This study utilizes natural language processing (NLP) technology to construct a Japanese discourse cohesion index system. It then investigates the acquisition of discourse cohesion in Japanese by advanced learners with different native languages, specifically Chinese and Korean. The findings reveal discrepancies between the essays written by advanced learners and those written by native speakers in aspects such as lexical overlap, semantic overlap, connectives, and references. By calculating the Euclidean distance between the cohesion indices of native speakers’ essays and those of language learners, it is observed that, compared with essays written by Chinese learners, those written by Korean learners are more cohesive and closer to those written by native speakers. This phenomenon can be attributed to the similarities between Korean and Japanese. This discovery enhances the theory of language transfer by providing empirical evidence from discourse cohesion in the essays written by foreign language learners from China and Korea.