The presentation about Korean Muk-bang culture seems really interesting to me because of its popularity in Korean and the purpose it serves. The Muk-bang culture is exactly the produce of one of the most distinct characters of the modern society not only in Korean but many other high populated busy cities. Often those areas have a significant number of people at young age living alone in apartment and very busy on their work, so that they don’t have enough time to social and interact with other people. They don’t even have a friend to can eat with. Muk-bang solves this problem and makes those people gathered together to eat, so that they don’t seem that lonely. At the same time, they get to know what’s trendy at the present by watching different style of Muk-bang. They get to know how “beauty” is defined by subscribing to the pretty-looking girl’s Muk-bang. They get to laugh and enjoy the time by watching people eating in a funny way, etc. However, the Muk-bang does not actually solve the problem of the more mentally and psychologically introvert society. Eating while watching shows in a tiny little screen by oneself can be an entertainment, but not a daily routing. People should still try to go out and make friends in the real life. 

(a) What insights have you gained about yourself as a language learner and cultural explorer?  What did you find difficult?  What have you enjoyed?  How will you continue your learning? 

 I really enjoy being a cultural explorer, even I’m not able to speak multiple languages. I would love to learn about other cultures and the language and traditions that go along with the culture. It is fascinating to me that the world is so complicated yet beautiful with all the different cultures and people. Especially the life philosophy, art, architecture, and food of different cultures. Also, besides all the wonderful thing about other cultures, as I learn, I could also find out about the negative side of certain cultures. For example, some cultural traditions that are violating human rights, etc. If I were not exploring, I would not know that there are still people struggling with their culture because of the transitions to the globalized world and economic market.

However, though I love languages, too, I’m less competent with learning the language. In my lifetime, I’ve tried to learn English, Japanese, Spanish and Danish. I can master none of them except English. Mostly because of that I didn’t learn the language consistently. I took Spanish for one semester, then gave up because the school changed the professor to another that has very different accent than the previous one. This indicates that how important the variation within a language is. I took Japanese for a year, but then gave up because I went abroad for a semester and had not practiced with Japanese for so long. When I came back to school, I found out that it was very difficult to pick it up again. This shows how important the consistency of learning a language is. Similar things happened to Danish. I learned Danish for four months when I was in Denmark. But when I came back to U.S, even if I want to continue, Danish is not popular here and I can’t learn it without a proper amount of practice.

Thus, overall, I do enjoy learning about other cultures, and learning languages. But language does require a lot more than just the culture: time, consistency, patience, practices, etc.

(b) Which readings and learning activities did you find most useful?  What would you like to learn more about?

I’ve learned a lot in almost every supplement reading. I didn’t know that languages and cultures are not just difference because of the pronunciation and writing, but the history, the geography, and interactions with other cultures and languages. Readings are interesting and have reasonable length. Some are more scientific than others, which is good, too, because I got to know how the function of the brain has to do with languages. The presentations are very useful as well. I learned a lot while researching and preparing the presentation. Those presentations made me think creatively and critically about cultures and languages.  

Because the language has been incorporated into the traditions, religions, philosophy and so many other things of a target culture, understanding the culture of the language can be very helpful to learn and use the language better. In a target culture, the language ties everything together. The language has lived for so long that many aspects of the culture, the civilization, traditions, and religion, rely on the language to be passed on from generation to generation. For example, when I was learning Japanese, the understanding of the Japanese hierarchical culture helped a lot on distinguishing which degree of politeness and intimacy should I apply in language when I’m talking to different people. Messing up with addressing people can be very rude and weird in Japan, even as a non-native language learner.

At the same time, the language changes and adapts to the changes in the target culture. The understanding of the culture, especially the pop culture, can be very helpful in improving speaking the language. Many people, including me, enjoy watching Japanese animes, TV shows, and variety shows because we can learn those slangs and trendy expressions. Usually, we learn the language through textbooks that have very formal expression and word. But often, in daily life, there are words and phrases that the textbooks don’t have. Instead, we need to learn the culture of the language, what’s new recently, what happened so that people started using certain words than others, etc.

