For me the reading was quite informative. Although it was not easy to read, I learned a lot about language and how competence in this field is structured.

Figure 8.1 which shows the language competence is very interesting. It is familiar to me, though, as I think it is very similar to the scheme how to grade an essay.

The seven functions of language drew my attention completely. On the one hand, the instrumental function is pretty logical. On the other hand, the rest of them are interesting to read about. I find the personal function and the imaginative function the most capturing. Talking about feelings is difficult for many people and might even be more difficult in some cultures where talking and showing feelings is not valued. Moreover, the imaginative function I consider most important for what is human kind without ideas and dreams? Fairy tails and stories mostly transport essential lessons about life and are thus very valueable.

Also, the sociocultural aspect is an important fact to consider when communicating with people from foreign countries. As there are four meanings, as Thun says, a message can be understood, a person might interpret the message in a different way than intended.

The five levels of formality are quite interesting too. It might be of advantage to adapt one' s vocabulary and way of expression to the style one is using to communicate with others effectively.

It is interesting to read the articles as they go very deep into detail.

One point I can take out from it is that the brain monitors itself and gets feedback from the ears, the lips, the tongue and so on. When I learn a new language this is definitely true. I try to watch myself while pronouncing new words and often notice when making mistakes. So, this information confirms my learning tactic described above and I will continue to do so.

Further, I understand Plato' s naturalist view saying that the word itself carries its meaning. Words like wow, oh etc. transmit their meaning well if properly intonated. Some words in new languages I learn through this approach. In many cases I connect the words with certain metaphors in order to learn and memorize them better.

Moreover, the "parcel-out" thing is very nice and puts my motivation why I learn more and more languages nicely. Every language has a different interpretation of life. In English a cousin may be female or male whereas in French there is a distinction between female and male cousins. Thus, with every language learned, one gets a broader understanding of culture, and I would even say, the world and life.

Also, collocations and vocabulary emphasizes the importance of context. This is why I try to memorize new words in the sentence they were used in order to have the original meaning.

I liked the NYT article about bilingualism a lot.

Although I did not think that being brought up in two languages would actually make you smarter, it is true. 

It is not surprising that we see those benefits when examining babies. On the other side, it is surprising to me that the blockage in the brain when speaking more than one language is a benefit in reality. In fact, I met an exchange student in Richmond who was raise bilingual German- French. We made a treaty which said that I ll speak with her just in French and she will speak with me just in German. This was a very nice and precious experience!

Also, the being more efficient part is good to hear, but difficult to imagine. Well, certainly, speaking two languages is a quite demanding task, but I simply cannot see the connection between being more efficient and speaking two languages.

Finally, having a potential advantage when talking about Alzheimer is very reassuring as I believe that Alzheimer is one of the worst illnesses to face.

Knowing about the history of a language is very helpful.

As far as it concerns me, Hindi is an indogerman language and therefore related to German and Latin. Since I know those two languages, I have an advantage and I know to which language I can refer to when learning new structures. This includes two main parts of a language: vocabs and grammar. Unfortunately, intonation might be different, as it is very variable depending on the people speaking it. 

Also, in Hindi there are a lot of Arabic and Farsi influences as the mughals were speaking these languages. So, today there are some words which are of Arabic or Farsi origin. One example would be "Thank you". The Arabic version is "sukriya" whereas the original Indian version is "dhanyavad".

As I my goals do not include learning how to read and write in my target language, I cannot go much into detail about reading Hindi.

However, I do know some grammar. In Hindi the verb is always at the end of the sentence. This might be awkward for native English speakers. For me, as I have learned Latin in high-school, it is not and in fact, I can actually relate to Latin, when learning Hindi grammar. So, apart from the fact that the verb in Hindi and Latin comes at last in a sentence, another special grammar rule is how to express possession of something. Again, this is similar to Latin' s "Dativus possessivus". Here, possession is expressed with the third case and not the first.

At the end of this semester I look back with great honor at my achievement in the Hindi self-learning class. I am confident engaging in small talk with people, buying food at the local market, and being able to understand basic and daily conversations. On the other side, I have to admit, that asking the way around and  telling small stories are still some issues which challenge me. I plan to overcome those by practicing on the web and watching videoclips on youtube which address this topic. 

