Fundamentals 1: Getting Started is for beginners who are looking for a general understanding of the Japanese language and to practice some common expressions used in personal conversations. The course will touch a little bit of everything of the good-to-know basics as learners begin their Japanese learning journey.  Prior knowledge of Japanese characters (Hiragana, Katakana, & Kanji) is not required to take this course. Students will be able to:  

• Appropriately demonstrate a variety of greetings and parting phrases.
• Demonstrate the use of a variety of basic and essential daily expressions such as yes/no, thank you/sorry, and excuse me.
• Practice introducing themselves appropriately.
• Practice sharing simple personal details such as where they live, likes/dislikes, and talents and skills.
• Examine basic sentence structures and create simple sentences about themselves.
• Examine the roles of particles in Japanese and become familiar with some basic particles.
• Recognize basic hiragana characters and distinguish them from other characters (katakana and kanji).
• Examine how cultural values are reflected in Japanese language use, exploring not just its structure but the social and cultural contexts.