Welcome to JPN 2023, a course in intermediate-level Japanese. This course builds on your reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills, providing you an opportunity to master more complex grammatical structures through practical application in both written and spoken contexts. Communicative activities, done in pairs or small groups, help you gain confidence in speaking Japanese and also prepare you for everyday interactions in Japan. Additionally, aspects of Japanese culture are introduced, as culture is an integral part of the language. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Communicate in polite (-masu form) and casual (plain form) Japanese to function in basic everyday situations, employing such conversational strategies as speech fillers andあいづち.
2. Describe a person’s appearance and discuss one’s abilities and weaknesses.
3. Make comparisons, voice your opinions, and offer suggestions.
4. Explain reason, express conjecture, and use the conditional form to make hypothetical clauses.
5. Use clauses of time to describe what happened at that particular moment.
6. Ask for, give, and deny permission.
7. Read and write kanji characters (in addition to ones previously learned), understand the meaning of the kanji, and use them accurately within the context of specified words (furigana and okurigana).
