Beginner's Guide to Japanese

Beginner's Guide to Japanese (BGJ) will take students through all the basics and essentials of speaking and writing Japanese! No previous knowledge is required. 

***ABOUT***
This course will be broken up into ten sessions over the course of ten weeks that build off of each other, so it is important to not miss class, or to watch the lesson recordings and catch up if you do. BGJ is unique because it focuses on teaching students structures and patterns, rather than just having them memorize set phrases. Also, rather than focusing on just one topic, for example, verbs, for eight weeks, I teach little important topics that come together and help students understand more complex sentences. I also teach hiragana (for writing) a little at a time. Kanji will not be covered in this course. Note that this is a grammar and writing-focused course, so while we will practice speaking and what to say in common situations, conversation is covered more in BGJ2.

***CURRICULUM***
We will cover the following topics each week:
　第1週
　　Japan's Three Writing Systems
　　Five Basic Vowels
　　Greetings and Honorifics
　第2週
　　Long Vowels
　　SはDです/でした
　　これ・それ・あれ
　第3週
　　Small つ and Dakuten
　　Subject Omission
　　Possessive Sentences (with こちら・そちら・あちら)
　第4週
　　H Line Dakuten and Handakuten
　　SはDじゃないです
　　Asking and Answering Questions
　　Counting with Grade in School
　第5週
　　Contracted Sounds
　　Counting Age
　　Who When and Where
　　Describing Where Things Are
　第6週
　　Asking What and its Derivatives
　　Describing Likes and Dislikes
　　Verb Groups
　第7週
　　ます Conjugation
　　The Particle は
　第8週
　　The Particles を、に、で、へ and と
　　Counting and Time
　第9週
　　Particle Flexibility
　　Other Uses of the Particle に
　第10週
　　Final Project
Some topics may bleed into other weeks.

***IN CLASS***
For following along in class, I will provide printable worksheets. It is important to pay attention to the classroom page and have these available before each session. Students may also follow along in a notebook if printing proves troublesome. 
　While later classes in the BGJ series focus more on conversation, I focus on grammar and writing in this class. To make sure students practice their speaking and pronunciation however, I call on students to help me translate example sentences in class. This gets them speaking one sentence at a time, rather than intimidating them with longer conversations all at once. I will not force students to speak, but they will get more out of the class if they do.

***AFTER CLASS***
Homework is also very important. I do my best to make classes engaging and supportive, but I really do want my students to be able to learn the concepts and have them stick. Thus, there will be homework for practice after almost every single session. Each homework assignment should take 15-30 minutes. For the first five weeks, homework will be to write each symbol covered in class a number of times. The next four sessions will be translation assignments. 
　Students will also be encouraged to remember about 20 vocabulary words and phrases each week. We will of course cover them in class, but memorization is something that takes self-motivation. In the end, this is an additional 30-40 minutes outside of class each week, in addition to other homework and self-study. 


***IMPORTANT***
As you can see, this class is rather intensive, and if you would like a much more slower-paced course, please consider signing up for KIJ instead. The students that do best in BGJ are the hardworking students looking for a challenge, fueled by a passion for language learning. Students that don't do homework or study outside of class will quickly fall behind.

Feel free to message me with any other questions!