After completing a major in Japanese, you'll be able to communicate in Japanese comfortably and in a socially appropriate manner. At UMass Amherst, rigorous language courses are led by experienced and dedicated instructors.
Our faculty teach a variety of courses with topics ranging from literature and linguistics to history, film, religion, women's studies, theater, diplomacy, and gay/queer studies. Through these courses, you'll learn how to think and write critically, how to present and discuss Asia intelligibly to others, and how to apply what you've learned through studying Japanese at UMass Amherst to a career beyond graduation.
The East Asian Languages & Cultures program offers rich and challenging major programs in Chinese and Japanese. Students pursuing a major must take required language courses that are designed to make them proficient in the target language as well as a certain number of culture courses. For the latter, they can choose from the broad array of courses in literary history, linguistics, teaching Chinese/Japanese as a second language, classical language and literature, philosophy, cinema and pop culture, and so on. Japanese is the language of more than 100 million people, who are heirs to an exceptionally rich tradition that has spurred innovation in literature, engineering, chemistry, linguistics, and more. It is the language of the world's third greatest economic power, of one of the most important trading partners of the United States, and of a literary tradition in which many of the key works were written by women. UMass Amherst is the only public institution of higher education in New England to offer BAs in Japanese language and literature and Japanese language and linguistics. The program gives students a sound command of Japanese and a thorough understanding of the significance and context of the literature, culture, and civilization. Our faculty is transhistorical and interdisciplinary in its approaches to their topics of interest. They offer courses in literature, religion, linguistics, second-language pedagogy, politics and diplomacy, popular culture, women's studies, gay/queer studies, and film studies. Our students go on to careers in translation and interpretation, international business, government service, teaching, and academia, among other fields.
