After some uncertainty, it turns out that Hazal is able to continue helping her three University of Richmond students. Because she had to return to Nevshehir in these circumstances, I was almost certain that she would not be able to continue the lessons. We converted our meetings to be online through zoom and now meet Mondays and Thursdays at eight in the morning. The timing makes it such that half way through our meetings, I can hear the muazzim calling Muslims to prayer.
We have been working mostly from our texts recently. She has been assigning bookwork for me to do outside of class as well. Aside from that, I have been working on the vocabulary.
Vocabulary, an any sort of memorization in general, seems to be my weak suit. I am slow to learn new words. My response to this has been to drill myself in vocabulary through various approaches on Quizlet. Presently, I write the chapter’s list of new words into noun sets and verb sets. Then I go through them to see which I know. As Turkish has many English and Romance loanwords, I can usually catch several on the first round. This recent chapter focused on health is easier than most because, as with several languages, the use of English words for medical and technological items are common. I set Quizlet to show only the starred words. As I learn each word, I unstar it so that I am not distracted by words I already know. I change the language which is shown on the cards so as to get a forward and backward understanding of the word. I also print off the lists of starred words so that I can work on them all at once and more easily visualize the vocabulary. This approach seems to work better than simply flipping flashcards on Quizlet.
The book work is from two different books, a lesson book and a workbook. Presently we are working on necessity. Last summer, I had begun this concept on my own, learning structures such as git+me+m lazım/gerekiyor and +meli/+malı, I must go. I am often unsure as to which structure to use. They roughly communicate the same thing, but there are times when one is used and the other is not. I remember Hazal speaking about the degree of directness, but at present this subtlety is lost on me. I will have to ask her again.
The new circumstances have not affected my Dari meetings, ilhamdulilah because we were already remotely meeting. We have been focusing on developing a vocabulary focused on topics. They include traffic, clothing, food, numbers, days, months, seasons, and relatives as well as common verbs and introductions. This focus on vocabulary has helped give me the building blocks of the language. The targeted approach seems to be working well, as it is easier to learn words in themes as they are put in relation with similar words. We are now working on google documents which allow us to both edit the same document without having to send photos of vocabulary words back and forth and keeping track of them. I have been studying by writing these words, sounding them out while writing and saying the English meaning of each at the same time.
Much of the grammar I have picked up indirectly. The grammar of Dari is not to removed from English. Those parts that are considerably different have correlatives in Arabic and Turkish. Thus when I see a new grammatical term or prefix and understand the English meaning of a Dari sentence, I can deduce its function in the sentence.
I would like to review introductions, as this is a practical and fun topic. I also want to spend some more time in my grammar book. This will allow me to refresh my knowledge of verb conjugations and syntax as well as different moods.
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