Japanese - Beginner level [ LJAPO1100 ]

None

• Discover Japan by several approaches  - geographical, historical, spiritual et cultural, and follow Japanese actuality.
• Discover 3 writing systems, Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji (elementary)  and master 46 Hiragana and 46 Katakana.
• Basic grammatical structures like « I am XXX », « I have  XXX » with their conjugations.
• Personal pronouns, basic adjectives, demonstrative words.
• Discover and master Japanese numbers, counters (numbering particular things),
• Basic particles like « wa » « to » « ka ». Elementary verbs and « survival sentences ».

This course aims to reach a beginner's level skill of Japanese language as well as cultural perception of Japan. At the end of  this course, the student is expected to master these linguistic abilities :

• Introduce oneself or someone, talk about one's family, job and leisure.
• Discuss on everyday topics with other students in Japanese, trying to maintain various conversations.
• Talk about the place of objects, of someone, ask and show the way to reach a particular destination, ask and tell the time, ask and tell the price, do shopping.
• Describe the objects and someone, talk about their favorite things.
• Read and write 46 Hiragana and  46 katakana characters and recognize several kanji.

• Control on the Japanese writing system (Hiragana, Katakana) in the middle of the year.
• End of year exam (writing, dictation) in June, that probably occurs out of the official exam sessions.

A traditional teaching method and an interactive teaching/learning method are used.
The interactive method aims to get the students in active contact with the teacher, as well as with one another, to offer to them more opportunities to take part into the discussions and to ask questions more spontaneously.

Initiation to Japanese Language. Basic grammatical concepts and writing characters (hiragana, katakana and several kanji).

This course aims to provide students with cultural explanation as well as language knowledge. As Japanese is only spoken in Japan, it would be necessary to learn the cultural context to understand more deeply this language's structure and its features.

1. Japanese for busy people I, Association for Japanese Language Teaching, Kana Version, 2006.
2. 40 leçons pour parler japonais, Pocket, coll. « Langues pour tous », 2008.
3. Manekineko ' Japonais Niveau I, Frédérique Barazer, Ellipses Editions Marketing, 2006.
4. Le japonais en manga, Marc Bernabé, Glénat, 2005.

Since the teacher is a native speaker, this course contains a part devoted to 'Cultural topics', in which students can discover and get familiar with several Japanese customs, traditions and the news.
This approach will help to understand some of Japanese grammatical rules and special expressions particular to this language.