Japanese: Beginner Level 2 *In-Person*

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 10 hours of classroom time in Japanese, or the equivalent, can read all Hiragana characters, can ask and answer simple questions in areas of immediate need in Japanese, and can use simple phrases and sentences to describe where they live and the people they know. Following the guidelines of the Common European Framework of Reference, students at this level will learn to identify common words concerning their immediate concrete surroundings, read very simple sentences, ask and answer simple questions on very familiar topics, and write a short, simple note. Instructor: Tomoko Takagi

Sections

Instructor

Tomoko Takagi was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. She holds a degree in Linguistics from Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, specializing in second language acquisition. She has over 15 years of experience working in the field of Intellectual Property at both U.S. and Japanese law firms, with considerable international business expertise. Tomoko teaches Japanese at a university and also provides Japanese language instruction for business settings to companies and various other organizations, offering lessons from absolute beginner to native-like levels. Additionally, she offers language instruction to high school, college, and graduate students, as well as translation services for a variety of business needs. Her interests include traveling, reading, listening to music, and playing with her mini-schnauzer mix dog, who was adopted from a rescue.