To start of my week, I sat down and reflected on what I currently know at the beginning of the course and what I think I can start to build upon as an introductory. My main realization and something that I want to work on kind of modifying is how different relearning something is to learning something new because at moments, I'll read something or see something that I recognize but its sort of frustrating not being able to pin it down to exactly what it is. For the most part, talking with my tutor has been helpful to understand what I could stem off of because during our conversations, I realize what words or ways of speaking made sense to me and what didn't. The parts that I was unsure of or wasn't completely confident on I have began making it a habit of writing it down, recording, or taking a picture of so that I can ask about it later.
After I looked through the alphabet, there were moments where I began reading some of the blog posts or smaller sentences that people had left in Nepali on social media or webpage. I realized that social media could be a huge advantage for me since there is this existence of mixed Nepali and English. Although I want to sort of move away from this mixed structure, I've realized that it actually helps understand what they are saying or understand the meaning and context when I am starting off with the language.
I have also started making/compiling a list of materials that I want to go over or cover at some point, whether it is a review from something I remember learning before or something that one of my relatives or Nepali friends suggested.
One thing that I noticed that I never realized was that when taking other languages that I was learning in school, I always resorted to making flashcards or reading the book for the vocabulary. The vocal component of the language was covered in class by the teachers and we were expected to learn it their way. Having a tutor is a much more open experience and I kind of felt lost with how to approach learning design for me and by me. I guess I also never realized which method I preferred and never thought farther than "I learn visually".
It also took me a little getting used to talking with Keshav. I guess it was the form of speaking that I was used to at home versus the way that Keshav spoke. Although it is not that different, it was slightly different from what I was used to.
We started working together by starting off with basic conversation and basic reading and writing. Reading out loud and him correcting any of my mistakes that I made. It also helped me learn some pronunciation for some of the words. We then moved on to just strictly talking in Nepali. We decided that my job for a brief moment everyday would be to take some time to read the Nepali newspaper (1 or 2 per day) and then reflect back to him on what it was about and what I found challenging. One thing that I found really challenging was that since I have not lived in Nepal for more than a decade now and I haven't read or heard the professional way of Speaking Nepali, I wasn't sure if I was speaking properly until I asked Keshav, so that left me with questions until I did.
Some of the frustrations that I have this week have been mainly with myself and getting confused with some of the things I've learned. Currently it is just forgetting some of the letters in the second half of the alphabet because at times they sound so similar phonetically.
Replies