This unit introduces students to the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) in basic Japanese. Students acquire the skill to carry out basic communicative transactions in speech, with the necessary grammatical structures and vocabulary. Students learn to read and write hiragana and katakana (the syllable characters used to spell words) as well as 70 kanji characters.

This unit builds on the skills developed in Japanese 101. It aims to have students increase the range of communicative transactions in the four skills and to acquire more complex grammatical structures and vocabulary. Further 110 kanji characters are taught in this subject.

This unit continues the study of modern Japanese and its culture special focus on reading and writing as well as the development of the grammatical structures and vocabulary in such areas as using polite and plain style of the language, verb derivation for expressing conjecture, adverbial clauses indicating specific times and places, conditional, and so forth. The knowledge of kanji is increased to 260 characters.

This unit further develops students' language skills acquired in Japanese 201, to equip students with more sophisticated language skills and knowledge, with emphasis on grammar, reading and writing. Among the topics covered in Japanese 202 are: stating a plan or intention, making a suggestion in the plain form, offering advice, indicating the degree of certainty, describing a change in state, indicating causes or reasons, using of the passive and the imperative. By the end of this unit, students can read and write approximately 380 kanji.

This unit is normally offered in Autumn semester. This is an intermediate unit for students majoring in one of Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese or Spanish. It is normally taken concurrently with Language 201. It aims to develop speaking and listening skills, on the basis of intermediate level grammatical structures, towards more sophisticated communicative transactions ranging from casual to formal styles of speech. This unit presents aspects of oral contemporary culture and society of the country (or countries) where the language is spoken. Cultural and social understanding is also fostered through research work on specific cultural or social aspects that are of interest to the student.

This unit is normally offered in Spring semester. This is an intermediate unit for students majoring in one of Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese or Spanish. It is normally taken concurrently with Language 202. It provides an extension of reading comprehension, and writing skills over a range of written registers. The content for reading and writing activities is selected from contemporary materials e.g. magazines, short stories as well as websites. This unit also fosters cultural and social understanding by presenting aspects of contemporary cultures and societies which use the language as well as through research work on specific socio-cultural aspects that are of interest to the student.

This unit is designed to further improve and extend students' knowledge of Japanese grammar, and competence in reading and writing Japanese. Short authentic texts selected from Japanese magazines and newspapers are used together with the main textbook. In addition to covering all four language skills, this unit aims to cover basic knowledge of the lifestyle and culture of modern Japan, and give students basic language ability needed for living and working in Japan or with Japanese people.

This unit is designed to continue to extend students' competence in Japanese, to a higher level than in Japanese 301. It enhances students' knowledge and comprehension of Japanese grammar, and develops their ability to apply this knowledge and comprehension in written and spoken Japanese. In addition to the language skills, this unit covers further aspects of Japanese culture through the texts and class discussions.

This is an advanced unit for students majoring in one of the following languages: Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish or Vietnamese. Lectures are held in English for students of all languages. The tutorials are language-specific. This unit aims to develop a practical and theoretical understanding of the ways in which major concepts used in everyday speech and writing are mapped and organized in the lexicon and the grammar of human languages, and how these forms develop in learners and users.

This unit aims at providing students with a valuable insight into modern Japanese society and culture through print and audiovisual media. In addition, the unit aims to enhance students' skills in the language at an advanced level, especially speaking and listening.

This unit is designed to enable post-intermediate students of Japanese to learn and practice advanced level discourse in Japanese in a range of situations, registers and levels of formality.

Students in this unit further develop their competency in Japanese with a focus on reading and writing. The unit content is organised around communicative and cultural themes on Japanese society. To expose students to authentic language use, reading materials are selected from Japanese newspapers, magazines, and the internet. Acquisition of Kanji is accelerated through reading and writing tasks.

This unit prepares students to function effectively in business and commercial contacts with Japanese people. It will encompass the study of various types of business documents and spoken language appropriate to a range of business-related situations. It will also cover aspects of business culture and conventions.

Nihonjinron (the theory of uniqueness of the Japanese) has been discussed for many decades. Some scholars advocate the need for re-examining the concept, while others still hold the view that the Japanese have different sensitivities and values from people with other ethnic backgrounds. This unit aims to develop students' awareness of some of the arguments on this topic by reading relevant texts written by sociologists, anthropologists and novelists. Students will have opportunities to examine, analyse, discuss and evaluate texts from a range of authors. Texts are all written in contemporary Japanese.

This is an optional level 3 core unit for the major in Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and Italian, within the BA Languages Key Program. It also constitutes part of the linguistics major and sub-major. It can also be taken as an elective. This is a language-specific unit intended to develop the students’ awareness of language usage issues which may have an impact on intercultural communication and, therefore, on cultural stereotyping as well as other real life interests, such as business relationships and professional performance. It covers issues such as the relationship between culture and language use, ingroup-outgroup relationships, speech acts across cultures, politeness in text and discourse, miscommunication and stereotyping.

This is primarily a self-study unit designed to cater for a special area of interest in languages and/or linguistics not otherwise covered in the units on offer in the languages Key Program and where the student may otherwise find it difficult to complete his or her program of study. Once the student is approved by the Head of Program to undertake such study a supervisor is nominated and an individually-tailored learning contract, which will include appropriate language-specific readings and tasks, is drawn up in collaboration with the supervisor and is submitted to the Head of Program for approval.