Japanese: Beginner Level 2 *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 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. 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.