Nile Harris's Posts (22)
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Something that was very interesting to me is how friendly and tight-knit Turkish people are. Turkish people love Turkish people. They also love Turkey. Nationalism is huge in Turkey. Even to the point that Görkem was keeping up with the World Cup qualifying matches during our class meeting because Turkey was playing. The people of the United States do not share those same nationalistic qualities. These qualities also translate to them supporting local fellow Turks rather than big businesses. Görkem was telling me that when he was a little boy, him and his mom would go to the different farmers markets around the city. Each farmers market had a specific day of the week that they were open. Depending on the day would determine how far they would have to walk to get groceries. These farmers markets were much cheaper than grocery stores, and you were able to get exactly what you needed. For example: if you only needed one egg, you were able to buy one egg rather than having to buy a whole dozen. This also exemplified the gender roles that were in place at that time in Turkey. He talked about how the men were the breadwinners of the family and worked during the day to make all of the money. The women, on the other hand, were in charge of the duties around the house which is why he was always with his mom when she went shopping during the day. He also said that every single person at the farmers markets were also women taking care of the duties around the house. I think it is very interesting to see the shift from these farmers markets to grocery stores over the years. Nowadays it is more common for people to go do their grocery shopping at the grocery stores. My Italian classmate also said that this was the case in Italy. When he was a child, they also had the farmers markets while now they mostly have grocery stores. I guess it is all part of the evolution and industrialization of a nation. Grocery stores probably in bring a lot more money to the government rather than the farmers markets. Over the course of the semester, I have learned so much about Turkish culture. I feel that it has not only given so much insight into Turkish culture, but also a lot of insight about the culture in which I live. To truly know about a culture, you must live for an extended period of time in that culture. I would love to live in Turkey for an extended period of time just to experience the culture and better me Turkish language skills. I would also like to personally express how grateful I am for my language partner Görkem. He has been nothing be the best for me on this Turkish learning journey. I would also like to thank Dr. Soloway for always facilitating my language learning journeys over the past year. Without them, my knowledge would be extremely limited. This has been such a wonderful experience and I look forward to continuing this over the years.
One day in class, we were completing an activity in our textbook that had to do with the different modes of transportation. Görkem asked me questions like about how I get to different places like: “how do I get to the store?” “how do I get to school?” “how do I get home?” “how do I get to class?” “how do I get to work” etc… I actually get to class by walking. But every other question, the answer was “by car / driving”. Even my roommates consistently want to drive to class or to work even when they are well withing walking distance. Görkem was astounded by how much we drive here in the United States. This is a huge cultural difference between us and Turks. He also told me that he lives over 2 miles away from the University of Richmond’s campus and he walks to the university every day. He also has friends here in the United States that live a little more than a mile away from the grocery store. The consistently drive to the grocery store rather than walking there. I found hilarious how surprised he was about this phenomenon. Apparently, in Turkey, the prefer to walk everywhere. He told me that he typically walks over 10 miles every day in Turkey. He walks to school, he walks to the store, he walks to the café, he walks home, etc… Typically the only time he drives is if he is going somewhere over 10 miles away, or if he is going to different city. Also, the Turkish city infrastructures allow for it to be easy for people not to use motorized vehicles to get to and from places. They have many sidewalks and designated areas for walking and biking. I also do not think that it is a uniquely Turkish practice to mostly walk to and from places. I have many friends from Europe who have also said that they mostly walk to and from places and rarely use cars to get to different areas. Honestly, if they are going somewhere out of walking distance, they prefer to use public transportation rather than their own cars. I honestly believe that we should practice walking more here in the United States. It would be a lot more economically efficient, it would be more environmentally friendly, and it would be healthier to get that form of exercise. This was a very interesting thing to learn about. I feel that I would like to practice that when I am all settled into my career. I do definitely feel that I would get some weird looks though, especially if people saw me walking to and from the grocery store, or if people saw me walking to and from work. I am very sure of myself and do not let what others think affect my actions. I will say that Americans have more of a culture plagued by laziness than Turkey does, which is why it would make sense for these norms to be different.