The understanding of the culture can be considered as the tool to improve the communicative competence. In the textbook, I can learn how to be organizational competence in Japanese. I learn the grammar, vocabularies, syntax, phonology, and graphology. I know how to read the text, to interpret and understand the meaning of the text cohesively by studying the textbook. This seems like the beginner’s stage, the basic and foundation of learning Japanese. It’s more about absorbing and input of all the knowledge of the language itself. This is very important for learning a language because as learners, not like people born with Japanese, I would not know the construction, or how to construct Japanese. I have a friend who never learns Japanese systematically but always watch the Japanese animes. He can totally understand Japanese by hearing it. But he can’t read or write Japanese because he doesn’t have the organizational competence. Instead, he has some degree of pragmatic competence of Japanese because he could understand it by watching people talk and behave. However, of course, pragmatic competence cannot be greatly improved without the foundation, the grammar, etc of the language.

Thus, if I want to improve my pragmatic competence of Japanese, I should watch more Japanese TVs, read more newspapers, magazines, and talk to Japanese in Japanese. I should learn the Japanese culture so that I could produce my own output of the language. I could speak more fluently by manipulating the grammar, using the words and phrases that are popular among people in the present. I could use the address more accurately. I could better comprehend Japanese conversations, implying meanings, even dialects. In summary, I could be not only academically knowing Japanese but socially, by learning the culture. To me, the pragmatic competence is more about socially integrating with the language, and thus, the understanding of the culture of the language is necessary and essential.

Again, I need to refer to my experience of learning Danish here. As I was learning Danish, I tried to read and write with very limited words I have. I started with menus. Menus were ok because they were illustrative themselves. There were mostly words about food and drinks that I learned in class. Then I tried to read the advertisement while waiting for bus and metro. Those paper posters were easier, because I got time to think and related to the Danish class. Those videos were little harder because people talk in a pace that I could not catch up with. But videos were also very illustrative and I could try to connect the videos with the emphasized word. However, advertisements were made to be concise, easy to understood and simple. Articles were not. In my Danish class, we tried to read a Danish poem. I could not understand much of it without the help and explanations from my teacher. Writing is the most difficult part. I wrote a short paragraph during Danish exam, but it took so much time. The content was basically a copy of the text book, not any original piece from me. 

I actually agree with both of the articles in some way. I’m not a bilingual, but I’ve learned English for years and living in the U.S for three years. English, for me, has become a language that does not require translation into Chinese to understand, in most of times. I can resonate with the article when it mentions that Bilinguals need to switch language quite often, which helps to build up the ability to observe and comprehend things. I can react to things, such as interpret and understand other people’s work during conversation; Not the translation or understand the meaning of the language, but the intention, the “want” of other people.

But I also agree with idea that maybe multiculturalism is the reason for bilinguals to seems smarter, instead of speaking two languages. I’ve learned to adapt the U.S culture during learning speaking English and living in the U.S. As I overcome a lot of cultural differences, I became more adaptive to new environment, people and culture. This experience helped me a lot when I went to Denmark for a study abroad in study abroad (from my home to the U.S). Also, sometimes, I found myself not able to think in Chinese as native as my other friends who stay in China and go to college there. I could not write essays in very beautiful, logical and Chinese Chinese. I write more like translated Chinese, from English. I consider this as a huge disadvantage of being fluent in a 2^nd Language. Since I’ve been used to the English structure, grammar, rules and procedures and I’ve been speaking and using English a lot more than Chinese in collage, it seems that I’ve “lost” Chinese in some way. 

Looking back at my most recent language learning process, which was last semester when I was learning Danish, I learned about 500 words (nouns and adjectives, not including words like preposition, etc). I took Danish class and the learning process was cumulative and gradual. I learned most of the words through conversations in text book. Those conversations were all about daily activities, greetings, parties, events, traveling, etc. So as an exchange student who traveling a lot in Denmark, those conversations were really helpful and interesting. Because I wanted to know those words and how to talk in Danish. Also, the conversations were getting longer and longer in the text book. So not only the new words were included in conversations of later chapters, also the words we learned at the very beginning were also present. In that way, I got to learned a lot of Danish daily life words.

Another way that I used to learn Danish words very effectively was to read the advertisement or signs during traveling in the cities. When I was waiting for bus, metro, etc, I read those ads over and over again. Some were on the stream TV some were on the paper posters. At last, I was able to remember those words that repetitively show up in the ads.

