This research investigates the difference of summaries between first language and second language. The three goals of this research were as follows : (1) How do the summary structure reflect the original textual structure? (2) What type of content level and how is content recalled? (3) What is the difference between L1 summary and L2 summary? The participants were Japanese native speakers (L1 speakers) and Japanese learners (L2 learners). In Experiment 1, subjects were given Bikatsu-gata text and required to write a summary. Main effects were significant pertaining to the recall content level and the method of recalling. While these results indicated that L2 learners could understand lower-level ideas, they could not understand higher-level ideas. In addition, due to incorrect reasoning subject (L2 learners) made a significant amount of errors. In Experiment 2, subjects were given Chukatsu-gata text and required to write a summary, which produced no significant effect. In Comparing Experiment 1 and 2, these results suggested that L1 speakers have their own strategy in constructing a summary structure. On the other hand, L2 learners could not adequately reconstruct the original textural structure. They indicated that collecting important ideas and reconstruction of those ideas were difficult for L2 learners.