What is your interest in 'your' language the culture(s) where it is used? What do you hope to learn this semester? this year? in the future?
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What is your interest in 'your' language the culture(s) where it is used? What do you hope to learn this semester? this year? in the future?
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Having been numerous times to India for vacation I often was exposed to the languages of the Indian subcontinent, especially Hindi. During my last journey to India which was in August 2013 I told myself that I would learn Hindi by the end of 2014. This is why I have signed up for this class.
I was born and brought up in Vienna, Austria - jep, that's the country where 'The Sound of Music' is from ^^ . Unfortunately, we hardly spoke any Hindi at home, just English or German. However, I have lots of passive knowledge and would like to learn more, especially speaking Hindi.
Thus, my goals are to maintain and improve my auditive and oral Hindi skills to the level of A2+ (European reference level- having a basic knowledge and understanding of the language; In addition, students are able to talk about different topics at an intermediate level, f.i. explaining a friend why you liked the latest bollywood movie, narrating the plot and so on.)
So far, I know German, English, French, Latin (which I do not consider as a very useful skill since it is a dead language), some Spanish, Portuguese and hopefully soon Hindi.
For me, learning a new language is a pleasure and my personal approach and motivation can be summarized with a quotation from the Austrian philospher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who once said, "Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt." - Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung" (Tractatus logico-philosophicus), 5.6- meaning "The limits of my language are the limits of my world." I would like to formulate this in a more optimistic way, "Every new language is a new world."
Being an Army Officer's daughter, I have moved almost every two or three years. This gave me the opportunity to explore the diversity in my country, India, and facilitated my increasing fascination with learning about societies and cultures different from mine. It was wonderful to experience various languages, foods, clothing, etcetera so frequently, and after coming to the States, I was introduced to even more breathtaking diversity, this time on a global level. I have friends from all over the world now, and even though I really, really want to, there is not enough time to experience everything in their culture. One of the cultures I warmed up the most to is the Korean culture. My first experience with it was through music. The huge variety blew me away, and the most popular component of their entertainment industry, Korean Pop- had me tapping my feet within the first few notes. Korean music has a substantial presence in my playlists now. But it was not only music that caught my attention. Have you ever tried Korean food? If not, you should write it at the top of your to-do list. The assortment and layers of flavor in Korean food are mind-blowing. I have yet to find a person who has not fallen in love with at least one Korean dish.
Another thing I really like about Korean culture is its society's behavioral norms. It is heart-warming to see the respect younger folks have for their noonas/unnis and hyungs/oppas. Equally sweet is the fondness the dongsaengs receive in return. I also feel that Korean is a very beautifully structured and musical language. While watching Korean movies and dramas, I cannot help but turn the volume up to what I would need for an English or Hindi show, because even though I don't understand the language and have to use sub-titles, I like the way the words sound. Also, the expressiveness of the language helps me understand the show better. I realize that a semester is not enough for me to begin to understand Korean dramas and music completely or speak fluently, but I am going to try my best, and accomplish one small thing at a time. By the end of this semester, I hope to be able to read and write at a moderate speed, and hold a decent length of conversation. If not completely, I would like to get at least a gist of what fluent Korean speakers say. Taking this course will be a challenging, yet a highly enlightening and fun experience.
Korean culture is one of the non-English dominated cultures that appeals to me the most. For my political science research this semester and over the summer, I plan to study about Korean politics and diplomatic relations it has with the rest of the world. My interest in Korean culture and politics motivated me to study the Korean language this semester. I look forward to learning more about this beautiful culture, and at the same time fulfill my desire to discover a bit more of what this amazing world has to offer.
I have always been interested in languages. Being born in Bangladesh and having studied in English from kindergarten to grade 12, I was already fluent in Bengali and English. Moreover, as a Muslim I was taught to read Arabic from very early age. In addition, due to the extreme popularity of Indian television shows and films in Bangladesh, I also acquired the ability to speak and understand conversational Hindi. I started learning French in high school and was fluent enough to have taught it for one and a half years.
However, I was introduced to the Korean language and culture in grade 10 when I started watching korean dramas. From then onwards I have continued to watched korean TV shows. Gradually, I fell in love with the korean culture and language. Moreover, many of the sounds in korean language is very similar to Bengali. As a result I could easily pick up commonly used words and phrases that I frequently heard in the TV shows. Besides, I met a few Korean students at the University of Richmond, and hearing them converse in Korean inspired me to learn this language as well.
My goal for this semester is to gain enough knowledge of the Korean language so that I can hold a fairly long conversation with someone in Korean. In addition, I would also like to familiarize myself with the Korean culture so that I can easily get by in Korea independently.
As I said last semester, my interest in Swedish primarily comes from my relationship with my boyfriend and his Swedish family. Over Christmas I had the great pleasure of staying with them for two weeks and this only reinforced my desire to continue to practice my Swedish. A year ago it hadn't occurred to me that it would be beneficial for my relationship and my relationship to Freddie's family to learn some Swedish! Over the break I was able to converse (somewhat) in Swedish with the family and I think they really appreciated how hard I was trying (especially because his grandmother speaks no English). I was even able to pretend to be Santa for their Christmas festivities and did a whole speech in Swedish! I think that learning about their language (and the cultural aspects that go along with that) has brought me closer to all of them and so I'm very glad that I've taken up this interest. I'm hoping to become even more proficient with my Swedish this semester and in the years to come. This semester I would specifically like to focus on sentence construction as well as comprehension. It's still really hard for me to pick up what the Anderssons say in Swedish because I'm so new to it and they speak so quickly and with such thick accents! So I hope that with lots of verbal exposure (my tutor, Swedish TV shows, etc.) I will be able to improve my comprehension abilities.