My goal before taking the Danish class was about to learn basic words that could help me to read the menu and order, and 

The culture, the local knowledge, traditions, the religious of the people might go away with the language. The uniqueness of the culture will no longer be passed, learned, understood or comprehended by people if the language is gone. In the reading, language experts try to save the Siletz Dee-ni by creating online dictionary for people to learn. But the problems is, there is not enough people who speak the language on a daily basis. People who are not born with this language, can never comprehend the culture behind it or merge into the language and its culture because they don’t live with it. Language learners can only know how to pronounce the words and directly translate the words. But the meaning of those words in the real life is hard to apply. Thus, the culture, knowledge, local people’s traditions and religious, cannot be preserved by dictionaries. When the language is gone, all of the things will go away with it.

In the context of globalization, a single language being lost seems not a big deal, after all there’s very few people speak it. And small group of people has to keep up with the globalization by speaking the more common languages, English, Spanish, Chinese, etc. People seems to lose the language inevitably. However, globalization is damaging the cultural diversity by forcing people to communicate in common language. Some might lose the native language by practicing too much of the adopted language and not passing the native one to the next generation. Thus, even the descendants of the language still exist, the culture might disappear as well. 

The history of a language influence the grammar, the logic, the structure and the culture of the language in a lot of ways. For example, the French colonization of places in African has left a lot of people in African speaking French. But local Africans speaking different French than people in France because they incorporate local knowledge, social, geographical aspect into the language. When learning a language, it’s important to pay attention to variations within a language because of the colonial history. I once had a Spanish professor from Spain, but then when I had another Spanish professor from Argentina, I could not understand the Argentinian professor at all because of the different way of pronunciations. Argentinian style of Spanish is different from Spanish-Spanish possibly because of the colonial history. The logic and the structure of language can be different because of the history as well. The logic, structure and culture can be affected by the history of the language as well. Some words and use of words are unique in certain languages, but don’t exist in others, because of the different history of living in different places, interact with different things. Some language as a lot to do with the ocean, some are more familiar with the mountain, some has to do with tropical forest, etc. Language reflects on the life of the people, in another word, the history of the traditions and culture. 

I can resonate with a lot of things that have been mentioned in the video. For example, the newness that came at the beginning when I first came to the U.S and the school. I felt excited about almost everything. But then as the newness went away, I started to feel difficult about dealing with academic and social life. I felt alien from this very different world than my home. As a lot of people said in the video, the first few weeks were very tough and were packed. I had to get used to everything within a short amount of time. I had to spend two or three times more effort on the work that U.S students, etc. I was stressed out. But then, as I interacted with professors more, tried to take the initiative to reach out to other people, and got more involved in class, things started getting better. In small schools like U of Richmond, I think it’s really an advantage to have a small community where I can always find help from my professors and faculties. There people who are less interested in me and my culture, but there still are a lot of people who cares about me and my culture, who want to talk to me and get to know me, which has been a great encouragement in my life here at Richmond. One thing that I think would be great is the host family program. It could be a great support to international student as one of the girl talked in the video. We don’t have host family program that has student actually live in the host family now, instead, we have host family that could take student to dinner, local places, holidays, etc. It has less interaction with the host family, but still a good way to get familiar with Richmond and in some way, the American culture. 

        The reading basically helps me to figure out what should I pay attention to when I express and absorb/analyze the message when learning a target language. First, the view of the relationship between words and things influences how I express and absorb the language during the learning process. I could use a more of naturalist view to learn the basic meaning of new vocabulary at the beginning: to connect words to certain things in the real life. Later, however, I need to pay attention to the sense and the reference of the words I learn, because reference, such as connecting words with physical things, would not work well when the word has different meanings in different circumstances. Because words have synonymy, hyponymy, and antonymy,   it is critical for the learner to precisely sub-divide the meanings of the words. Reference can be vague and not specific enough. Sense in this case, by explaining words by words based on different language concept, can help me to distinguish the word better. Also, a lot of times, a word in the target language might not be directly translated to a single word in my native tongue, instead, it might be translated as a concept, a series of words, etc. Thus, it is also very important to be aware of that, and pay attention to the collocations words of the target language.  

