Anyone taking Japanese Studies at Oxford Brookes?

I'm doing Japanese A-Level if you want some advice on the language itself. And you're so lucky to be getting all of those books . . . ! I'm jealous . . .

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Oh cool! Yes please! I've never studied Japanese before so I would love some advice to what it's like!
Yeah, I'm very lucky, hopefully I can get them (if not, you can have them)

Hi Chloe,
My sister did japanese studies and really loved it. Unfortunately I don't have any direct experience with the course at Oxford Brookes but I have been tasked with finding a home for my sister's various japanese language and japanese business books. Would you be interested in these at all?

I have about 20 books and am happy to pass them to you for a small fee e.g. £25. The books are worth a lot more than that but I'd like to pass them on in one go if possible, to someone who might find them useful. They include the following titles in case this is of interest:

Kenkyusha Japanese-english dictionary (hardcover)
kenkyusha English-Japanese learner's pocket dictionary
Talking Business in Japanese
Basic Japanese vocabulary for beginners
The preparatory course fo rthe Japanese proficiency Test
Wicked Japanese for the business traveller
The Rise of modern Japan
Japan: Geographical perspective on an island nation
The japanese economy
Japan versus the west
Japanese economic development
Inside the japanese system
The Japanese company
Simple etiquette in japan
Eastern Asia
Introducing Japan

and many others in japanese that I can't read!

I'm not going to lie, Japanese can be quite hard at times. There are three alphabets:
1. Hiragana. For Japanese words, e.g. cat is 'ne-ko', made up by the characters ne and ko.
2. Katakana. For foreign words or names, e.g. hamburger or Christmas. Still spelt phonetically, e.g. ku-ri-su-ma-su.
3. Kanji. The hardest alphabet. Used to 'shorten', although sometimes not really, Hiragana words. E.g. river is 'ka-wa', so two Hiragana characters, or can be written as a single Kanji.
Japanese grammar is completely different to English. There's no masculine or feminine or plural, but there are counters, for example - you use different words to count different things, e.g. small objects, long objects etc. There are many forms of verbs which can be confusing, but not many exceptions (I only know of two verbs and one adjective that are exceptions to grammar rules). If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

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I'm a little worried that I'm going to struggle because I'm starting from scratch.
Okay so I understand the writing systems, but I don't understand what you mean by counters, would you be able to explain it a bit more? Thank you!

I'm a little worried that I'm going to struggle because I'm starting from scratch.
Okay so I understand the writing systems, but I don't understand what you mean by counters, would you be able to explain it a bit more? Thank you!

I think Edminzodo may be referring to the Mandarin equivalent of measure words.

That is a word you use to qualify a noun.

So for example if I wanted to say.

Ten books

I'd be using a measure word as well as ten I. E ten (measure word specific to books) books

I have three cars
I have three (measure word for cars) cars
Not every word has its own but they're in groups. Like small animals maybe

I don't know if it's the same so I'll let edmin reply

I'm taking my A2's this year and hoping to go on to University and do Japanese Studies!
I'm going to look around Oxford Brookes on Saturday this week and see what it's like because I'm considering it. So does anyone do Japanese Studies who could tell me what it's like there? And do you have any tips for the course?

Hey Chloe,

I'm currently in my first year of joint honours Japanese and Film at Brookes (I'll obviously just focus on the Japanese side though)

During each semester you'll probably take around 4 or 5 different modules. At least 2 of these would be compulsory Japanese language modules and then there are other modules you can choose from regarding Japanese culture, a top up language module and other modules aren't necessarily Japanese related but still have some relevance.

It's honestly really fun if learning Japanese is something you're really interested in but still challenging as it's a lot to learn. It helps that the tutors are really friendly too.

Before coming, and this probably relates to any Japanese uni course, you'd really be doing yourself a big favour by learning the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets before you come as your tutor will get you to learn them in the first week or so if you don't already know them - which is completely possible, it'll just be easier for you to know them before hand! And perhaps learning some basic sentence structures.

