Fun and well-run subject with extremely fair assessments and quizzes after each topic. The way this subject is taught appears to have changed since the previous years, as 2 hour seminars did not have the self-study component this year. Instead, the full 2 hours are dedicated to revising and practicing the content covered in self-study packs that are completed beforehand. Seminar classes are small (~20-30 people) and one of my tutors checked our work individually. Nagayama sensee is extremely nice and I loved hearing her stories about Japanese culture. :)

Such a good subject + easy to score well (scored H1 95). Basically the first hour of the seminar is self-taught, and you can do this whenever you want (e.g. I would do it earlier in the week + arrive an hour late to class). This is where you learn all the content + it's worth spending time on (took me more than an hour) cause if you understand everything here then you're set. Second hour of the seminar, the teacher arrives and you just practice what you learnt in the first hour. Probably good consolidation if you're a quick learner, but a waste of time for me and my friends in the class cause we needed more time to learn the vocab from the self-taught session before we could actually do the exercises. Tests are very fair and just cover the vocab + grammar from the textbook; all introduced in the self-taught study packs. First oral is super easy (you just imitate someone) + second oral is pretty fair but marked super leniently. Exam was very doable if you revise all the vocab + grammar. E-portfolio is the most annoying part of this subject but it's an easy 25% of your grade if you put in the work + remember to submit. Basically just have to upload your homework + write 3-5 cultural reflections about Japanese across the semester and you'll be good

A good choice for a fun and light language breadth! A fair bit of work must be put in to complete the language portfolio and do the workbook assignments however you will be fine so long as you work on them consistently. Content wasn't too challenging, and I felt that the tutors were rather forgiving with marking. If you're up for a bit of a challenge but would like to learn the most you can from seminars, Teresa is a great tutor.

If you want a subject that is easy for getting good grades, you can take this. However, I just feel that I paid too much tuition fee for a subject that is mostly about self-study, especially when you have to take the whole course online. The seminars will be better if they are offline.

Not a very difficult subject as long as you keep working on it. Tutors are the nicest tutor I have encountered in unimelb. Biggest downside is that imagine paying almost 5k for two 30 min seminars (literally useless) and self-study with youtube links :))) And the subject is a bit poorly organised.

Online learning forced JAP to be on zoom, with two sessions every week, 30mins per session; the rest was self study. I had never studied JAP before this year, but the subject was honestly a breeze. I 100% prefer self studying in my own time. The coordinator was kind and friendly and answered my emails even at 12AM. Easy H1, but you must keep up with the workload.

very good subject to boost up your wam

Amazing subject! It is really well coordinated and though there are tests every week, they are really useful in ensuring you revise and stay on top of things. I had a background in Japanese which was definitely a massive benefit, but still found Japanese 1 challenging enough and had to put a fair bit of effort into it. Thus, I feel as though it may be very hard for a complete beginner, especially since there is a fair bit of kanji to learn. The oral assignments are daunting but the marking is very lenient, and the cultural discovery project is fair at 500 words (with a partner) and is marked nicely. Overall, this is the best subject I've completed at Uni thus far. Great staff, resources and content.

Good to learn and easy H1 but it moves quite fast , i familiarised myself with hiragana and katakana before doing this so it was quite ok , the seminars are very useful and well conducted and useful for the what comes out in the final exam which is half your grade!!!

I absolutely loved learning Japanese!! However, I suspect this subject would be quite difficult for anyone starting with zero prior Japanese study. It moves very fast but I highly recommend it if you have done some prior work in Japanese; even just learning Hiragana and Katakana in the break before starting.