In one of our sessions with my language partner, he asked us if we liked coffee. My other classmate, who is Italian, loves coffee. Apparently, coffee is a huge part of Italian culture. I am personally not a fan of coffee. I hate the way tastes. My language partner said that he was thinking about doing a session on Turkish coffee culture. Even though I do not like coffee, I was very curious to see what Turkish coffee was really about. Coffee is a huge part of the Turkish culture. It is used as a social outlet. Friends and family spend hours on end at coffee shops just sitting there talking and laughing, and enjoying time together. It is similar to the vibes of a bar in the United States. My language partner also explained how coffee readings are a technique that guys use to pickup girls. Girls like coffee readings and horoscopes. It is a form of fortune telling similar to what palm readers use for palm reading, and what psychics use to tell the future. Turkish people love their coffee black as hell and strong as death. So in our session, Görkem made our coffee and served to us in his authentic Turkish coffee dishes. The dishes were very similar to what is used for espresso shots (though it is not called that in Turkish). I drank it and it was extremely bitter. After drinking it, there were coffee grinds at the bottom of the cup. We would then proceed to turn our cups over onto the saucer and let the coffee grinds make distinct patterns all over the cup and saucer. Then we had to wait a few minutes for it to cool down. After it cooled, we picked the saucer and cup up and rotated it three times counterclockwise. We then flipped the turned the cup over either away from you or towards you. If you turn it away from you, the coffee reader will talk about your future and if you turn it towards you, the coffee reader will talk about your past. I turned mine away from me to see what my future held for me. Görkem looked at the distinct patterns in the cup and said that I would have a celebration of sorts soon and that I will be very stable. For me the celebration could represent me graduating college, and I also have a very stable household. I then proceeded to do a coffee reading for my classmate. I told him that I saw a ladder in his cup which meant that he would metaphorically climb a ladder soon. He said he literally has to climb a ladder to clean his gutters. I also saw a river in his cup which means that he will travel somewhere soon. This is actually how we learned to form the future tense of verbs. Overall, I enjoyed doing the coffee readings with my peers. Hopefully, I will be able to travel to Turkey and actually do one with a Turkish girl.
Turkey has a very fascinating culture. Geographically, Turkey is located on the Mediterranean Sea. It shares borders with Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; Iraq to the southeast; Syria to the south; and Bulgaria and Greece to the northwest. Greece and Turkey have a rich history empirical and political conflict dating back to the Ottoman days. Greece used to be a part of the Ottoman Empire until it declared its independence before the fall of the empire. Since those days, there still remains cultural conflict between Turks and Greeks. The sentiments seem to be that Greeks hate Turks and Turks hate Greeks. My language partner used to share those same sentiments until he met Greek people and realized that they are very much similar people. Even to the point to where he could say “Greeks are just Christian Turks and Turks are just Muslim Greeks”. Greeks and Turks do have very similar cultures. A huge part of Turkish culture is the authentic Turkish food. But there are some specific foods that Greeks have tried to market as traditional Greek food, when in reality, it is Turkish. One food that is authentic Turkish food, but around the world is always advertised as Greek, is baklava. Baklava is a pastry made of dough, nuts, and syrup or honey. It is very delicious. The word “baklava” itself is of Mongolian and Turkic origin which shows its Turkish origin. Also, the pastry dish uses pistachios as one of its main ingredients. Turkey is actually one of the world’s largest producers of pistachios, which are cultivated in the southeastern part of the country (very far away from Greece). Another dish that was originally Turkish, but also claimed by the Greeks is dolmades. Dolmades are grape leaves stuffed with various things such as rice, vegetables, and ground meats. The word “dolma” itself is of Turkish origin and means to fill or to stuff, which supports that it is of Turkish origin. Dolmades are actually one of my favorite Turkish dishes. One last thing that is claimed to be Greek, is Greek yogurt (strained yogurt). This type of yogurt has become popular in the western world and is marketed as authentically Greek. The word yogurt comes from the Turkish word “yoğurmak” which means “to knead; to be curdled or coagulated; to thicken. The yogurt food probably is not originally Turkish, but it is definitely not of Greek origin. Also, the most popular brand of “Greek” yogurt, Chobani, was really made by a Turkish man. When my language partner told me these things, I was astounded and very intrigued because I thought that only of these things were authentically Greek because they are always advertised as Greek. But it definitely makes sense that these things have made their way to Greece, due to the historical power of the Ottoman Empire. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that these foods are all of Ottoman origin rather than just Turkish origin. Because the Ottoman Empire was centered around modern-day Turkey, that may be why those dishes are considered Turkish.
