To determine relative levels of motivation in learning English as a Second Language, 40 freshman and sophomores at 2 national universities in mainland China and Japan responded to a 40-point attitudinal questionnaire and 6-point followup motivational intensity scale. Data on student language proficiency were also gathered. While a solid majority from both universities showed high motivation on the attitudinal measure (87.5 percent of the Japanese and 95 percent of the Chinese), the backup motivational intensity scale, designed to tap a more active orientation to the target language, yielded a more modest 50.6 percent and 67.8 percent positive response, respectively, on the part of the respondents. In addition to showing a somewhat higher instrumental motivation to learn English, it is noteworthy that the Mandarin-speaking freshmen and sophomores also outperformed Japanese college learners of similar age and background on a variety of tests focusing on points of syntax of near-equal difficulty for both language groups. Level of motivation was not shown to correlate highly with proficiency regardless of test type, which parallels findings of earlier studies. Contains 25 references. (Author/MSE)