In the past few months the Centre for Asian Studies (CAS) together with VMU’s Japanese language teachers and international partners were working on a project financed by Japan Foundation’s “Sakura Network” program. The project was focused on expanding japonukalba.vdu.lt – a page that provides freely accessible Japanese language lessons in Lithuanian language for independent learning.
The website was launched six years ago and quickly received a lot of attention from Japanese language learners from all over Lithuania. Some visited the website to learn Japanese by themselves; others used it to supplement their Japanese classes taken at university or school. It did not take long until more advanced learners started asking for lessons that cover not only beginner and pre-intermediate levels but more difficult topics as well. This coincided with CAS gaining membership in “Sakura Network” – a special program managed by the Japan Foundation that is focused on expanding Japanese language learning around the world. Thanks to this program CAS was able to gather a team of specialists who worked on improving the website both from the content and the technical sides.
At the moment japonukalba.vdu.lt offers 42 lessons that match the official Japanese Language Proficiency Test’s levels N5, N4 and N3. Although it is not easily noticeable, the website is now running on an updated software that allows easy management and further adaptability. The development does not stop here – there are plans to bring new updates and improvements in the future. Therefore, CAS is inviting everyone to actively use the lessons and is looking forward to hearing feedback from site’s users.