Basic Japanese for Students: Hakase 1 and Basic Japanese for Students: Hakase 2 are designed to provide basic and essential Japanese to busy students and scholars who need Japanese but have little time to study. They also give some idea or hints about studying in Japan to the prospective learners.
Course outline: Hakase 1 and 2 are designed to be used in class with language instructors. The forty-five hours in the Japanese title suggests the approximate time required to finish the two books when a 90-minute class meets twice a week for fifteen weeks in one semester.
Goal and contents: Hakase 1 and 2 are intended to enable the learners to communicate with Japanese people, thereby allowing them to adjust smoothly to the life in Japan. They provide them with basic structures and grammatical items to promote language proficiency and also some information about Japanese culture, society and the way of life in Japan. A number of situations related to a university campus are given in the exercises and tasks in each book.
Features: Basic Japanese for Students: Hakase 1 and 2 adopt the dual transcript system of kana-kanji writing and romanization, with some English translation included to minimize the time spent on language study and to maximize results. Multiple types of exercises such as pair work, group work, discussions, interviewing. summarizing, stating one's opinions, etc, are given to activate classroom activities. Illustrations and pictures are also provided to enable the learners to understand the situations in which real communication takes place. Conversations on the telephone or visiting Japanese homes include some basic honorific expressions that will be of use. The books include more than 1,300 words. The leamers are requested to memorize the vocabulary they need for their individual situations.
Kanji: Kanji found in Level 3 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test is used for all the words and kanji compounds. Words related to the learner's daily and academic life are written in kanji regardless of the kanji levels of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
Ex. Airplane, electronic dictionary, harmony, phen, etc.
Some words are written only in hiragana for ease of reading. Ex. Watashi (I), ~no ato de (after one), kinou (yesterday), etc.