It was kind of difficult to actually sit down and reserve time for Hind learning as I thought it was easy. Well, now I knw that I might have underestimated the effort one has to put into learning a foreign language in the beginnig. However, as the semester proceeded, I read the article Prof. Grove sent us and I found the advices really helpful. For instance, I made my own place just for learning Hindi. This was in the TLC in the library. I think it really helps to approach a language learning project systematically and document the progress. Even, if you do it for fun. I liked using youtube and the internet as sources to get inspiration and found many useful websites offering help for Hindi students.

As a next step, I would love to maintain my acquired level and even improve myself learning more vocabs and getting more familiar with the grammar. Thus, I think it is essential to keep up the oral practice and be exposed to Hindi. I want to achieve my goal of being fluent in Hindi and am thererfore considering spending one to twor months in India. 

Also, I would like to stay in touch with my Indian friends here on campus and establish regular Skype conferences in order to keep in touch and to practice my skills. 

Hindi%20dabbawalla.pptx

Summary:

The famous Mumbai dabbawallas are an essential part of Mumbai' s culture since 1890. They provide delivery service in Mumbai, India, picking up the home- made, fresh food, which the wife cooked, from the client' s house and delivering it to the downtown offices where the husbands work. The concept of the dabbawallas work only because of the mentality Indians have, valuing home made food. Also, the prevailing environment makes their services very valueable. As traffic and public transport in Mumbai is always very dense and it is a headache to transport something, the dabbawallas remain unchallenged in their field of expertize. They use a color code in order to deal with the illiteracy of the dabbawallas which make them so special. Moreover, it is mind-boggling that their error rate literally is zero and that this great accomplishment is achieved by illiteral people increasing their reputation dramatically. 

sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N25inoCea24

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala

http://mumbaidabbawala.in/

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-10-09/news/42864162_1_dabbawalas-siemens-india-medium

http://www.economist.com/node/11707779

http://www.theedgemalaysia.com/sports/181274-what-harvard-is-learning-from-the-mumbai-dabbawalas.html

art%234.band.zipThis artifact is about telling to a friend what happened today.

Goals:

-) Speak in past tense

-) Speak fluently

-) Talk about different activities

-) Say what happened at what time

Tasks:

-) Revise past tense

-) Prepare phrases to say

-) Revise vocabulary for activities

-) Revise how to express time

Evaluation:

The recording went really well. I had to look at my notes though. However, I hot a better understanding for Hindi. For instance, as I went through the phrases and asked my friends how to translate it, they let me guess first and then corrected me. As for the main parts I was fine, there were a few grammatical errors. In the end, I am happy to speak Hindi at a higher level than when I arrived on campus.

The first artifact is about how Indians greet.

Goals:

-) Know how to greet in Hindi

Tasks:

-) Learn used phrase

Evaluation:

To evaluate, I would simply greet someone in Hindi and see whether he replies appropriately.

After the artifact:

Greeting people in Hindi is quite easy. However, one also has to consider the cultural aspect and actually bow one' s head. This is what "Namaste" means, "I bow my head to you".

week 7 (March 10- 14)

At the meeting with Niyati we talked about Indian dishes and leisure activities. Famous dishes are Biryani, Chicken tikka, or Tandoori Chicken. We just used google and I pointed out some dishes and explained what they were made out from. This exercise was interesting and I liked working with photos of Indian food. It actually made me hungry.

week 8 (March 17- 21)

I watched some Bollywood songs on youtube and wrote down expressions which occur regularly. For instance, kangan, bracelet and muskana are used quite often. Niyati translated me the songs during the meetings and tried to explain the cultural context too. This was pretty effective as I learned a lot and can now better understand or at least get the basic meaning of a Bollywood song.

My learning activity is teaching someone how to introduce yourself talk about your job, your interests and your favorite thing about India.

The activity was a great success! My student was happy to say some phrases in Hindi and thought that saying those things mentioned above were not very difficult. Basically, I said the phrases first and my student repeated them.

week 9 (March 24- 28)

Niyati taught me how to find my way through a city. As we both know Mumbai, we did a dialogue, where I asked my way to Churchgate station from Infinity Mall. We used google maps to find our way and I think practicing my oral skills was very helpful.

week 10 (March 31- April 4)

We talked about grammar, the present tense and the past tense. It was clarifying to have a native speaker explain me the grammar in an understandable way. I always heard people talk Hindi, but was never quite sure which tense they were using. Niyati used "mindurhindi.com" to illustrate and show examples.

week 11 (April 7- 11)

I revised the vocabulary I had learned and practiced how to ask the way to go to the nearest post office.