Because our class is not an intensive language class, we really chose to focus on the Turkish grammar for the most part. When reading Turkish, I can easily identify the subjects, objects, and verbs. This has come at the expense of learning vocabulary, therefore it is difficult for me to understand what the sentence is actually talking about. My classmate actually provided a great tip for learning the Turkish vocabulary. He has been using Duolingo along with the Turkish grammar we are learning in our classes. For him, Duolingo was used solely for vocabulary. He recommended that I do the same in order to learn some vocabulary. I definitely took his advice, which very much helped me a lot. Also this last month, we learned the proper way of saying what time it is in Turkish. Apparently it is more common for Turks to use phrases like “a quarter til”, “a quarter past”, “half past”, and “10 til”, than it is in English. In English, there is more of a generational gap for these phrases. Older people use these phrases while younger people prefer to tell the exact time. The last major thing we reviewed this semester was the future tense. The future tense was also pretty easy to learn. Over the course of the semester, after I learned that Turkish was based on certain suffixes depending on the tense, I learned the material fairly quickly. The future tense is shown below:
Future verb tense: take root, add “-acak (if preceding vowel is a, ı, o, u,) or -ecek (if preceding vowel is e, i, Ü, Ö)”, add suffix
Olmak = to be
Ben: ol-acağ-ın = olacağın Biz: ol-acağ-ız = olacağız
Sen: ol-acak-sın = olacaksın Siz: ol-acak-sınız = olacaksınız
O: ol-acak = olacak Onlar: ol-acak = olacak
It is important to note that in the first person conjugations we do not use “k”. because the consonant “k” is a hard consonant, the Turkish language makes it softer by using “ğ”. The hard consonants that must be substituted in Turkish are “k, p, t, and Ç” and will be substituted with “ğ, b, d, c” respectively. This past month we also learned about the months of the year, the different seasons, and the days of the week. One thing that was very interesting to me was how most Turkish words come from old Ottoman Turkish, while some also come from Arabic and Persian. I feel that Islam has a huge influence in Arabic rooted words in Turkish. One more thing that we have learned this semester was the modes of transportation. I honestly have learned an incredible amount of Turkish this semester. Unfortunately, I am not able to write about all of it because it is so much. I plan to continue learning Turkish following graduation because it is so interesting to me. Hopefully, I will be able to travel to Turkey and really use the language skills I have acquired so far. I am so grateful for my teacher taking the time to really wok with me. This experience has been like no other.
As mentioned in my last journal entry, we have really devoted a lot of focus to forming the present progressive tense in Turkish. We also talked a little bit about the simple present tense, but did not devote much time to it because it is very uncommon to use the simple present tense in Turkish. It is just preferred to use the present progressive tense. Listed below is how the present progressive tense is formed:
Verb: (Pre. Prog) – take the root, add “yor”, then add pronoun
Okumak = study
Ben: Oku-yor-um = okuyorum Biz: oku-yor-uz = okuyoruz
Sen: Oku-yor-sun = okuyorsun Siz: oku-yor-sunuz = okuyorsunuz
O: Oku-yor = okuyor Onlar: oku-yor = okuyor
It is also important to note that if the root word ends in a consonant, you must add a transition sound after the root word depending on the vowel preceding the consonant.
