Japanese: Beginner Level 3 *Online*

Japanese is spoken by more than 125 million people around the world—primarily by the inhabitants of Japan, but also by populations of Japanese origin in Hawaii, as well as in North and South America. Nearly 4 million people around the world study Japanese. Japanese is an agglutinative language whose origins are not clearly established. The writing system consists of two syllabaries—Hiragana and Katakana—and the Chinese Kanji characters. This level is for students who have at least 20 hours of classroom time in the language, or the equivalent, can read all Hiragana and Katakana characters, have a basic command of the language, are familiar with everyday expressions, and can make very simple sentences. Following the guidelines of the Common European Framework of Reference, students at this level will learn to identify the highest frequency vocabulary related to areas of most immediate personal relevance, read very short, simple texts, communicate in routine tasks requiring a simple exchange of information on familiar topics, and describe their families, educational backgrounds, and jobs. There is the possibility that the last session of the class will be in-person if all attendees are in agreement. Instructor: Tomoko Takagi

Sections

Instructor

Tomoko Takagi was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She has a degree in Linguistics from Tokyo Woman’s Christian University focused on second language acquisition. She has worked in Intellectual Property field more than 15 years in US and Japanese law firms with considerable international business experiences. She teaches Japanese classes for business settings in companies and organizations, as well as for high school/college/graduate students, and also provides translation services for various business needs. Her other interests include traveling, reading, listening to music and watching competitive figure skating.