Japanese I and Mediation

This course aims to introduce students to some of the basics of oral and written Japanese. It is addressed to students who have never studied Japanese.
With regard to the language modules, students are expected to:
- become familiar with the hiragana and katakana syllabaries;
- learn about 170 ideographic characters (kanji);
- be able to read all the words included in the first 19 Units of the textbook Minna no Nihongo I Honsatsu;
- know the basic grammar rules and the most important communicative expressions included in the first 19 Units of the textbook Minna no Nihongo I Honsatsu.

Students will develop communication skills for everyday life, including the ability to associate single ideograms and compound words with the respective KUN-reading (Japanese) and ON-reading (Chinese), so as to recollect spontaneously their own mental vocabulary, as well as the ability to write phonetic characters (HIRAGANA and KATAKANA) and ideograms correctly.
Students will learn the main grammar rules and lexical elements underlying the basic constructions of Japanese sentences. They will also be able to identify these constructions in written and oral texts, and to understand their connection to the context. In terms of communication skills for everyday life, with regard to written and oral production, students will be able to: conjugate verbs and decline adjectives automatically and correctly, without using specific algorithms; use these verbs and adjectives to form the most appropriate sentence structures according to the different communicative situations; highlight the importance of information content through a correct and natural use of topicalisation techniques. In terms of listening skills, students will be able to understand oral speech regardless of the speaker's timbre or gender.
The cultural module is focused on mediation skills. In this frame, students will: become familiar with the Japanese creation myth, compared to Mediterranean classical mythology; analyse the perception of Japanese culture and society in Western cultures; investigate the main reasons that led to the Westernisation of Japan from XIX century; examine the historical processes, cultural aspects and ideological strategies behind the prejudices that characterise Japanese nationalism. Some lessons will focus on traditional rituals and cults that have taken on a folkloric meaning and have become symbols of the Japanese social identity outside national borders.

Students will become familiar with the lexical and morphological elements of the main Japanese expressions at a basic level, as well as with the general principles of their construction. They will also learn to choose the most appropriate expressions for the most elementary communicative situations. With regard to writing and reading skills, students will acquire part of the basic Japanese vocabulary and learn how to write characters in a comprehensible way. The proficiency level to be reached is between N5 and N4 of the JLPT scale (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), which corresponds approximately to A2 level under the CEFR.
By the end of the cultural module, students will have developed critical evaluation skills and assimilated the essential tools for an objective analysis of the dynamics of Japanese culture. They will be able to navigate the different aspects of the dominant ideology, examine the reasons behind some Japanese behaviours that might be difficult to understand, and acquire awareness in direct interaction situations.