Japanese Courses

Placement Exam

Contact Dr. Meixiu Zhang. A request to be placed into a Spring course will ONLY be considered if submitted before November 10th of the Fall semester. Requests to be placed into Fall courses must be submitted before April 10th of the Spring semester.

JAPN 1501 - Beginning Course in Japanese I

The goal of this course is to prepare you to use the target language appropriately in the Japanese culture and society. In other words, the course is aimed at helping you to be able to communicate in the language instead of merely knowing information about it. Thus, course content is focused on using Japanese in various contexts to accomplish common tasks, and it is important for students to prepare and review carefully for each session. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with basic language usage in Japanese, and they will have developed basic linguistic strategies to convey meaning and express themselves in everyday situations. Furthermore, you will have learned a considerable amount of information about the Japanese culture, including topics related to the way of life.

JAPN 1502 - Beginning Course in Japanese II

The goal of this course is to prepare you to use the target language appropriately in the Japanese culture and society. In other words, the course is aimed at helping you to be able to communicate in the language instead of merely knowing information about it. Thus, course content is focused on using Japanese in various contexts to accomplish common tasks, and it is important for students to prepare and review carefully for each session. By the end of the course, students will be familiar with basic language usage in Japanese, and they will have developed basic linguistic strategies to convey meaning and express themselves in everyday situations. Furthermore, you will have learned a considerable amount of information about the Japanese culture, including topics related to the way of life.

JAPN 2301 - Second Course in Japanese I

This course is designed to further develop communicative skills in Japanese as well as insights into Japanese culture for those who have successfully completed JAPN 1501 and JAPN 1502. Students will practice using Japanese appropriately in given contexts and attain proficiency that is equivalent to the first-year level of Japanese. It is proficiency-oriented course, covering all the four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

JAPN 2302 - Second Course in Japanese II

This course is designed to further develop communicative skills in Japanese as well as insights into Japanese culture for those who have successfully completed JAPN 1501, JAPN 1502, and JAPN 2301. Students will practice using Japanese appropriately in given contexts and attain proficiency that is equivalent to the first-year level of Japanese. It is proficiency-oriented course, covering all the four skills: speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

JAPN 4300 - Individual Problems in Japanese

This course is a continuation of second-year Japanese. It is assumed that the students in this class have acquired an intermediate level of proficiency that is equivalent to the second-year level of Japanese. It is a proficiency-oriented course, covering all four skills. Being proficient means being able to complete tasks using Japanese, not simply knowing about the language nor knowing many Kanji (Chinese characters) and their English equivalents. It also implies a high degree of competence as a result of training. Therefore, you will be expected to demonstrate what you can do with the language, not just to explain what you know about it. You will learn not only how to use Japanese but also to whom how to use the language appropriately in variety of contexts. In addition, you will explore more Japanese and Japanese culture according to your interest.