Why Learn Japanese?

✓Would you like to study abroad?  There are many opportunities to study at a Japanese university through relationships with Oregon State University.

✓Are you majoring in science?  Japan has won 21 Nobel Peace Prizes, 19 of which were for science. The U.S. and Japan are good competitors in areas such as stem cell research and robotics.

✓Are you majoring in engineering?  Doshisha University in Japan offers a graduate program in engineering for non-Japanese students.

✓Are you majoring in business?  Many U.S. businesses have branches in Japan.  Mentor Graphics, for example, is a company in Oregon and has branch offices in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya.

✓Do you plan to visit Japan?  Visit places that would not be included in a group tour.  Experience Martial Arts or go cycling in the countryside and meet the locals.  Being able to speak Japanese creates many more opportunities.

✓Do you want to experience life in Japan?  Prepare by joining our program.  All levels of Japanese classes have two weekly sessions in Japanese only.  Through realistic settings, you can practice oral communication with Japanese speakers.
 

Academic Requirements

Learning Outcomes

Course Descriptions

Advising Worksheet

Additional Information

Students minoring in Asian Languages and Cultures will:

  1. Develop proficiency in both spoken and written Japanese or Chinese
  2. Contextualize knowledge related to the history, geography, social conditions, and cultural production of Japan or China
  3. Analyze the relationships between the cultures of Japan or China and other world cultures
  4. Asian Languages & Cultures Minor requirements.

✓ Practical!

✓ Communication-oriented!

✓ Focused on comprehension and speaking!

✓ Gets you using Japanese as quickly as possible!

✓ All classes can be taken on campus or online

 

More Specifically:

✓ The Japanese language program is designed to give students the cultural and linguistic tools they need to be able to navigate the challenges of verbal communication in Japanese even with the limited knowledge of sentence structures and expressions typical of beginning students. 

✓ In our unique program Japanese courses are broken down into two different types of sessions:

Fact Sessions: In this portion of the course students focus on functions and usages of sentence structures, including cultural information and customs as a part of usage.  These concepts are introduced in English. Videos related to Japanese culture and customs are also shown. 

Act Sessions: This portion of the course is conducted only in Japanese right from the beginning of first year Japanese. This fifty-minute acting session gives students a mock experience of living in Japan.  It begins with mechanical drills and gradually changes into contextual drills where students act out situations set by the instructor.  The instructor strives to create situations/contexts that are as realistic as possible.  The act sessions are vital in order to realize the course objectives.

Contact Etsuko Sisley Etsuko.sisley@oregonstate.edu if you are interested in taking a course on the Corvallis campus, and contact Mika Archer mika.archer@oregonstate.edu if you are interested in taking an online course. Please include the following information:

  1. Name
  2. OSU ID number
  3. The class you want to enroll in (e.g. JPN 112, JPN 211, etc.)
  4. On campus course or online course?
  5. Your past experience with Japanese (e.g. 2 years in college, 4 years in high school, etc.)
  6. Can you read and write hiragana (letters used for Japanese words)?
  7. Can you read and write katakana (letters used for foreign words)?

Japanese Language Faculty