(a) As a language learner, I think the most important thing I have learned about myself is that I really really need visuals when I am learning, mostly to keep myself engage in what I am learning. What I mean by this is that what I have noticed is that when I am learning, I retain and recall information way better when I can accompany the subject or topic that I am studying with visuals that I can tie them to. I have always loved drawing out my ideas or sketching out so that I can explain some things better and I think it is because that is the main way I learn.
In terms of difficulty, I think the thing that frustrated me the most during the whole process was learning to write or remember what version of a letter was the right version to use. It is one thing to learn the alphabet and know what letter or symbol to use, but when the symbols and letters have different variants that basically sound the same, I caught myself second guessing myself a lot during the process, especially during the writing process. Also, the last time I tried properly writing Nepali was 3rd grade, when I tried to write Nepali this time, I had memories but I felt as if I was doing it wrong the whole time. I remember how things were and how the various symbols and accents went, but when I wrote it (even if it was correct), I had the feeling that it was wrong. It took some time to over come that.
In order to continue learning, I want to expand upon the readings that I am doing. Previous mentioned in my plans for this class and during my reflections, I said I wanted to venture into books from articles and newspapers for the things I read. I want to add to that and start reading some old books to learn about the history and culture. This way I hit both the reading practice and still learn more about my culture. In terms of writing, I realized that learning things digitally is so easy so I will be using my iPad to practice writing Nepali. It's also an easier process because fixing errors is easier digitally.
(b) The readings that I found mot useful was reading newspapers and I think this is because I am interesting in learning about current events in Nepal. Some of the e-Newspapers that I used had translation features so if I was unsure about some of the things, I knew that I could just use that and make sure that I was understanding everything properly and correctly. I also found myself learning by reading out loud most of the time and I found it really helpful to hear as well because some things just don't sound right and I can add that to things I can check back later.
As mentioned in my other reflections before, I want to learn more about the language and the history of the language. I want to learn about how similar Nepali is to other Indo-Aryan languages and how and where in history the languages took different turns to create the differences that are present in the language today. I think it would be really cool to compare Nepali to other languages because ever since I was young, I have been really curious about why so many words are so similar but have slight differences but then you compare the writing systems and they range so much within the languages.
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