Courses in the Japanese Program
Japanese 001 : Elementary Japanese I
* · 4 Credits
* · 5 Days a Week
* · Textbook Required
Description
This course is designed for those who have no previous experience studying Japanese. The objective of this course is for the student to acquire communicative and functional skills in Japanese. Students learn the basics of the speaking, listening, reading, and writing of modern Japanese. The six chapters covered include new vocabulary items and expression patterns used for things such as telling time, shopping, daily activity, location, and travel. In addition, students will learn the reading and writing of approximately 60 Kanji, or Chinese characters. Various Japanese culture and customs are introduced and discussed throughout the session. Japanese 002 will be offered as the next course in the sequence after this.
Japanese 002 : Elementary Japanese II
* · 4 Credits
* · 5 Days a Week
* · Textbook Required
Description
This course builds upon the material learned in Japanese 001 by continuing to offer the instruction of elementary Japanese so that students may learn how to communicate and express various ideas using Japanese. Each chapter includes new essential vocabulary items and patterns for expressions such as likes, dislikes, purpose, hearsay, desire, resultant state, one's potential as well as suggestions and permission. Students are challenged to form longer and more detailed sentences by connecting phrases and modifying clauses. Counters for prices, building floors, books, people and animals will be introduced. In addition, students will learn the reading and writing of an additional 90 Kanji. Various aspects of Japanese culture and customs are introduced and discussed throughout the semester. Japanese 003 will be offered as the next course in the sequence after this.
Prerequisite: JAPANESE 001
Japanese 003 : Intermediate Japanese
* · 4 Credits
* · 5 Days a Week
* · Textbook Required
Description
This course reinforces the fundamentals of the elementary level Japanese language courses and aims to develop the functional ability to communicate in Japanese beyond the survival level. Along with the new grammar patterns, each chapter includes approximately sixty essential vocabulary items as well as thirty kanji for the achievement of higher overall communicative fluency in Japanese. By the end of this semester, you will be able to express uncertainty, plans and intentions, willingness, opinions obligations and social expectations, conditions and sequence, prohibition along with other functional expressions.
Prerequisite: JAPANESE 002
Japanese 110 : Conversation, Reading, and Composition
* · 3 Credits
* · 3 Days a Week
* · Textbook Required
Description
The course offers the instruction of intermediate Japanese where students learn how to communicate and express various ideas using the Japanese language. Each chapter includes new essential vocabulary items, grammar patterns, and kanji which enable us to achieve higher overall communicative fluency in Japanese. By the end of the semester, students are able to express possibility, presuppositions, desire, hypothetical condition, causative, completion, regret, etc. The usage of polite expressions of humble and honorific is introduced. Various aspects of Japanese culture and customs are also discussed throughout the semester.
Prerequisite: JAPANESE 003
Japanese 120 : Japanese Literature in its Cultural Context
* · 3 Credits
* · 2 Days a Week
* · Textbook Required
* · Final Composition
Description
This course is designed to introduce students through various media to diverse aspects of Japanese culture, history, and ideas. The class will examine works of fiction, drama, and poetry, as well as read critical essays and view films. Students will gain an understanding of this national culture through its literature, its international as well as pan-Asian role in politics and history, and the problems and possibilities of East-West comparative studies.
Reading East Asian literary texts and viewing films of Japan within a comparative framework will allow students to gain an understanding of Japanese culture as well as to face some of our assumptions surrounding non-western histories, cultures, and institutions. Participants are encouraged to explore their own related ideas, as well as the wide, wide range of literary and filmic texts suggested by the readings collected here. The range of activities, from participation and presentations, papers, written personal responses, and group projects will allow students a variety of ways to explore the select topics as well as to engage in intellectual exchange.
Japanese 401 : Advanced Conversation
* · 3 Credits
* · 3 Days a Week
* · Textbook Required
Description
This course leads the student to an advanced level of communicative Japanese, which enables you to function appropriately in various social contexts in Japanese. The course covers Chapters 1-4 of An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese.Previously introduced vocabulary and expressions will be reinforced, and the functional usage of the language will be instructed. You are challenged to engaged in variety of activities such as conversation, discussion, presentation, text reading and compositions, in order to achieve higher overall communicative fluency.
Prerequisite: JAPANESE 110
Japanese 402 : Advanced Reading
* · 3 Credits
* · 3 Days a Week
* · Textbook Required
Description
This course leads the student to an advanced level of communicative Japanese, which enables you to function appropriately in various contexts in Japanese. The course covers Chapters 5-10 of An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. Previously introduced vocabulary and expressions will be reinforced, and the functional usage of the language will be emphasized. You are challenged to be engaged in a variety of activities such as conversations, discussions, presentations, text readings, and compositions, in order to achieve higher overall communicative fluency.
Prerequisite: JAPANESE 110
Japanese 403W : Practical Written Communication
* · 3 Credits
* · 2 Days a Week
* · Textbook Required
* · Final Composition
Description
A continuation of Japanese 402, this course aims to improve students' proficiency, particularly writing, reading and debating in Japanese. This course will go beyond "everyday" Japanese. All participants will get acquainted with some newspapers, articles, academic writings and literary pieces. This course is also a sort of a "writing workshop." Students are expected to do a series of writing exercises throughout the semester. Students will write their own biography, summary of interests, book or movie review, and a letter to the President.
Note: This course fulfills the "w suffix" requirement listed on the student's degree audit. Remember that students must complete a "w suffix" course within their college for the credit to count.
Prerequisite: JAPANESE 402
Japanese 452 : Contemporary Japan: Culture and Trends
* · 3 Credits
* · 1 Day a Week
* · Textbook Required
* · Final Composition
Description
This course explores a selection of literature and film that represent the richness and diversity of contemporary Japanese culture and society. Reading and films span a wide range of genres, modes of representation, and historical settings. Focusing on the postwar era to present, this course introduces various aspects of contemporary Japanese culture, from literary works of the postwar experience to recent popular culture, including anime. Each work is discussed in terms of its own literary or artistic merit, the social context that produced it, its position within the larger trends of literary development in Japan, and its relevance for the modern reader. This course is designed for (prospective) Japanese major or minor students interested in broadening their knowledge of Japanese culture and society as well as for students who wish to compare other cultures and literatures they have studied with those of Japan.
To draw on the students' insights and to pool the contributions of all the class members, most of the classtime is spent discussing literary texts, films, and articles from newspapers or magazines. Students must be prepared for class by reading the material carefully, taking notes, writing down questions, and being ready to take part in lively conversations.
Prerequisite: JAPANESE 110
Japanese 453 : Japanese Film
* · 3 Credits
* · 1 Day a Week
* · Textbook Required
* · Final Composition
Description
This class will be a seminar-style study of Japanese culture, texts, and language through Japanese cinema. The goal is to deepen the students' understanding of diverse aspects of Japanese life, history, and culture while developing language skills.
Participants will be required to view and discuss films in Japanese (all with English subtitles). Viewings will be accompanied by secondary readings and discussions of the films, as well as on nations, identity, history, and sociology. Exercises will range from group discussion, web-based research in Japanese and English, presentations, and essay-style analysis.
Prerequisite: JAPANESE 110