I have had an interest in the Korean culture since my senior year in high school. I started to discover Korean pop music on Youtube and fell in love with it. I was literally obsessed. This obsession progressed into watching Korean dramas which was another amazing discovery. I started to pick up a few words through these two forms of entertainment but never attempted to learn the language or speak it to anyone. I also fell in love with Korean food which my cousin introduced me to. This only deepened my love affair with Korean culture.
At the University of Richmond, I have made a great number of Korean friends who would openly speak Korean in front of me. These interactions have propelled me to try this Self-Directed Language Course for Korean. This semester I need to learn the alphabet and numbers. I think that these are good basics to start with. As we have discussed in class, it is important to remember to strive to find meaning during this learning process and not solely memorize words and phrases. It is good to find a personal connection with what one is learning. This semester I would like to learn how to greet people, order food, and have informal conversation. Learning interesting phrases which reflect the culture of Korea would be awesome as well. In the future, I would like to travel to South Korea and immerse myself in this fantastic culture, and allow myself to apply what I have practiced. I hope that I can accomplish a great deal this semester with the help of my language partner, faculty members, and my own determination.
I am very interested in learning Hebrew because I was raised Jewish and Judaism has always been a large part of my life. While I went to Hebrew School twice a week until I was thirteen, I have lost touch with not only the language, but also with the culture and its meaning for me. As I prepared for my Bat Mitzvah, I felt more connected with Judaism than I ever had before. My rabbi was from Israel and she taught me a lot about the culture she grew up in and how it differed from the culture in America. I found these differences to be fascinating and I hope to re-discover them throughout this semester.
I hope to learn more basic introductions and some common sayings used in Israel. This summer I plan on going on my Birthright trip and think it would be incredible to speak with the soldiers as much as I can. I hope to learn some phrases that I can share with the soldiers to feel more of a connection with them (mostly because some of them cannot speak any English). I am very excited to learn the basics of the language and to learn more and more about the culture in Israel.
My interest in Hindi, comes from my desire to communicate with the people I meet in their native tongue on a basic conversational level so that I can better build relationships with, learn from, and be as effective as possible in working with them to alleviate their poverty.
So, this semester I want to learn how to communicate on a basic level with native speakers. After this year, I hope I will be able to speak to a native Indian speaker who does not know any English, and carry on a 5 minute conversation without the need of a translator, and in the future my goal would be to become more or less fluent in Hindi.
My interest in Korean is fairly recent. Since coming to Richmond, I got the chance to be acquainted with Richmond's Korean population as well as become friends with some of them. Some of my good friends are Koreans and so when I hang out with them, they speak Korean to each other. It was kind of awkward being around them, not knowing what was being said. Therefore my interest in taking Korean is so that I can communicate and understand them. My boyfriend is Korean as well and so we go to a lot of Korean restaurants and Korean places. It would be nice to be able to communicate in Korean myself instead of relying on my boyfriend to do it for me. Additionally, someday I will be traveling to South Korea, and so I hope to be fluent or semi fluent enough to get around.
I hope to fully remember the alphabets and be fluent in their pronunciations this semester. I hope to learn how to ask for food and understand Korean sentences when spoken to at restaurants. As the semester ends, I hope to further expand my knowledge of conversational phrases where I will be able to hold a conversation up with my friends. In the future, I hope to be able to listen to a sentence and be able to understand it when speakers are talking quickly. I will hopefully be fluent in formal and informal conversations.
In high school, I met a foreign exchange student from Turkey. We quickly became great friends and I enjoyed listening to her tell me about her country and the differences between Turkey and the United States. After she graduated from high school she invited me to go home with her to visit Antalya. Being able to go to Turkey with my friend is what made me interested in learning turkish. Having been to the country I would love to actually be able to converse with people should I ever return.
This semester I hope to gain a greater understanding not just of the language, but also of the culture. My goal is to be able to have a basic conversation with someone in turkish. My hope is that I will continue to learn about this language even after I am finished with this class.
I grew up in a 51% minority-dominated district. Mandarin, Korean, English, French, and Spanish were the most common of languages heard around my school. Naturally, we all were quickly acquainted with each others' cultures. Spanish and Korean intrigued me the most, especially the culture. Language is a beautiful thing, especially when you become so fluent in the language that a few words are enough to describe an entire mix of feelings, emotions, and situations. Some Chinese sayings that are only 6 words long would take the English language at least 3 sentences to describe.
After taking Spanish and Chinese classes, my other interest includes Korean. I grew up with Korean culture from my peers, but I never got the chance to actually learn the language. This semester, I hope to learn how to not only speak the language, but have enough of an understanding to one day travel to Korea and live there for a time without the use of English. It is one thing to pay money as an English speaker to live in Korea as a tourist, but I believe complete understanding of a culture comes with the acquisition and ability to speak the native tongue.
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