Japanese - Beginner level

Teacher(s)

Goto Kanako (coordinator);

Language

Japoneese

Main themes

• 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 ».

Aims

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

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.

Content

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.

Teaching methods

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the information in this section is particularly likely to change.

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.
As default : face-to-face teaching method. However, due to Covid-19 prevention context, the course could be organized by on-line base, only if the situation of Covid-19 propagation requires.

Evaluation methods

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the information in this section is particularly likely to change.

• Control on the Japanese writing system (Hiragana, Katakana) in the middle of the year - writing exam.
• End of year exam (writing, dictation) in June, that probably occurs out of the official exam session - writing and dictation exam.
• Several self-evaluation tests will be organized, on Moodle page - on-line test.

Other information

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.

Online resources

MOODLE page related to the course will be available, to help students to review what have done during the course.

Bibliography

Les matières citées ci-dessus seront abordées en se référant au syllabus lié au cours. Ce dernier sont inspirés, entre autres, des ouvrages tels que ;

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.

Teaching materials

• Syllabus LJAPO1100

Faculty or entity

ILV