Japanese - Beginner level

ljapo1100  2019-2020  Louvain-la-Neuve

Japanese - Beginner level
Note from June 29, 2020
Although we do not yet know how long the social distancing related to the Covid-19 pandemic will last, and regardless of the changes that had to be made in the evaluation of the June 2020 session in relation to what is provided for in this learning unit description, new learnig unit evaluation methods may still be adopted by the teachers; details of these methods have been - or will be - communicated to the students by the teachers, as soon as possible.
6 credits
60.0 h
Q1 and Q2
Teacher(s)
Goto Kanako (coordinator);
Language
Japoneese
Prerequisites
None
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 :

1 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.
 

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.
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
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.
Evaluation methods
  • 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.
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.
Bibliography
Les matières citées ci-dessus seront abordées en se référant aux différents manuels, entre autres ;
  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.
Faculty or entity
ILV


Programmes / formations proposant cette unité d'enseignement (UE)

Title of the programme
Sigle
Credits
Prerequisites
Aims
Bachelor in Information and Communication