First-Level Modern Japanese I

5 units

This is the first semester of an academic-year course in beginning Japanese. It is designed for students who have had no prior study of Japanese. The course emphasizes the acquisition of all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) through meaningful communicative practices. It covers everyday vocabulary, expressions and basic grammatical structures and introduces all Japanese phonetic syllabaries (hiragana and katakana) as well as kanji characters. Cultural aspects of the language will also be introduced to deepen students' cultural awareness and to communicate appropriately in the global era. After completing this course, students are able to have basic conversations such as self-introduction, shopping, making invitations, describing locations, etc. They are able to read and write simple texts on topics related to oneself. Note: students with some previous Japanese language background must take a placement test.