-       Target language: Japanese

-       Japanese has a very hierarchical culture. The hierarchy is most distinctively shown in body gesture and language structure. Japanese act and talk in different ways strictly to show their respect to strangers, peers who are not intimate, and people who are elder or have higher social position. The main difference in the body gesture and language structure is the degree of politeness. For example, Japanese body gesture is not as dramatic, liberal or passionate as most western style, especially among different genders. Japanese’s movement range of anything in their daily life is often small, cautious, modest and self-constrained. This resonates with their conventional humbleness, low-key lifestyle, and attitude towards the relationship between different genders.

-       As for language structure, Japanese has two systems for ending the sentences. The ending of each sentence is the indicator of the hierarchy and politeness in the conversations. A present tense noun-based sentence that ends with “ です (desu)” is usually the politer way of speaking than one without. Other than showing respect when speaking, the politer system is also required to be used in formal writing such as papers, homework, emails, etc.

The reading basically helps me to figure out what should I pay attention to when I express and absorb/analyze the message when learning a target language. First, the view of the relationship between words and things influences how I express and absorb the language during the learning process. I could use a more of naturalist view to learn the basic meaning of new vocabulary at the beginning: to connect words to certain things in the real life. Later, however, I need to pay attention to the sense and the reference of the words I learn, because reference, such as connecting words with physical things, would not work well when the word has different meanings in different circumstances. Because words have synonymy, hyponymy, and antonymy,   it is critical for the learner to precisely sub-divide the meanings of the words. Reference can be vague and not specific enough. Sense in this case, by explaining words by words based on different language concept, can help me to distinguish the word better. Also, a lot of times, a word in the target language might not be directly translated to a single word in my native tongue, instead, it might be translated as a concept, a series of words, etc. Thus, it is also very important to be aware of that, and pay attention to the collocations words of the target language.  

        I have been learning and using English for about nine years, and I learned Spanish for one semester and Japanese for one year. However, I only manage to speak, read and write English at a professional level but not Spanish and Japanese. I can read a little bit Japanese but I almost lost everything about Spanish.

        One thing that I really enjoy when learning languages is to watch TV shows, movies and anime produced in the target language and learn about its culture. As the Basic Multiple Intelligences results show, I enjoy visual learning, things in motion and in nature, and interactions with people. I can see the interrelation between the top three characteristics in the result. I study environmental studies and geography, and I am attracted by the natural environment. I love traveling around, seeing and experiencing things that are new to me. Compared to reading and imagining in my head, I do prefer to have physical interaction with the new things and figure out how they work. Learning a new language is similar in a way that I am able to better engage with the content, the grammar and the culture by watching the TV shows, movies and anime. Those medias show me how the language is used, in what situation the language is used, with whom the language is used, with what kind of facial expression and body language, etc. The integrity of language and culture that the vivid images and videos has really help me in language learning.

        Also, for me, the purpose of learning a language is to learn the culture better, and to have the ability to communicate with people who have different cultural backgrounds. TV shows and movies not only provide the cultural context of the target language, but they are also very helpful in terms of learning the accent, the tone, the pronunciation of the language. I can imitate and practice the way of speaking the language when I am watching TV shows and movies. I can also learn those slangs, trendy words and phrases that are usually not included in text books through the watching the latest TV shows and movies.

        However, one thing I would not enjoy is the inconvenience and inconsistence when I try to speak the language with native speakers at the beginning. This happened no matter I was learning Spanish, Japanese or Danish: unless I am speaking with the professor who teaches the language class, either the other person or I will give up on using the target language and change to a common language like English at some point during the conversations. It is just easier to communicate and to understand each other by using English. It also saves a lot of time when the conversations are not in an hour long language class that is there for language learners. 

        Thus, overall, I think learning language through the media culture in addition to studying the basic grammar and language structure can be very helpful for me. According to the FIRE model, I think I am in between a factual and evaluative person. I do rely on practical and precise knowledge such as grammar, and task-oriented activities that build skill competency, to be the base of language learning. But I also need the interaction with people, share thoughts and stories, encouragement and recognition, and physical engagement with the language. As for practicing speaking the language, I think other than learning how to speak in class, I should find a partner or mentor who can dedicate the time and energy to practice with me. Talking with random native speaker may not be ideal for effectively learning the language, though it is a good way to make friends.