The goal of this elementary course is to familiarize the students with the modern spoken and written Japanese. The course is designed to develop a command of communicative skills in order to help the students to communicate with Japanese people in real life settings. The course also includes basic reading and writing: Hiragana and Katakana. By the end of this course, the students will be able to speak and understand basic Japanese conversation, and read and write basic Japanese characters: Hiragana and Katakana. Language learning involves learning what is grammatically and culturally appropriate in a given setting. For this reason, cultural information is also given to the students.
The course focuses on learning basic daily spoken Japanese and also reading and writing Hiragana and Katakana. During the Fall semester, the students practice basic spoken language used in real-life settings such as greetings, introducing each other, asking directions, asking the date and time, asking prices, counting objects, doing shopping, talking about hobbies, etc. The students also practice learning and writing the Japanese basic writing systems (Hiragana and Katakana).