I realise that this is a pretty late reply, but let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know

During each semester you'll probably take around 4 or 5 different modules. At least 2 of these would be compulsory Japanese language modules and then there are other modules you can choose from regarding Japanese culture, a top up language module and other modules aren't necessarily Japanese related but still have some relevance.

Hey, thanks for your reply! Sorry my reply is extra late! Your info is really helpful.
I know about half of the Hiragana alphabet naturally but I'm finding it really hard to get to grips with most of the others, I get them all confused and cannot distinguish them individually. I know no Katakana though. I was wondering if you had any tips for me to naturally understand all of the alphabets, whilst I'm doing my A-Levels, because it's really hard for me to spend some time memorising the writing systems and then have to focus really hard on Sixth Form which makes me forgot most of the alphabet I tried to memorise. Thanks so much if you can help!

If you don't mind me asking, what other Japanese modules did you choose aside from the compulsory language modules? Also, when you started off at Brookes, did you have to decide which ones you wanted to do straight away? Thanks.

It took me ages to get to grips with all of the Hiragana alphabet too since I was doing my A Levels with a Japanese evening class once a week. It should honestly be okay to properly study hiragana during the summer as it shouldn't take too long to learn without (important) distractions such as A levels, though it depends on the person. It's just about repetition really, so for me I learnt it best by finding a hiragana table and learning the hiragana line by line (so vowel line first, ka line, sa line etc) and then I guess try and find some hiragana passages and try to read them without looking at the chart If you're wanting to try and learn it during sixth form I'd suggest maybe doing a concentrated hour or so every now and then, of learning it in its chart format

Since I'm doing combined honours I didn't have as much choice regarding which modules I took, but the other Japanese module I took was Arts of Japan which covered areas such as prints, theatre, film, literature etc! If I remember correctly we either had to decide in the first or second week which modules we took (excluding freshers week) and you should be able to meet with your assigned academic advisor if you have any queries about which modules to take

Hi Chloe,
My sister did japanese studies and really loved it. Unfortunately I don't have any direct experience with the course at Oxford Brookes but I have been tasked with finding a home for my sister's various japanese language and japanese business books. Would you be interested in these at all?

I have about 20 books and am happy to pass them to you for a small fee e.g. £25. The books are worth a lot more than that but I'd like to pass them on in one go if possible, to someone who might find them useful. They include the following titles in case this is of interest:

Kenkyusha Japanese-english dictionary (hardcover)
kenkyusha English-Japanese learner's pocket dictionary
Talking Business in Japanese
Basic Japanese vocabulary for beginners
The preparatory course fo rthe Japanese proficiency Test
Wicked Japanese for the business traveller
The Rise of modern Japan
Japan: Geographical perspective on an island nation
The japanese economy
Japan versus the west
Japanese economic development
Inside the japanese system
The Japanese company
Simple etiquette in japan
Eastern Asia
Introducing Japan

and many others in japanese that I can't read!

Awesome! I was worried that learning it from its chart format was a bad idea because I feared I would struggle without the chart afterwards. I'm confident with about half of the chart right now, but after I spend a while away from hiragana and go back to learning it, I realise that I get the other half all muddled up! I'll take your advice on board for hiragana so that it will help me! The module side sounds okay, I'm glad we have choice and it won't be too hard to decide when it comes to it. Also, I was wondering, do you have any advice in general for Japanese Studies if there's anything that you wish you were told before you started? I know you did combined, but I just wondered if there was anything that would maybe make me more prepared. Thanks!

I struggled for a while without a chart, but it honestly just comes with practice There wasn't anything in particular that I wish I was told... but I guess knowing some basic grammar/numbers/vocabulary etc before you start the course would be useful, though it's not necessary! Also listening to Japanese music/podcasts, watching Japanese films and buying a Japanese/English dictionary etc could be helpful. I'm not really sure other than that