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Why study Japanese
Travellers intending to visit Japan can benefit appreciably by learning both the Japanese language and culture, since the rules of social conduct in Japan are vastly different from those of the West. In addition, a knowledge of language and culture benefits those learners who will eventually become experts on Japan, as well as people from a broad range of different occupations, including tourism, journalism, science, technology, international finance, communications, humanities and social sciences.
The Japanese language Spoken Japanese evolved in four stages: Old Japanese (to the 8th century), Late Old Japanese (9th-11th centuries), Middle Japanese (12th-16th centuries), and Modern Japanese (from the 17th century to the present). Significant changes from ancient to modern times have been the gradual reduction of the vowel sounds from eight to five, as well as phonological, morphological, and vocabulary changes. The Japanese syntax, however, has largely remained intact.
Before the 4th century AD, the Japanese had no writing system of their own; however, they gradually began to import and adapt Chinese script, together with aspects of both Chinese and Korean culture. A writing system emerged in which Chinese characters were used to write either words that had been borrowed from Chinese, or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used for their phonetic values to write grammatical elements and these characters were simplified and eventually became two syllabic scripts – Hiragana and Katakana. By the fourteenth century there was, generally, one-to-one correspondence between spoken and written syllables. Japanese literature accomplished a significant achievement during the 11th century with the publication of Genji Monogatari (Tale of Genji) by Lady Murasaki Shikibu. This classic is commonly referred to as “the first novel” and set the standard for many other Japanese literary works that were also written by women. Modern Japanese is written with a mixture of Hiragana and Katakana, plus Kanji. Modern Japanese texts may also include rōmaji (Roman letters), the standard method, of writing Japanese with the Latin alphabet, eimoji (English script), non-Japanese words written in their own script, and various symbols known as kigō. What we offer
We integrate active communication skills with the grammatical structure of the language. Students develop proficiency in the language by using it in realistic situations and enjoyable activities. Awareness of cross-cultural communication is also addressed as this is an important factor in language learning.
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