Transition sounds
If the vowel preceding the consonant is:
“a”, “ı” it will transition to “ı”
“e”, “i” it will transition to “i”
“o”, “u” it will transition to “u”
“Ü”, “Ö” it will transition to “Ü”
Examples:
yazmak = yazıyorum
konuşmak = konuşuyorum
The present progressive is very easy to form. During this month, we also learned how to form the past tense of verbs. The past tense is also very simple to form. It is as follows:
Past tense: take root, add “-di, -dı, -ti, -tı”, then add personal suffix
Sevmek = to like
Ben: sev-di-m = sevdim Biz: sev-di-k = sevdik
Sen: sev-di-n = sevdin Siz: sev-di-niz = sevdiniz
O: sev-di = sevdi Onlar: sev-di = sevdi
One irregularity to in the past tense is that the first person plural conjugation always ends in “k”. this is specific to the past tense. It does not happen in the present or future tenses. Another thing we learned this month is how to negate verbs. The rule for negating verbs is listed below:
Negative verbs: take root, add “mı, mi, mu, mü”, and the rest is the same depending on tense and personal pronoun
Negative present progressive:
Ben: sev-mi-yor-um = sevmiyorum Biz: sev-mi-yor-uz = sevmiyoruz
Sen: sev-mi-yor-sun = sevmiyorsun Siz: sev-mi-yor-sunuz = sevmiyorsunuz
O: sev-mi-yor = sevmiyor Onlar: sev-mi-yor = sevmiyor
Negative past:
Ben: sev-me-dim = sevmedim Biz: sev-me-dik = sevmedik
Sen: sev-me-din = sevmedin Siz: sev-me-diniz = sevmediniz
O: sev-me-di = sevmedi Onlar: sev-me-di = sevmedi
It is important to note that there are some differences in the negative suffixes for the present progressive tense and past tense. The negative past tense uses the exact same preceding vowel while the negative present progressive uses the paired counterpart vowel. In other words, there are 8 possible vowels for the negative past tense suffix while there are only 4 possible vowels for the negative present progressive tense suffix. In my opinion, learning how to negate verbs in Turkish was one of the easiest grammar rules for me to master. So far I am very content with my language learning journey so far. It really makes me happy to be able to learn a language that is not Latin based.
So far, my language learning journey is going very well. One thing that is very easy about the Turkish alphabet is that each letter makes one, and only one sound. This makes the pronunciations of words extremely easy. After learning the alphabet and basic conversational phrases, we decided to learn about the Turkish pronouns. Pronouns are extremely important in the Turkish language. Almost every word in Turkish sentences receive pronouns in the form of a suffix. Verbs, adjectives, nouns, and adverbs always have pronoun suffixes to clarify who and where these words are being applied to and directed. The pronoun suffixes are as follows:
(ex. Doktor)
1st person singular: -(vowel)m 1st person plural: -(vowel)z
(ex. Doktorum) (ex. Doktoruz)
2nd person singular: -s(vowel)n 2nd person plural: -s(vowel)n(vowel)z
(ex. Doktorsun) (ex. Doktorsunuz)
3rd person singular: - 3rd person plural: -
(ex. Doktor) (ex. Doktor)
Another thing that is very important to note is that the Turkish language has a strict rule of vowel harmony. Suffixes have rules about what vowels can be used in them. Based on the vowel sound preceding the first suffix, only one vowel can be used to match that sound. The vowel harmony rules are as follows:
VOWEL HARMONY
A, I > I
E, i > i
O, U > U
Ü, Ö > Ü
If the root word’s last vowel is in one of the vowels to the left of the arrow, the suffixes being applied to the root word will only contain the corresponding vowels to the right of the arrow. For example:
iyi > iyiyim
güzel > güzelim
Üzgün > Üzgünüm
In order for us to master how to use the suffixes, our teacher gave us a list vocabulary words and asked us to study the definitions and do all of the personal conjugations for homework. In addition to this, we also learned the sentence structure for the Turkish language. This is something that I struggled with at first because the structure is the complete opposite of the English sentence structure. English has a subject-verb-object sentence structure while Turkish has a subject-object-verb sentence structure. This sentence structure can sometimes complicate things for me because you must apply the verb to either the subject or object using another suffix. My classmate and I found it to be difficult at first. Unfortunately she dropped the class during this time while we received another student. The new student is a Spanish teacher. This was wonderful for us because we could relate the Turkish teachings back to the Spanish rules since we all studied Spanish. This ended up helping us learn the concepts relatively quickly. During this month, and carrying over to the next month, we really started to focus on speaking and writing in the present/present progressive verb tense. It was fairly easy to learn this verb tense, as it is used the most in Turkish. We also decided that it would be more beneficial if we started meeting twice per week rather than once per week. That way we could gain a lot more practice with each other.