There was no meeting with Niyati as she was busy practicing for the bollywood dance performance show.

week 12 (April 14- 18)

That week we focused on how to purchase items on the food market. First, Niyati taught me the phrases I would have to use and then we practiced them, me being the customer and she being the vendor. Typical phrases were "How much does this cost?" or "That is far too expensive." I found talking in Hindi, doing the dialogue, helpful as you get the feeling for the language.

week 13 (April 21- 25)

Last week was pretty busy as we both had some exams and I spent most of the time preparing my final presentation. We did not meet in that week.

20140429_220524.jpg

The following activities I have been doing in order to practice and finally improve my Hindi skills:

Week 1 (Jan, 27-Feb2):

At the first meeting with my tutor Niyati we spoke about the main feelings and emotions. It was interesting for me to see the parallels to the many bollywood movies I had watched. Especially, I could relate to the songs and memorize the emotions vocabs well beause I can precisely picture the scenes where feelings like sadness or happiness is expressed. I watched some bollywood songs among which the most memorable for me was 'kabhi khushi, kabhi gam'-

'sometimes happyness, sometimes sadness'. Besides I revised all the other emotions vocabs (happy, sad, smile, suprised, angry, etc.) 

Week 2 (Feb 3- Feb 7): 

In the second week I did some analytical activities. To be more specific, I watched- I know, again- some bollywood songs and tried to translate the lyrics and understand how the song fits the movie. At that time I noticed that certain vocabs were used more often than others. They mostly were about love stories and feelings. So this activity was a good revision of the first week of studies.

Week 3 (Feb 10- 16):

Unfortunately, I had no meeting with the tutor this week as we experienced difficulties finding a date. However, I focused on verbs and phrases used for smalltalk. 

Week 4 (Feb 17- 23):

At my meeting with the tutor we did grammar, namely conjugation of main verbs in present and past. Those include: t be, to say, to take, to walk, to live etc.) Surprisngly, in Hindi there is no verb 'to have'. Instead, 'to be' is used in the third case. This is nothing new to me as the same construction exists in Latin (Dativus possesivus).

During the rest of the week, I memorized these verbs and tried to form simple, but proper sentences.

The goals of this week were to memorize and understand the conjugation of verbs in present and past. I practiced the conjugation of common verbs and paid attention to the suffixes. I can say, that I now know how to conjugate verbs, both in present and past, which is essential to build sentences.

Week 5 (Feb 24- March 2):

At the meeting with the tutor we spoke about the human body and the names of the bodyparts. Later in the week I revised what I have learned.

This week was more relaxed than the one before.  I just wanted to name and be able to address the parts of the human body. For example, I wanted to know how to say, "Give me your hand." or "Close your eyes.". Also, those words are important as they are often used in Bollywood songs. Niyati showed me the different parts of the body by painting them down on the blackboard. Later, named them, which worked pretty well.

Week 6 (March 3- March 9):

I did not meet with my tutor since the day we had our meeting on, classes were cancelled. Nevertheless, I focused on how to describe a typical day in my life. (getting up at 7am, having breakfast, going to classes, studying, lunch etc.)

To my mind, the University of Richmond is quite elective. I say this refering to the application process. Besides getting all the paper work done, there were lots of other things to worry about. Since the US is very conscious about foreigners bringing in sicknesses, I faced serious issues meeting the Tuberculosis requirements. I had to spend a big amount of time investigating which institution offers the Tuberculosis Quantiferon test, yeah, I still now its name, required by the University's health department. Finally, I found out that the department of national health security only does this testing and that this test is requested once in a blue moon.

The students in the video talked about their experiences with Americans, f.i. it is not usual to say 'no' in the US. This may lead to a misunderstanding unless people are aware of it. In addition, this might be a reason why international students tend to stick together most of the time. Since they all have to deal with culture shock, they feel that they get along better having something in common. 

I found the culture shock video very interesting and even amusing some times. Being an international student, I can confirm that we internationals tend to stick together a lot. I would say this is because we know each other for longer and most of us are studying the same, business. For instance, in the spring 2014 term approximately 90% of the internationals are business majors. This is not surprising to me as I spent much time on selecting the university I want to go to in the US and I think my fellow colleagues did the same.

For myself, I put great effort in getting to know Americans better and it has been worth it. Also, this is because I am interested in lot of different activities. From what I have been told and from what I have experienced so far, the key to an American is doing something together. Activities in all kind of varieties, whether it is going to Salsa or Tango night, joining the Quidditch team or Archery club or simply attending professional events like a talk with an UR alumni CFO or Barclays manager, will certainly help making friends.

