Posted on PanOpto: "To be honest, I think I've been lagging behind in terms of my goals. I am obviously learning Turkish (I can see improvement in comprehension and reading, speaking, and writing abilities) but I haven't kept up with the tasks I set up for myself. I honestly might've bit off more than I could chew and overestimated how much I could do with Turkish by the end of the semester. That's a little bit disheartening, but I guess the fact that I'm actively pursuing a second language in college is admirable (this is me trying to find a silver lining). In terms of understanding the target language and culture, I've found it kind of easy. A lot of vocabulary sparks my fellow students' and my interest and we ask a lot of questions about life in Turkey. Also, Merve brings in trinkets and food from Turkey (like Turkish delights). I think one of the most helpful experiences I've had was sitting down with Merve and my archaeology professor, who is pretty good at Turkish, and just listening to them converse. Since my professor has spent time in Turkey doing excavations, they were able to talk about different cities and traditions she experienced. I also learned that there's a difference between city Turkish and country Turkish, but they're so different from one another, people from the city and the country can't understand each other, which I thought was really interesting."
As I noted, keeping up with the language learning is difficult. Although I have Turkish classes, finding time to intrinsically motivate myself to read a Turkish news article or watch a Turkish movie, both of which I know I will have to look up words for, is hard! As the second half of the semester approaches, I will work on taking more initiative in my learning.
I think to improve my engagement and make advances in Turkish, I need to work on discourse competence. Making sentences that aren't rehearsed is very difficult for me, not only because my vocabulary isn't very extensive, but also because I tend to doubt myself and my abilities. Of course the latter is a personal issue, but it definitely impedes my "discourse abilities." I'd like to be able to hold conversations and understand the intonations of Turkish with ease, which may not have been written out in my learning plan, but is perhaps a given.
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