JAPN 401: Structure of Japanese Language
Course Description:
This course aims to develop basic understanding of structural features of Japanese language. Students will be introduced to basic phonological, morphological, syntactic, and discourse analysis of Japanese. Taught in Japanese.
This course aims to develop basic understanding of structural features of Japanese language. Students will be introduced to basic phonological, morphological, syntactic, and discourse analysis of Japanese. Taught in Japanese.
Course Reflective Narrative:
This course was definitely instrumental for the completion of my capstone project. The possibility to listen to the pronunciation of Japanese native speakers not only through the computer’s speakers but also thanks to the Japanese exchange students was truly helpful. Furthermore, once we learned the existence of the phonetic alphabets, it was obvious that we needed to use both of them with each respective language, Japanese and English in this case. Our instructor made sure each one of us participated in class in order to listen to our pronunciation, later intonation too, and correct it accordingly. Her feedback was always useful and I can say I managed to improve gradually throughout the semester. The “shadowing” technique was a useful tool for us, since we need to read and speak a bit faster now that we are graduating, our level is supposed to be intermediate advance, I remember that before going to Japan I used to see my “sempai” when they were practicing shadowing, I always thought it was funny and somehow useless, now I can clearly see how wrong I was. The method is very effective if done constantly, it really increases our fluency when reading and even speaking. By the time we graduate we are supposed to have an intermediate advance level in the language and thanks to this class I believe some of us actually manage to accomplish that.
The class fulfilled MLO 1 and 2 requirements, which cover language and communication toward our major. I will definitely continue practicing since my professor was kind enough to record some audio files I can listen to and shadow, extremely helpful.
This course was definitely instrumental for the completion of my capstone project. The possibility to listen to the pronunciation of Japanese native speakers not only through the computer’s speakers but also thanks to the Japanese exchange students was truly helpful. Furthermore, once we learned the existence of the phonetic alphabets, it was obvious that we needed to use both of them with each respective language, Japanese and English in this case. Our instructor made sure each one of us participated in class in order to listen to our pronunciation, later intonation too, and correct it accordingly. Her feedback was always useful and I can say I managed to improve gradually throughout the semester. The “shadowing” technique was a useful tool for us, since we need to read and speak a bit faster now that we are graduating, our level is supposed to be intermediate advance, I remember that before going to Japan I used to see my “sempai” when they were practicing shadowing, I always thought it was funny and somehow useless, now I can clearly see how wrong I was. The method is very effective if done constantly, it really increases our fluency when reading and even speaking. By the time we graduate we are supposed to have an intermediate advance level in the language and thanks to this class I believe some of us actually manage to accomplish that.
The class fulfilled MLO 1 and 2 requirements, which cover language and communication toward our major. I will definitely continue practicing since my professor was kind enough to record some audio files I can listen to and shadow, extremely helpful.