Introductory Japanese B · East Asian Languages And Cultures
Basic knowledge about Japanese language, and also some useful skills of Japanese language aquiring.
Same as other Japanese classes. Quizzes every day, midterm, a final essay, and a final. Expect to do around an hour or more per class, plus another 45 minutes if there's a language laboratory due (there's one per lesson).
Quiz every class ~45 min homework every class 2 midterms 1 final katakana project (see above)
I really enjoyed Fukai Sensei's class. She is young and has a sense of humor, which means that class discussions can get entertaining considering that your japanese vocabulary is smaller than a five year old's. However, this does not mean that Fukai Sensei does not take teaching very seriously. She is exceptionally well prepared for class and stays very close to the syllabus. At times we would run through the drills she had prepared a few minutes early, yet she always managed to make good use of classtime by coming up with a new exercise on the spot to dril us with. Though she is more than willing to help if you are having trouble, don't expect a break just because you're lazy. Overall, Fukai sensei is very competent teacher who manages to keep her sense of humor while putting as much work into the class as she expects you to put into it.
I found Tatsumi sensei's class very rewarding. He almost always speaks in Japanese during class. Lots of speaking practice in class: conversation or picture on the slides and the entire class or one person will read the conversation. Examples are usually standard, occasionally entertaining. We had to make a blog with two journal-type entries and a fair bit of work on the katakana project. I found the katakana project tedious and not too useful. It consists of finding examples of katakana on ads, magazines, products etc and analyzing the katakana usage. We also have to make a literary work (manga, story or poems). It will take as much time as you want.
How to correctly using Japanese to communicate
In this course we learned a variety of simple Japanese grammar and vocab, and how to use it in a variety of different situations.
Further lessons in Japanese sentence construction and grammar, expanded Japanese vocabulary and applications of lessons in everyday conversation. Additionally we studied Kanji.
I learned much of introductory Japanese grammar, kanji, and vocabulary.
It can be a challenging class, but if you are interested in learning Japanese and are willing to spend a good amount of time working on it, this is a good class for you.