Abstract
The Japanese language has a 128 million speakers and has around 4 million learners in the world. In Ecuador, however, there are only six institutions offer Japanese classes to 150 learners. This small number of learners may be due in part to geographic and cultural distance, as well as the economic and political circumstances separating Ecuador and Japan. Furthermore, the uniqueness of the linguistic characteristics of Japanese is also a major factor influencing learner reluctance. One of the principal characteristics of this language is its three writing systems: hiragana, katakana and kanji. This paper outlines the linguistic characteristics of Japanese, focusing on hiragana, katakana and kanji, and sets out the difficulties which learners experience in this area. In the second part, with reference to these characteristics, the study introduces class activities to show how learners may acquire the basic characters of the writing systems as an important first step in learning Japanese, with the aim of reducing the burden on the language acquisition process. Through this research, the importance of peer-learning and collaboration between learners and teachers is highlighted as a means of facilitating approaches to the teaching and learning of Japanese.
Highlights
Japanese is a language spoken by almost 128 million people within and outside of Japan, and has around 4 million learners around the world (Ethnologue, 2018)
The main objective of this paper is to describe the principal characteristics of Japanese as experienced by beginner learners, focusing on acquiring hiragana and katakana, along with an explanation of the activities used in class with Ecuadorian learners of the language
The second part dealt with the process of learning Japanese language at beginner-level, with reference to the importance of learning the characters as the first step in Japanese language acquisition, facilitated by peer learning approaches
Summary
Japanese is a language spoken by almost 128 million people within and outside of Japan, and has around 4 million learners around the world (Ethnologue, 2018). The Japanese language is considered typologically unique and, fundamentally different from Spanish: as Comrie (2010) states, “Japanese is no less typical overall than English.” Kageyama (2010), on the other hand, argues that “Japanese is not ‘special’, but a rather common type of language in terms of word order and other macro-parameters.”. This section, through these studies, introduces the basic characteristics of Japanese as encountered by beginner-level students, focusing on its phoneme and word order systems The Japanese language is considered typologically unique and, fundamentally different from Spanish: as Comrie (2010) states, “Japanese is no less typical overall than English.” Kageyama (2010), on the other hand, argues that “Japanese is not ‘special’, but a rather common type of language in terms of word order and other macro-parameters.” This section, through these studies, introduces the basic characteristics of Japanese as encountered by beginner-level students, focusing on its phoneme and word order systems
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