The purpose of this study was to describe the use of English determiners in dialogue journals by Japanese second language learners. The entries of the journals of six Japanese students in an ESL class collected over an eight-week period served as the main source of data for this research project. Three analyses were performed: the accuracy order of the articles (the, a/an, and Ø), possessives, and other determiners; the accuracy order of predeterminers, central determiners, and postdeterminers; and an error analysis of the articles a/an, the, and the Ø article. The following major findings emerged: the accuracy order of the English determiners was from most accurate to the least accurate: Ø possessive, other determiner, the, and a/an; high percentages of errors of underextension of a/an and the as well as the low percentages of substitution and overextension errors; and problems with a/an in Type 4 [-SR, -HK] and the in Type 2 [+SR, +HK] contexts. These results contribute to research on ESL learners' use of English articles in a natural written discourse.