Merhaba (hello). Benim Adım Nile (my name is Nile) and this is my Turkish language learning journey. I really love learning languages. I have been studying languages since I started schooling in kindergarten. English is my first language and I was immersed in Spanish from kindergarten all the way through high school. Once I came to the University of Richmond, I started studying Portuguese. Now I have decided that I wanted to learn a non-Latin based language. I have always wanted to travel to Turkey and learn about the culture and rich history. Before starting to learn the language, I took an Ottoman history class in my freshman year which is what probably sparked my interest in Turkish culture. I have also seen many Turkish people in some of my favorite sources of media. On my first day meeting with my language partner/teacher Görkem, he first asked me about why I wanted to learn Turkish and what knowledge I already have about Turkish culture. He was very surprised about how much I already knew about Turkey. My knowledge included historical facts dating back to the Ottoman times, geographical locations, known politicians, bordering countries, cities within Turkey, ethnic groups, and some authentic foods. He even went on to tell me that a lot of people in Turkey do not even know much of what I had just told him. He then proceeded to give me an overview of basic facts about Turkey. He also asked me about what I wanted to learn about the language. We then came up with a plan of what I wanted learn. My biggest priority was learning the basics to conversational Turkish. The reason I wanted to learn these conversational phrases is so that if I ever have the opportunity to travel Turkey, I will be able to greet people in their language and have general conversation with them. From my traveling experience, people like it way more when you can speak or attempt to speak their language. It makes a lasting impression. After learning those basics, then I would like to progress to more advanced things with the grammar including verb conjugations and tense. In my opinion, it will probably be easiest to start with learning the present tense and then progress to the future and past tenses. So far we have decided to meet once per week for 2 hours. In our first material based meeting we learned our basic conversational phrases like “hello”, “goodbye”, “where are you from”, “my name is…”, “thank you”, and “me too”. One of Görkem’s friends also decided that she wanted to learn a little bit of Turkish, so she joined us. It was very nice to have someone else who was just beginning. It made me feel less dumb and boosted my confidence a bit. Following our first class, I studied my notes for about 20 minutes per night. I was able to quickly learn and memorize every single phrase that we reviewed in our first class. One thing that was helpful for me, was to practice talking to myself even when I did not have anyone to practice with just to help me master the sounds of the Turkish alphabet. So far, I am very content with my language learning journey.
