Students should plan on at least two hours of homework per class. These courses are designed to develop conversational skills that will be especially useful in business or while traveling. The reading and writing of simplified characters are also taught but not emphasized. The Pinyin spelling system, used to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet, is presented. Students will acquire basic vocabulary and sentence patterns for everyday communication.
Some attention is given to reading and writing Chinese characters.
Students should plan on at least two hours of homework per class. Japanese Students will develop conversational skills with emphasis on correct pronunciation, accent, intonation and pitch, while learning to write kana and kanji. Kana, which includes both hiragana and katakana, is a phonetically-based writing system. Kanji, a writing system derived from Chinese, is based on symbols that bear concepts and meaning. Students who complete these levels should be able to understand and conduct basic conversations in Japanese and to read and write kana at a basic level.