Things have been going well with my learning overall. I have sincerely enjoyed my conversations with my iTalki tutor Maria (who goes by Mafi) and feel as though we have been able to have genuine conversations and establish some level of connection wh
Read more…My task this period was to investigate Linguistic Relativity, specifically, how the Korean language's emphasis on "Woori" (We) versus "Na" (I) influences my personality. As someone who is already fluent, I’ve noticed I act differently in Korean, and
Read more…My task this period was to study the linguistic structures of Professional Persuasion. Specifically, I wanted to move away from using direct negations like "Anio" (No) or "Geugeot-eun teullyeoyo" (That is wrong) and instead master the art of the "sof
Read more…For this period, my task was to explore "untranslatable" Korean emotional concepts that don't have a direct English equivalent. My specific goal was to move past dictionary definitions of Jeong (정) and understand how it is expressed in literature and
Read more…Hebrew belongs to the Afro-Asiatic language family and is part of the Semitic branch. More specifically, it is a Canaanite language. Today, Hebrew is actually the only Canaanite language still spoken. Hebrew has a very deep history that goes back tho
Read more…Right now in my journey of learning Hebrew, I’ve been taking lessons on italki with my online teacher Patriz, who lives in Israel. These lessons have been a really helpful part of my routine. During our sessions we go over basic phrases like “I love
Language Journal #1
My primary task this period was to refine my ability to switch between Ban-mal (informal) and Jondaemal (formal) during high-pressure social transitions. Since I am already comfortable speaking, my specific goal was to stop "defaul
In the last month I have developed more of a schedule with my language partners, meeting twice a week on italki. I have made noticeable language gains and can feel myself becoming much more fluent in conversation again. In the year after my Boren stu
Read more…One of the cultural topics I found most interesting in my research was the cultural significance of dance in terms of how it is connected to Latin culture and the Spanish language; “Many of today’s Latin American dance styles evolved from a blend of
Read more…Mandarin belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, which includes Cantonese, Burmese, and Tibetan. The primary regions are East Asia and southeast Asia. So it shares its ancestry with China, Myanmar and Tibet. I would have thought it shared its li
Read more…The history behind the Korean language is very interesting. The document from class classifies Korean as an Asian language, part of the Altaic language family. This connects Korean with Turkish, Mongolian, and Japanese. The Korean language also has a
Read more…Spanish belongs to the Indo-European language family, which is based on the genealogical classification method (also known as the historical/genetic classification method) which classifies languages based on shared ancestry and helps trace language e
Read more…Spanish belongs to the Indo-European language family, which is based on the genealogical classification method (also known as the historical/genetic classification method) which classifies languages based on shared ancestry and helps trace language e
Read more…Indonesian culture is something that greatly interests me, so picking one aspect to focus on is difficult. My previous research was on the topics of music and religion, so these have been incorporated into my learning plan–but I want to research a to
Read more…It is a theory that the Korean language belongs to the Altaic language family, which includes Turkish, Mongolian, and Japanese. After King Sejong, monarch of the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910), created the Korean language, it came into contact with Chinese,
Read more…My target language Catalan belongs to the Western Romance branch of the Indo European language family, descending from Vulgar Latin. Its exact classification is debated — some linguists group it with Gallo-Romance (alongside French and Occitan), othe
Read more…American sign language (ASL) is a daugther language of French sign language and, although it is mainly used in America, it is incredibly distinct from spoken English. Since ASL is not a spoken language, no sounds exemplify periods of contact with oth
Read more…Mandarin Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. Languages can change over time in diverse ways: the meanings of certain words can either be transformed or dropped as common patterns or new senses of words arise. Sounds can change across
Read more…One part of Chinese culture that interests me is what it’s like traveling there as a foreigner and learning about how visitors are expected to interact within the social norms of China. From what I’ve seen, everyday interactions place a huge emphasis
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