Japanese 4 (Level 4)

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 4
• Convenor: Dr Michael Tsang
• Assessment: vocabulary and grammar tests (15%), reception skills (20%), a writing composition (20%), a final examination including oral test (40%) and class participation (5%)

Japanese 4 builds on holistic skills you acquired in Japanese 3. You will begin to express your own views on current social and cultural issues both in conversational exchange and in writing.

With about 500-550 kanji acquired by the end of this course, you will be able to read a wide range of texts including written directions, instructions and reports, short essays and articles in magazines and on internet sites with the help of a dictionary and other reference materials.

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• sustain increasingly long conversations in a wide range of social and work situations with cultural sensitivity
• distinguish different levels of politeness appropriately, including accurate manipulation of verb, noun and adjectival conjugations, and expressions usage
• express your own views on current social and cultural issues in conversational exchange, and/or using an increasingly wide range of vocabulary and expressions, in pre-prepared presentations
• comprehend various communicative exchanges of increasing complexity in a wide range of social and business situations
• understand, with guidance, details of less complex audio-visual material (e.g. edited and/or adapted TV and radio extracts), as well as situation-specific conversation extracts approaching natural speed
• understand a wide range of texts including written directions, instructions and reports, short essays and articles in magazines and on internet sites with the help of a dictionary and other reference materials (kanji dictionary)
• formulate various types of texts connected with both everyday life and work situations, including short reports, formal letters, or short essays with reasonable accuracy
• compose short presentations on set topics with an eye to delivery
• read and write approximately 500-550 kanji.