First-Year Japanese
First-Year Japanese This course is an introduction to the modern Japanese language aimed at acquisition of the four basic skills speaking, listening comprehension, reading, and writing. The emphasis is on thorough mastery of the basic structures of Japanese through intensive oral-aural practice and extensive use of audiovisual materials. The two kana syllabaries and kanji (characters) will be introduced toward the goals of developing reading skills and reinforcing grammar and vocabulary acquisition.
The class was very fun. Takahashi sensei, Saigo sensei, and White sensei are all enthusiastic and very understanding professors. I definitely recommend the class. The course is fast pace but the amount of tests, quizzes, and homeworks makes it easier to memorize words and grammar points.
I took this First-Year Japanese with White sensei, Takahashi sensei, and Saigo sensei. As an intro to language, it is very fast-paced and has lots of homework and memorizing. Although it is a quite high-demanding course for beginners, the lectures are valuable and we do learn a lot. Quizzes and exams are fairly graded.
White Sensei is very caring for her students and made learning Japanese a fun and enjoyable experience. Quizzes are generally straightforward. This course is fast-paced and I find myself having to put in a good amount of time outside to classroom to review the materials. Other than that this is a great course to take if you plan on getting started with learning Japanese!
Taking Japanese 101 was an experience! Did my GPA suffer, yes, BUT, I would love taking this class again. White sensei, Takahashi sensei, and the Saigo sense (TA at the time) were all so enthusiastic and made the course material understandable. Although I did not continue Japanese, the experience and learning I gained from it was worth it.
This lecture section along with Takahashi-sensei's drill is great. While I think Takahashi is more engaging, White-sensei is also great at her job. She understands the issues that those whose first language is English might have with certain aspects of Japanese. I do think she could do better with pacing and she is a bit nitpicky with work, but the latter makes sense. As for the pacing, she goes quite quickly so it's hard to intake everything, but also sometimes she runs out of time to go over everything for the day so it's a hard balance to get a feel for. Maybe the solution is for the senseis to change the overall pacing of the course.
This lecture section along with Takahashi-sensei's drill is great. While I think Takahashi is more engaging, White-sensei is also great at her job. She understands the issues that those whose first language is English might have with certain aspects of Japanese. I do think she could do better with pacing and she is a bit nitpicky wit …Read more
I loved taking First-Year Japanese with Professor White and Professor Takahashi. The drills were done by Prof Takahashi who was so engaging and enthusiastic. There is a lot of homework though, and you have to be prepared to dedicate at least an hour every single day to studying/doing homework for Japanese. Overall, a great course and we learn so much at such a fast (but reasonable) pace.
I loved taking First-Year Japanese with Professor White and Professor Takahashi. The drills were done by Prof Takahashi who was so engaging and enthusiastic. There is a lot of homework though, and you have to be prepared to dedicate at least an hour every single day to studying/doing homework for Japanese. Overall, a great course and …Read more
Takahashi sensei is awesome. He knows how to keep an introductory language course full of laughter and enjoyment. I really enjoyed coming to this course, even it's five times a week - twice for lecture and three times for drills. White sensei is alright.