Experience Summary
Hello everyone! My name is Michael and I am a senior at the University of Utah. My major is Japanese Language and Literature. I'm expecting to graduate next spring and am looking forward to helping you learn more Japanese.
Japanese language and culture are very interesting. Japanese calligraphy, tea ceremony, festivals, and traditions are all insights into the Japanese people and to learn Japanese, in my opinion you also need to understand Japanese culture. Some phrases and expressions don’t translate directly, you have to understand the culture to really understand it.
For beginner students who haven’t learned how to read or write the syllabary of Japanese Hiragana and Katakana, I strongly recommend that you learn them early to improve reading and pronunciation. If you haven’t mastered them yet I have a flash card program to help you learn them, and can teach you how the stroke order for writing each character. For students who have learned them, the next step is to learn Kanji. It may be intimidating to try and learn thousands of kanji, but taking it one at time eventually you can learn them all. Being able to read Kanji will put you past other students who haven’t put in the effort to learn them.
Japanese sentence structure and verbs can be difficult for beginner students to understand. We can practice learning basic sentence structure and forms of verbs to improve comprehension. For students further along studying grammar and vocabulary is very important.
In all stages of learning practicing speaking is important for developing the ability to use the grammar, and vocabulary that you are learning so that you can remember them easily. We will look at lots of short conversations to practice speaking.
I've been studying for over 2 years now at the university. I have taken Japan1010, 1020, 2010, 2020, 2600, 3330, and 4330. I've also studied abroad in Japan in an intensive language study program. In that program we had daily contact with Japanese students and spent a lot of time in class. If you are taking High school Japanese, Japan1010, 1020, 2010, or 2020, I feel confident that I can help you learn grammar and vocabulary to have a solid foundation to build on to advance your Japanese.