Hikaru
Registered
- 19 May 2017
- 3
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- 11
Hello everyone. I am new to this forum and so far, have found it quite useful. I went to Japan for the first time last year and had such a good time that I'm now learning Japanese for another trip later this year. My preference would have been to take classes from a local community/junior college and receive a more traditional academic approach to the language. However, the schedule didn't work out so instead I am now taking a class offered by the Japanese Society of Northern California, in San Francisco. I'm not too crazy about what and how we learn in this class, mainly because it's geared for working people who need to learn it quickly, rather than taking a more pragmatic approach. As a result, we sometimes learn things out of order or skip certain things. The classes are 12 weeks long and use a book called "Japanese for Busy People" I'm now in their beginning level 2 class and can comfortably read both Katakan and Hiragana, form very simple sentences to introduce myself, talk about where I'm going and where I come from, ask for things, count, identify days, date, month, tell time, etc., and have a small vocabulary of mainly terms a traveler or working person would need to know. I believe they do not introduce kanji until level 3.
At the conclusion of this level 2 class I would probably further along than a level 1 college course, but probably not good enough for a level 2 college course, which more or less commits me to the Japan Society course program rather than switching over to the college route. Regardless I am interested in purchasing a college text to supplement my current class, so I can see what I'm missing out on from a more traditional course program. City College of San Francisco uses a book called Nihongo Gambaroo, which I believe might be published by the college and I can't find it for sale online. The book I see most frequently recommended online for use as a college text is the Genki series. I will most likely get this one. For now, I have a question regarding what the standard, traditional (if there even is one) method for foreigners learning Japanese is. Do most establishments teach all the kana first, then introduce simple verbs, nouns, sentence structure, all in kana? Or, is kana taught concurrently with romanji to use as a learning tool? And how does learning kanji fit in?
Thanks!
At the conclusion of this level 2 class I would probably further along than a level 1 college course, but probably not good enough for a level 2 college course, which more or less commits me to the Japan Society course program rather than switching over to the college route. Regardless I am interested in purchasing a college text to supplement my current class, so I can see what I'm missing out on from a more traditional course program. City College of San Francisco uses a book called Nihongo Gambaroo, which I believe might be published by the college and I can't find it for sale online. The book I see most frequently recommended online for use as a college text is the Genki series. I will most likely get this one. For now, I have a question regarding what the standard, traditional (if there even is one) method for foreigners learning Japanese is. Do most establishments teach all the kana first, then introduce simple verbs, nouns, sentence structure, all in kana? Or, is kana taught concurrently with romanji to use as a learning tool? And how does learning kanji fit in?
Thanks!