Phonetics at the center of the diagram makes a lot of sense to me (for my language journey). In Catalan, the majority of stuff is pronounced like it is in Spanish which makes pronunciation and conversation much easier for me. There are some combinations of letters that I simply cannot pronounce; my Italki tutor was trying to get me to pronounce a word that started with ‘th’ but Native speakers use their tongue and pronounce it as if it was ‘thub’ and I kept trying to repeat after him but I could not do it. I think this aspect of phonetics really distinguishes native speakers and those who speak one as a second language. Catalan syntax is also the same as Spanish; since my brain is wired to use Spanish syntax (which is opposite of English Syntax) it makes forming sentences in my head much easier. It makes sense that Semantics including Morphology is also close to the center. My Catalan tutor has taught me so many rules on how to convert a Spanish word into the Catalan word. If I don’t know a word in Catalan but know the Spanish word, I use the rules to figure out the Catalan word. Also, the conjugations in Catalan are similar to Spanish conjugations, though there are a few big differences. I think this diagram is a very good representation of how I interpret learning this new language, and the diagram is fitting to how I am understanding my language journey.
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