Japanese Language

[robust lake]

Japanese language

Merry Christmas everybody! I hope you are all having a great time.

I’m an upper freshman and about to start my second semester at Hunter College on the Pre-Health track (chemistry), when I just came in I had waived my language requirement (realized that it wasn't a great decision) and now I have to take a focused study and idk what to pick because I don't think that I'm good in human studies (psych, sociology, etc.) or super mathematician but I feel like I'm pretty good at learning languages so I'm thinking to start learning Japanese on next year Fall semester. What would you recommend to do before and is it even a good idea? How would you rate the Japanese language department? Thank you so much! Have a great winter break y'all 🙂

[vivid river]

I haven't interacted much with the Japanese language department, but overall, from my impressions of the professors I had, they are kind and not super harsh on grading, as long as you put some effort into learning the language of course. If you are interested in learning Japanese and are willing to put in the effort, I'll say go ahead and do it. Remember to keep in mind that this is a course, so there will be a pace to the contents you are learning and you are expected to keep up with the contents being taught. Study and do not fall behind.

Are you asking what "to do before" taking the course? If so, I would recommend learning Hiragana, knowing how to write and read it. The better you are at recognizing Hiragana, the easier time you'll have. I'll also recommend spending some time on katakana. You don't necessarily have to know how to write it, just learn to recognize the characters. Since every now and then, there will be vocabs that's in katakana.