THE JAPANESE LANGUAGE is the ninth most widely spoken primary language in the world, having more than 125 million speakers. The vast majority live in Japan and the Okinawa island group.. About two million or so live abroad, mostly in the Brazil, United States, Canada and Australia. Millions of additional near-native or otherwise fluent speakers of Japanese reside within Korea, China, or other parts of Asia. In America Japanese is the sixth most studied foreign language.

Grammatically Japanese is very unlike English. For example, Japanese nouns have no gender and number; verb conjugation is not affected by the gender or number; and Japanese verbs have only the present and the past tenses. Japanese pronunciation and grammar also are very different from Chinese. In particular, Japanese is not a tone language.

Basic character sets used in writing modern Japanese are kanji (several thousands of Chinese characters) augmented by katakana and hiragana (two syllabaries of 46 characters each). Japan did not have its own writing system before adapting the Chinese one. When introducing the Chinese characters, kanji are used for verbs, adjectives and nouns; but unlike the Chinese language, Japanese cannot be written entirely in kanji. For grammatical endings and words that cannot be written in kanji, the other two syllable based writing systems are used. Japanese texts can be written horizontally like western texts or in the traditional vertical from right to left manner.

TTU offers both courses and a minor in japanese. Courses are Beginning (JAPN 1501, 1502) and Second Year (JAPN 2301, JAPN 2302) Japanese language courses as well as a repeatable advanced course (JAPN 4300).

The minor in Japanese consists of 18 hours (20 if JAPN 1501 is applied to the minor) of Japanese Language courses or which 9 hours must be at the upper level including 3 at the 4000 level. Typically the Japanese minor consists of JAPAN 1502, 2301, 2302, and three repeats of JAPN 4300.

Japanese language courses also may be applied to the Asian Studies interdisciplinary minor.

• Japanese Language Courses can be used to satisfy TTU Foreign Language Requirements.
• Japanese Language Courses can be used to complete minors in Japanese or Asian Studies.
• These courses also can prepare you for exotic and exciting study-abroad opportunities.
     (see http://www.iaff.ttu.edu/Home/OIA/StudyAbroad/BBSABPrograms.asp)

INSTRUCTORS:

Ms. Akiko Matsumoto, GPTI, 006 Foreign Languages Building, 806-742-2758, Akiko.Matsumoto@ttu.edu.

Ms. Miwa Killingsworth, GPTI, 006 Foreign Languages Building, 806-742-2758, Miwa.S.Killingsworth@ttu.edu.

Japanese instruction is coordinated and supervised by Dr. Greta Gorsuch, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics.

COURSES:

ENROLLMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR NONDEGREE STUDENTS AND MEMBERS OF THE LUBBOCK COMMUNITY: Persons possessing a bachelors degree or higher may take undergraduate language courses as a Nondegree Student. Admission is simple: Obtain an application at www.ttu.edu/gradschool, apply for admission as a Post Graduate (PRGD) Nondegree Student, pay the $50 application fee, and submit transcripts of all previous college level study. When admitted enroll in the appropriate language course. Once admitted you may register indefinitely in undergraduate TTU courses. For more information contact the CMLL Academic Program Advisor, Liz Hildebrand, liz.hildebrand@ttu.edu, 200 Foreign Languages Building, 806-742-4055.