Japanese Studies
This part of the course gives a general picture of how modern Japan has developed through the interplay between domestic traditions and modern institutions. Present-day Japan is considered from economical, political, cultural, technical and conceptual points of view.
Language
Linguistic structure: Overview of pronunciation. Basic and frequent sentence patterns and a selection of relevant expressions
Writing: Overview of the kana
Orientation about the development of kanji and the most important principles of its structure and usage. Active learning of 50 kanji characters
Language in use: Orientation about historical aspects and social conventions of Japanese (structure of the present-day vocabulary, and aspects such as politeness, gender, silence, body language, etc.)
The intended learning outcomes for the linguistic part of the course refer mainly to the level A1 according to CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, and aim to strengthen the student's global competence.
On completion of the course, the student should be able to:
Japanese Studies
• account for important facts about Japan and search for information concerning Japan's history, society, geography, culture, language and technical development (in Swedish)
• find and present facts about relevant Japanese phenomena
Language
• be familiar with the structure of Japanese written language and completely master the hiragana and identify the katakana
• be familiar with the particular nature of Japanese as regards grammar and social usage.
• present him/herself and others in very elementary Japanese.
• translate very simple sentences from Japanese into Swedish and vice versa
• master the most common greeting phrases and participate in very simple everyday conversations using a fixed sentence structure