Japanese Guidelines

Students who need to take the Japanese placement exam should contact Associate Professor Yuki Shigeto at shigety@whitman.edu.

1. If you

    a. can give a basic self-introduction, and
    b. can write hiragana and katakana correctly, and
    c. know approximately 75 basic KANJI characters and 250 vocabulary words,

     then you should take a placement test. 

2. If you cannot do all of the above (1, abc), you should register for Japanese 105 to develop the fundamental skills that are required of all students in the Whitman College Japanese Language program. Normally, two years of high school Japanese is not sufficient to qualify for Japanese 106.


3. If you

    a. can write hiragana and katakana correctly, and
    c. can read and recognize and write 150 kanji, and
    d. have had at least three strong years of high school Japanese, 

    then you should take a placement test.


4. If you

    a. have had at least four years of high school Japanese,
    b. can recognize and reproduce about 300 kanji and recognize about 1,100 vocabulary words,

    then you will be asked to take an oral and written placement test in order to determine whether you qualify for Japanese 305 or Japanese 405.