I have been laying emphasis on expanding my vocabulary and get a feeling for the construction of sentences.

In Hindi the verb is placed right at the end of every phrase. In addition, there are more grammatical rules which differ from German. However, since I am quite good at Latin, I can refer to this ancient language. This helps me to memorize certain phrases better.

Ultimately, my goal is to be able to have short and basic, allday conversations. Basically, I want to be independent while travelling through India. Thus, I need to enwiden my word treasury of words and listen to allday conversation.

As for now, I know approximately 80 words and about five phrases. This allows me to talk about my family, my studies and my daily life back home, in Vienna.

The fact that stroke me the most is that some words commonly used in Hindi are very similar to the Roman languages, French, Spanish and of course Latin, f.i. kamiz for camisa, Spanish, shirt. Also vice versa many words in English or even German are from Indian origin, f.ex. shampoo for capna, Hindi, to massage or Punsch, German meaning hot punch, for panj, Hindi.

110%20hindi%20intro-greeting.band.zip

110%20hindi%20intro-name.band.zip

A)   Current Abilities

1. basic auditive and speaking skills

B)   Goals

1. Small Talk
2. Asking the way
3. Buying food at the market/ bazar
4. Telling small stories
5. Learn more vocabulary
6. Being able to understand Bollywood movies (plot and basic conversations)

C)   Tasks

     1. identify typical phrases- learn phrases on omniglot.com and practice with language partner                                       

2. identify vocabulary and phrases- practice with my language partner and memorize phrases with flashcards

3. know what is sold in an Indian market and how payment is made (bargain or fixed prices?)- learn vocabulary (Indian vegetables, fruits, spices, numbers(1-10, 20, 30, ... 100, 1000)) and practice dialogue with language partner

4. focus on storytypes: What did you do during the holidays? How was your exchange semester? What did you do yesterday night? How was the party?- ask learning partner for help and memorize basic phrases (I danced with friends. We went to a famous club. I had a great time. etc.)

5. choose topics (numbers, feelings, weather)- memorize via ankisrs.net

6. identify frequently appearing phrases and vocabs- Watch Hindi movies with subtitles/listen to songs with lyrics and write phrases and vocabs down, practice them 

 Non-verbal communication is considered to be very important when talking to Indians. 

Thus, it is essential to follow certain rules described below:

First, men should not touch women for greeting or meeting in public nor vice versa.  

Second, shaking hands for greeting is acceptable although saying 'namaste' while slightly bowing your head with folded hands is prefered. This shows respect for Indian customs.

Third, showing affection in public is not proper.k

Moreover, it is rude to point at someone with a single finger. One should use the whole hand or the thumb.

Also, the left hand is considered to be unclean and one should never touch another person's head since this part of the body is holy to Indians.

In addition, when an Indian shakes his head in a slope looking like the infinity sign, he wants to say 'yes' whereas if an Indian says 'I will try', he acutally means 'no' in a polite way.

What is more, if a person is offered a 'chai' or a beverage, refusing it is impolite and could be interpreted as an offense.

This is similar when having food. The plate must always be clean since leaving food on the plate is offensive. 

To adress the time aspect: Meeting with friends or even business people is difficult. It might be true, that someone comes half an hour later than scheduled or does not show up at all. Another fact that explains some of the above customs is that India is focused on its past. That means it lays greater emphasis on traditions and long-term relationships. 

The presenations hold in class on Feb. 11 were fascinating. The topics ranged from South Corean cuisine to the concept of Beauty in India. Surprisingly all speakers were girls except me which I found quite interesting from an observer's point of view.

I liked Gargi's explanation right at the beginning of her presentation a lot. She concluded that from a country's cuisine one gets useful information about the country's geopgraphy and its climate. One point I missed, but which I remembered from my intercultural competence class back in Vienna, was this: The kind of a country's main grain, being its most important food, determines its mentality. This is either individualism or  collectivism. Since in most Asian countries people eat rice, they usually are collectivists due to the fact that planting rice needs lots of people whereas planitng wheat can be done by a few.

Moreover, I learned much from presentation about South Corea. I did not know that the cosmetic industry is so big over there and that especially men are concerned about their physical appearance. Also the distinction between discos and night clubs was interesting although I found it somewhat sad why girls go to the nightclubs. They seem to be exactly like a bordelle except they are free.