Language Plan
Ultimate Goal
My end goal for this course is to be able to properly be able to read and write in Nepali. While that sounds like a daunting task to be able to complete in just a couple of weeks, I want to break it down into small measurable goals for each week. As a native speaker who is able to somewhat speak the language almost conversationally, I have some experience and knowledge to what sounds right and to what definitely does not sound right. This does not mean that I know most of the words, but it does mean that from hearing other people around me speak the language, it is easier for me to discern if something does not sound right from hearing it previously.
General Plan Layout
1. Relearn / familiarize myself to the alphabet and numbers
- Practice pronunciation and light reading
- Writing - Practice writing the symbols and words alongside the reading to build up the foundations to be able to write phrases and eventually sentences.
- Speed of Processing - As of right now, I can read some Nepali, although it is very very slow and by the time I figure out the second half of the sentence, I forget what the first have was about. My goal is to focus on this slowly and improve to the point where I can read a passage and be able to have a discussion with my tutor or give him a brief summary of what I read.
- Culture - I want to be able to incorporate culture into my learning of Nepali. Having some insight to this definitely gives me a boost, as I can ask my tutor or even my parents if there is something that intrigues me or something that I do not understand.
Interpretive Listening
- I realized after speaking to a few of my friends on campus of how limited and mixed up my Nepali had gotten over the years due to lack of practice. It has gotten to the point of what I call Nepanglish, where I will be speaking Nepali and English words will be incorporated automatically into my sentences. I want to be able to have a conversation strictly in Nepali as one of my goals.
Practicing / Exercises
- For each week, my tutor and I have decided that we want around 4-8 hours of practice each week, where around 2-4 of those hours will be a meeting with Keshav. Each week, Keshav will be finding resources and exercises that will be for me to do throughout the week. We plan on meeting on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday night for half an hour to an hour discussing the readings and activities that I have planned for the meeting for that week. We currently have a short reading planned for our mid-week reading, a conversation where we talk in Nepali for the entirety of the conversation and some pronunciation and speaking practice for the beginning weeks. We decided to hold off on the writing practice since the Nepali symbols have a steeper learning curve to get used to. To group together auditory and visual together, I will have weekly videos (probably 2 for now) where one is a short video that I can start summarizing using some of the words and another one being a longer movie (with subtitles enabled) so that I can start pairing reading and words together. In addition, I have tried to make it a habit to start signing up for social media pages so that I have some sort of extra practice outside of my normal class times. From previous experience, I have learned that I need various sources of exposure, both passive and active. My main source for this as of right now has been meme pages on social media and watching videos in Nepali.
What I’ve Done So Far
- In our first couple meetings, I basically had an introductory conversation about our plan for this course in Nepali. I went over some of the pronunciation for the alphabet since that will be the key foundation that I will be building upon. Since the last official lesson that I received was at a 3rd/4th grade level, we discussed going over them again and building from them as a foundation as a way to move forward. Keshav has also been encouraging me to explore more Nepali social presence to get accustomed more to culture and the online world, as well as the traditional sense of culture.
Why Did I choose Nepali and How will SDLAC help me?
- After taking multiple years of Spanish and Italian, I realized that I could barely read and write in my own language. Although I speak Nepali at home, the level of Nepali I speak is severely limited to what I learned in elementary school. I also realized that it took me a very long to read simple sentences and my rate at which I understood the words I read was very slow. In addition, I realized that my writing ability was basically nonexistent. It took me so much time to write something so simple that I basically just know how to write my name and a few other words in Nepali.
- My interest in relearning how to read and write Nepali ignited when I visited Nepal in 2017 for the first time since moving to America. I realized that I still had a significant portion of family back home that were on the older side that maybe could not use technology or speak English that fluently. I still wanted to be able to communicate with them without having to fall back on another family member serving as a translator.
- A Way to Preserve and Pass on my culture. It’s always been a thing at home and for my parents that my sister and I at least speak Nepali, Newari, English, and other lesser known Nepali rooted language. For my sister, since she finished 5 more years of school in Nepal than I did, she can read and write Nepali more fluently. For me, I think it is really important that I am able to communicate in my language of origin and for that language to be passed down to future generations. My parents and grandparents have always pushed all of us to be able to communicate in various different languages and be able to interpret them without hesitation and I wish to continue that.
I'm looking forward to seeing my progress at the end of summer!
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