I have personally learned a lot about myself as a language learner and cultural explorer throughout the duration of the semester. I believe the most important thing is my discovery of my passion for language learning. Before taking this course, I never really knew the extent of my interest in language learning. As of now, I have only studied western romance languages, but now I have so much more interest in middle eastern languages which is why I am excited about learning Turkish next semester. If I have the opportunity in the future, I would also like to learn Arabic and Russian. This semester I chose to focus on Brazilian Portuguese. The biggest challenge that I continue to face is my auditory skills. It is very difficult to understand native Brazilian Portuguese speakers because of how fast and how they do not separate their words when they speak. This is the case because I am not a native Portuguese speaker, therefore it will take time for me to train my ear to understand native Portuguese speakers. Also, the phonetic inventory of Portuguese is slightly different than that of English and Spanish. As of now, the way I go about training my ear is by listening to a lot of Portuguese interviews. I am a big fan of MMA, and there are so many Brazilian MMA fighters who only speak Portuguese. I constantly listen to their interviews so that I become more familiar with their dialect. So far, I have really enjoyed the process of learning Portuguese because of my Spanish background. My old Portuguese teacher told me that if you know Spanish, then you already know about 65% of Portuguese which is very true. My reading and writing skills in Portuguese are almost as good as they are in Spanish because of my Spanish background. To continue my Portuguese studies, I will continue to study my textbook and listen to Portuguese interviews. Something that I currently do is practice speaking out loud to myself in Portuguese which somewhat helps me stay fresh. Also, I am very hopeful that I receive the critical language scholarship to study Portuguese in Florianopolis, Brazil. One of the most useful tools for me this semester was the speech accent archive. I absolutely loved listening to the different accents. It very much helps me with understanding the phonetic inventory of a language and how it differs from the English phonetic inventory. There was also another resource that we used in which you spoke into the computer in any language and it would tell you how accurate your pronunciation was. I forgot the name of this resource but I would love to use it in the future. I would just love to learn more about the different Portuguese dialects around the world and what makes them specific to that region. I would also like to learn about the different dialects of Brazil and how they differ from each other. My old Portuguese professor and I talked about how you can tell the difference between the northern region speakers and the southern region speakers. He also talked about how you can tell the difference between the speakers within one city. It is very interesting stuff.
Portuguese belongs to the Indo-European Romance language family. Specifically Western Ibero-Romance. There are a lot of words that show contact with the Arabic world. Words such as Sofá (Al-Suffat) (couch), Bairro (Al-Barri) (neighborhood), Álcool (Al-Kuhul) (alcohol), etc. This is the case because of expansion and trade during the early ages and also because of how close Morocco is to the Iberian peninsula. Portuguese also has vocabulary from germanic, celtic, and slavic origins. These different word origins show the encounters this region has faced over time with other cultures. This is also shows how languages change over time. Through conquest and trade, more and more vocabulary from other languages are perpetually being added to help the language evolve. Linguists track these changes over time by looking at the similarities between different languages, especially those under the same Indo-European umbrella. They also use historical events such as war, conquest, empires, and trade to track the evolution of a language.
If I had received a research grant to study Portuguese, I would first hire a Brazilian language partner with whom I can speak with daily. For me, the hardest part of learning a new language is speaking it which is what I need to practice the most. The first thing I would want to learn is conversational Portuguese. How greet, how to ask for things, etc. I will then keep leveling up. I already know how to read in Portuguese so the next thing I will attack is listening to Portuguese and understanding the accent. This is also where my language partner helps a lot. By practicing speaking and listening with my language partner, I will continue to level up. The last thing I will conquer is my writing. I currently have the idea of keeping a daily journal in Portuguese to practice writing everyday.
Writing in Portuguese has been pretty easy with my Spanish background. The syntax between the two languages is pretty much identical. I would definitely say that I prefer writing over typing. It is much easier to write the diacritical marks than having to search and use the ALT codes. I definitely can not remember all of the ALT codes. Because I am using Spanish as my base language for learning Portuguese, I am noticing and comparing the patterns in Portuguese to those that I already have learned in Spanish. One of the first patterns that I have noticed is the affixes. For example, if a word in Spanish ends "ión", in Portuguese it will end in "ão" (generalización = generalização). I tend to keep a daily journal in Portuguese of things that happened that day in order to better my writing abilities.
