairaigo more difficult to learn than native speakers of English?


I've occasionally heard people who aren't native speakers of English complain
about gairaigo (words derived from European languages, not words derived from
Chinese) being difficult to learn.

Sometimes I hear it from people who are reasonably fluent in English (and
therefore should know the word the gairaigo is derived from), and sometimes I
hear it from people who aren't native speakers of Chinese (and therefore don't
have the advantage of already knowing Chinese characters). I'm wondering - do
native speakers of English have an advantage over people who learnt English as
a second language when it comes to learning gairaigo?

(I know this sounds subjective, but organisations have evaluated [how
difficult it is to learn specific
languages](http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-
difficulty), so "difficulty in learning" must be measurable)




I can definitely say I have seen a trend among people with 漢字圏 backgrounds to
avoid カタカナ loanwords in favor of 漢字, where there is an equivalent (regardless
of how unnatural it might sound). In those cases, the subjects would mostly be
native in Chinese, which is fairly far removed from the European (Germanic and
Latin) words that 外来語 generally hails from.

This trend, is of course also apparent with non-natives of Chinese, who happen
to be really good at 漢字, or otherwise have an easy time remembering 漢字.

* * *

Other than that, across the board, I've mostly seen an initial ease in
remembering the words, but a slight delay in remembering what exactly they
mean. Take:

  * Viking vs. バイキング
  * Sabotage vs. サボる
  * Style vs. スタイル
  * [Mansion vs. マンション](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/30893/11830)

It's generally easy to remember the word, if you're familiar with a word that
sounds like it, but since it means something completely different from the
original word, there is a delay in remembering this new meaning.

* * *

So, the main "difficulty in learning" I have observed, is with Chinese
Language natives, who are also not English Language natives.

