This past week and the next week I wanted to dive heavily into practicing and continuing that practice during the week. IN our meetings for this past week, we did not know what to focus on and Keshav suggested that I send snippets of my writing and any part of my writing that I feel unsure about.
One of the most frustrating part that I did not anticipate would be this level of annoyance which has been me second guessing myself when I am writing something. The problem that I am having is when I am writing, what I am writing seems to make sense when I write them but when I reread what I wrote, it just seems so off for some reason. I think that is due to some of the words and the different forms that they sometimes are present in. Sound-wise and in terms of pronunciation, the different variations of the word sounds the same but it is that slight difference in how you write that makes me want to pull my hair out and I keep finding myself going in circles.
There are also so many different symbols and accent marks and other things that Nepali has that I keep on forgetting to add and since they are so small, it is so hard to keep track and remember their locations. Unlike some of the other languages that I have learned or taken in previous years such as Spanish or Italian or even English, Nepali seems to just love the various different rules about writing and the words just seem to have a field day with the placements of the various accents and markings.
Another part that I didn’t think was going to be a problem was the sentence structure. Previously when learning Spanish, the order of subjects differ from English and I thought it would be a similar transition when writing Nepali, but I KEEP on finding myself saying the sentence out loud to make sure that what I am trying to write makes sense verbally.
One thing that I do want to continue with is the digital form of note taking. I have always been a physical pen and paper learner but recently, I have figured out that learning something new is just easier digitally. It is so much easier to differentiate my notes and thoughts on a digital space with the option for so many color choices for the pen rather than having 1 or 2 colors to differentiate my ideas when I am writing on paper. I definitely want to continue that method of learning and I think it is also easier to go back and reflect on what I was doing at the time of writing something, since I can just put the notes on the side of the digital space. It is also easier to then share the notes with my tutor or in some cases my parents or sister to check and make sure that I am doing something properly.
I’ll keep making sure that I continue both the reading and writing for Nepali. Although this course is coming to an end, it has definitely motivated me more towards relearning and practicing Nepali to improve. I think what I was lacking was the motivation and dedication (especially in terms of time) to put in the effort and I guess having it in a course structured way find that motivation.
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I totally agree Abhishek, writing is difficult and completely frustrating. There's so many factors that go into writing that I feel like many people forget about, like a lot of people think if you can speak well than that skill should reflect into your writing skills which is not the case. That's really interesting that Nepali involves so many accent marks and other things that you mentioned, I didn't realize the language involved so many different parts in its writing. I like how you mentioned that you found help using digital note-taking. I personally go back and forth, but it's interesting to hear why you find that to be easier.