Global conquest plays a huge factor in the reason why some languages go extinct. When small groups of language speakers are conquered by different empires, the native languages that are spoken tend to get traded in for the language spoken by the conqueror. It can be seen as a form of cultural cleansing. Sometimes the people who continue to practice their native language can be punished in different ways. As the time passes from generation to generation, the lesser and lesser speakers there are until there are no more speakers left. There is also not much being done to preserve these languages. Another language-killer is the school systems. There are some things that can be done to preserve a language. People are making databases online that preserve languages. Parents can make an effort to continue to pass the languages down from generation to generation. This extremely difficult nevertheless. Languages can also be preserved through isolation.
Not much has changed. I have gotten to the point to where I have set my mobile phone system completely into Portuguese. One thing that I found very useful from the lectures in class was the speech accent archive. There are so many different Portuguese accents and the speech accent archive really helps me understand the phonetical inventory between different Portuguese speakers across the world. There was also another resource in class that I forgot what it was called. With this website, you can speak in a language and it will type out what you have just said and talk about your accent accuracy. I think that resource would be very useful in helping you speak correctly. The resources given during the lectures have really helped me a lot to say the least. To improve my communicative competence, I just need to practice speaking a lot more. Language and culture have always been linked to each other. They go together like peas and carrots. Languages are linked to a specific group of people from a specific geographical region. Overtime we have seen languages globalize through conquest and imperialism.
One thing that interests me about my target culture of Brazil is the lifestyle in the favelas. Favela life is a completely different world from the city life. The people who live in the city typically have a lot more money than the people who live in the favelas. Favelas are made up of the lower class people. I can say, from outside looking in, it seems that the favelas have a much greater since of community and typically the people look out for each others well-being. Another part of Brazilian culture that I would like to explore is the martial arts. Brazil has some of the most world-renowned martial artists and has some martial art forms native to Brazil. These are capoeira and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I do not believe there is any type of special vocabulary or linguistic knowledge necessary other than knowing Portuguese.
Spelling is related to how the letters of a word are put in order while sound is how the word is phonetically pronounced. Sometimes, the same letter can have different phonetical pronunciations based on the context. When comparing Spanish and Portuguese, the vowels in Spanish each have only one phonetical pronunciation. In Portuguese, vowels can have up to 3 different phonetical pronunciations. The nasal sound in Portuguese does not really exist in the English language. In the words coração (“heart”) and nações (“nations”) the letters ã and õ contain the tilde above them which forces a nasal pronunciation. Another example is the word pão (bread) vs the word pau (wood). If you do not pronounce pão nasally, then people will think you are trying to say wood. The nasal pronunciation is very important. Then most important thing in mastering these phonetical pronunciations is constant practice with native Portuguese speakers.
As a beginner in the world of self-instruction, it is very difficult to incorporate all of the different disciplinary perspectives into my journey to learning Portuguese. It would take so much work and research to find the best resources to incorporate all of them. Instead, on my journey, I will focus on just a few disciplines including: applied linguistics, stylistics, sociolinguistics, and anthropological linguistics. For me, the most important discipline is applied linguistics, because I want to focus on speaking and listening, rather than reading and writing.
Figuring Foreigners Out and Geert Hofstede's analysis are both very interesting. Figuring Foreigners Out pretty much describes a lot of the different cultural dimensions while Geert Hofstede maps those same cultural dimensions around the world. One of the dimensions that I found most interesting to look at was the "individualism vs. collectivism" dimension. Individualist cultures pretty much have a primary focus on the individual. People really only care about themselves and their own survival which can be seen as selfish. In collectivist cultures, the primary focus is the group as a whole. People are friendlier, and care a lot about other people's well-being. When Geert Hofstede maps "individualism vs. collectivism", it is not surprising to see what countries tend to be more individualist or collectivist. The United States, which is arguably the most capitalist nation in the world, was identified as the most individualist which is not surprising. In contrast to that, Cuba, which is one of the most socialist nations in the world, was identified as one of the most collectivist nations in the world. I definitely do agree with these assessments. My target culture of Brazil falls right in the middle of the spectrum which also does not surprise me when analyzing the favela lifestyle vs. the city-dwelling lifestyle.
