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Aki Hirota, Ph.D
Instructor's Website
Japanese Section Head, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures
Faculty Athletics Representative
Wendy Snyder
Dr. Wendy Snyder teaches Japanese language courses in the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department at California State University, Northridge. She also teaches linguistics courses for the Linguistics Program (a language acquisition course and an English structure course for ESL teachers) and the English Department (an introductory linguistics course).
Dr. Snyder received a B.A. in French from the University of Oregon, Eugene in 1975. She became interested in Japan while studying in an exchange program in France, and after graduating spent some time in Japan before going to graduate school. She received her M.A. in 1981 and Ph.D. in 1987 in Linguistics from Cornell University, with Japanese linguistics and psycholinguistics as her areas of concentration. Her studies for the Ph.D. were supported in part by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship.
Dr. Snyder is familiar with learning Japanese as a non-native speaker, since that is what she had to do once she went to Japan and then later studied Japanese language in graduate school. She believes that learning Japanese can be extremely valuable for two reasons. First, it allows one to become better acquainted with Japanese culture and communicate with Japanese people. Second, because the Japanese language is so different from English, it allows one to get a better understanding of the fascinating phenomenon of language in general, arguably one of the most important tools that we have as humans.
Yoshiko Takase
Prof. Takase received her B.A. in Journalism from Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan) and her M.A. in Linguistics from California State University, Northridge. Her focus of study was in the area of Japanese phonology and prosody (the pitch and intonation patterns). Her knowledge has been well incorporated into instructions to help students understand sound systems in Japanese.
Many of Prof. Takase’s students proclaim “she always gives smiles to students.” They also describe her as fun, encouraging, and friendly while maintaining a fair amount of discipline. A number of her students have expressed that her class is challenging but fun, or entertaining and educational.
Prof. Takase currently serves as the Vice President of TJSC (Teachers of Japanese in Southern California), the only local professional organization for teachers of all levels of Japanese language in the region.
Kanzo Takemori
After working as a regular “salary-man” in Japan, Prof. Takemori came to the U.S. in his late 20’s and started his American college life in the graduate school at CSU, Fresno, majoring in Linguistics with the specialization in TEOSL. After graduating from CSU Fresno, he started his teaching career at USC as a teaching assistant, later as a lecturer, in Japanese classes and earned his second M.A. in East Asian Linguistics. While at USC he studied the Japanese pedagogy and received intensive teaching training. He has taught basic to advanced level Japanese language courses including Business Japanese and Conversational Japanese to elementary school to college level students.
Saori Tauchi
Saori Tauchi received an AA in Japanese Literature from Kanto Gakuin Women’s Junior College and BA and MA in Linguistics from California State University, Northridge.
Her emphasis was TESL and Second Language Acquisition. She received a TESL certificate upon completion of Master Program. She also has worked as a subtitle editor of Japanese animation and translator.
Since language is deeply tied to the culture, it might be necessary to appreciate the culture in order to understand the language. Conversely, through learning a language, one can explore the customs and way of living behind it. Students who decide to take Japanese classes have often developed their interest towards the language owing to their attraction to the culture. The students might have various interests, such as animations, games, cars, traditional Japanese culture, or they might happen to take the first class with no particular reasons. Whatever the motivation the students have in the beginning, it is true that their awareness grows along with the expansion of the knowledge.
Japanese culture and language once known as its old custom and tradition has been growing to a new form that blends in an old tradition with advanced technology and futuristic pop culture. Through learning Japanese, students can broaden their horizon and rediscover their own culture.
Since Los Angeles holds a second largest Japanese population in the US and CSUN itself is one of the top host universities of international students, Japanese students as the largest, the students will be able to complement their Japanese study with an immediate interaction with native speakers and further employ their knowledge into their potential professions.