Japanese

This course covers the foundations and growing applications of Web computing, ranging from web crawling, search, and mining to recent trends in natural language processing on the Web. The course is designed to help students understand the fundamental notions and software technologies underlying Web information services. Topics covered: frontiers in web computing; natural language processing for text processing; foundations of information retrieval; advances in information retrieval; information extraction from documents; from information extraction to knowledge acquisition; social network analysis and recommendation systems, and web service mashups. 

This course focuses on explaining social and cultural phenomena to accurately understand Japanese society today. It focuses on topics such as family, gender, education, friendships, work/labor, and political/social movements. Audiovisual materials will be utilized. 

To understand the complex and multifaceted reality unique to Japanese society, students will broaden their horizons and acquire a comprehensive and comparative perspective on society as a whole.

This course examines the concept of "plain Japanese" theoretically and practically, studying it from various angles. The course aims to develop practical skills of writing and speaking based on the principle of "plain Japanese."

Hangul is the name of the alphabet used to write the Korean language.  This course begins by learning the letters and pronunciation of modern Korean, as well as grammar points such as polite expressions that correspond to "desu, masu" in Japanese; designates that are roughly equivalent to the English be verb; existential verbs that express presence or absence of objects; interjections; proper number words; negative expressions, and past tense. 

No prior knowledge is required to take the course, but students are recommended to study the letters and pronunciation thoroughly, especially during the first month. 

By the end of this course, students are expected to write a simple diary during summer vacation.

This course is taught by three instructors, Takahashi, Nakato, and Kajiwara, in an omnibus format. 
 

Takahashi's class introduces the themes, 'Japanese culture around oneself' and 'language.' This covers topics such as 'temples and shrines in Kyoto;' 'food culture,' 'Japanese houses; 'Japanese people and animals,' etc. In the 'language' section, students learn about 'onomatopoeia,' 'kanji, tongue twisters, and proverbs,' as well as 'Folktales,'  aiming to deepen their understanding of Japanese culture and language.　

Nakato's class focuses on 'Japanese makeup culture and color sense' and 'Japanese innovation and pop culture,' deepening one's understanding of Japanese culture through a comparison of past and present. 

Kajiwara's section revolves around the instructor's own experience revolving around 'Japanese rice,' 'the charm of the countryside,' and 'hot springs.' Additionally, the class aims to enhance understanding of Japanese culture through comparisons with other countries.

Students will use brushes, washi paper, mineral pigments, and gold leaf used in Japanese paintings, as well as the brushes and glue used for mounting, and finish their works. You can learn about the texture of paints and base materials, the fun and difficulty of classical techniques, and the structure of works, which cannot be learned just by looking at art works at galleries and museums. 
In the first half of the class, students will complete ink reproductions of classic Japanese paintings. In the second half, you will complete your original work on a fan using various paints used in Japanese paintings. Let's have fun learning together and creating works that are full of originality using variety of Japanese painting materials.

This course critiques materials and texts from Edo period, deepening one's understanding of literature from an academic and professional perspective. The course covers the philological ideas of document criticism, textual criticism, and content criticism, then reads Edo period literature, including Sosume Natsume.

This course focuses on acquiring the ability to speak using grammar and vocabulary at the low- intermediate level. The course instructs on:

• Listening and understanding of a topic and relationship between two speakers;
• Understanding the intention behind indirect language;
• Understanding the difference between how to speak in formal and casual situations;
• Summarizing main points after listening to a long talk; and,
• Researching and conducting a presentation on a topic of interest. 

Through movies and other visual materials, this course examines important issues in modern society from a cross-disciplinary perspective. Each lecture features guest speakers who work in the field of making films, videos, and broadcasting. The course reviews specific production methods and a future vision of movies in class discussions. 

This advanced Japanese course is designed to teach more advanced grammar patterns. A theme concerning Japanese culture and society is chosen for each course and students are split into groups to engage in activities, discussion, and group work concerning the selected topic. The goal of the class is for students to widen their perspectives and deepen their knowledge regarding various issues related to Japan and Japanese society. The program offers various theme courses and students may take multiple sections.