I went into this semester genuinely wanting to learn Farsi, but also nervous that I would not be an effective self-directed learner.  I realized very quickly that “self-directed” didn’t mean “unstructured” or “un-important”.  I thought in the beginning that just because we wouldn’t attend official classes in the language, or complete regulated exams and assignments that this class would be easier than others and take up less time.  What I had really failed to take into consideration was the fact that being a self-directed learner actually takes more time than just being an in-classroom learner, because the student must also play the role of the teacher.  

To begin as a teacher, I designed a curriculum for seven learning goals.  Overall, I have successfully reached each of these goals, however there are some, such as learning the alphabet, which I was able to better accomplish than others, such as learning personal appearance adjectives.  I found many times that my goals were extremely broad, making it difficult for me to judge when I had completed a task.  In the future,  I need to be more specific in my goals and instead of just saying that I will “learn personal appearance adjectives” I need to say that I will  “learn the vocabulary for different colors of hair and for different heights”.  This way, it will be easier to determine when I have fully accomplished a task.

Throughout this entire process  I’ve learned a lot about the type of a learner I am.  As a procrastinator, I tend to put off tasks until right before they are due, finding that the stress actually helps me to complete them.  Because I did not do in-depth descriptions of my learning tasks, I was not forced to challenge myself, often finding that I learned less than I would have in a normal class setting.  I realized from this, that I am a learner who also thrives on the energy of classroom settings.  My want for success in the classroom encourages me to work my hardest.  Usually the professor or fellow students set the bar for work; but without these two entities, I found that it was difficult to set and achieve personal goals.  If I want to continue as a self-directed learner of Farsi, I will have to make specific tasks and activities and keep to a strict schedule.  I must keep myself accountable for setting and achieving personal language goals. I will also have to be honest about my ability in the language so that I am able to create and complete goals that are appropriate for my language-level.    

Throughout this process I have become more appreciative of my previous experiences in language learning.  I began learning French at the age of 12 and still don’t consider myself fluent.  However, I often grew frustrated throughout this semester whenever I’d compare my knowledge of French to Farsi.  Thinking back, I realize how much effort I’ve put into ten years of French and four years of Spanish, and know that if I want to gain a real understanding of Farsi, I will need to commit even more.  Language learning isn’t just an overnight or one-step process.  In the beginning of this course, everyone doubted that listening to the language for 15-minutes each day was necessary to learning.  However, after practicing this a few times a week, I realized that I was able to better pronounce the sounds and to even recognize words.  I tested myself by seeing if I could read the words on the screen and then hear for the word to be spoken.  Every part of language learning is crucial for complete knowledge.  I needed to hear the sounds of the language in order to make it less foreign.  Once I realized that I could form connections to the language, I realized that I could make it more relatable to my own life and then easier to learn.   

For me, language learning and cultural knowledge are interconnected.  It was easier to acquire new vocabulary when I could attach it to cultural knowledge.  This way, I had visuals of cultural practices linked to words that had before seemed distant.  I have definitely developed my skills as an observer of other cultures because I have now learned a little about middle-eastern culture.  I have a new lens with which I can view other cultures, and I have new tools to understand unfamiliar practices. 

When I think back on this semester, I really am amazed about how far I’ve come with Farsi.  I still have a lot left to accomplish, but I believe that I’ve set a very sturdy foundation for my learning.  The alphabet-task was one that loomed over my head from the first day of the semester.  The letters all looked so strange to me, and I wasn’t even able to define the beginnings and endings of words.  But now when I look at Farsi words, I am proud to know the names of each of the letters and to be able to read entire paragraphs.  Of course, I don’t always know the meaning of what I’m reading since my vocabulary isn’t very expansive.  Rosetta Stone was a great help in the beginning, but when my learning seemed to plateau, I lost a lot my incentive to go to the Global Studio.  I really wish that this resource had been more accessible because I think I would have used it more often and seen greater progress.  It really was an amazing experience to be able to talk to two native-speakers, Wadia and Maroof, but I sometimes found that having two language  partners made things more confusing.  Sometimes my partners would pronounce letters differently or would have entirely different vocabulary words.  This made learning more difficult for me because I was sometimes unclear about what I was learning and wouldn’t commit to either word.  From this, I again missed the structure of an organized classroom where a definitive vocabulary list is supplied.  In the future, I would suggest that students only have one language partner, but that they still meet once privately and once in a group setting.  I’m a learner that often has to do something in order to learn it and so it was easiest to learn while producing something.  For example, I made a family tree when learning the names for different family members and practicing spelling.  Because I was using the words, I had something concrete with which to remember them.

Overall, this has been a very positive experience for me.  I now have a whole new appreciation for Farsi that I lacked before this course.  In exploring the culture and meeting the people of Farsi-speaking nations, I gained a new connection to the language and an eagerness to learn. I plan to continue with my learning, hoping that I will be more successful now that I have realized how to better set personal tasks and deadlines.  I know that self-directed learning takes a high level of commitment and that the results are often slower than in a traditional classroom, but I also  know that I have the foundations to continue with Farsi and my development as a self-directed language learner. 

It's so strange to look back at this past summer and see how far I've come in my Farsi-learning.  I reached all of my language goals so that makes me feel very satisfied, but at the same time I personally saw myself coming a lot farther than I was able to.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Rosetta Stone turned out to be a little disappointing for me.  I discussed this with other Farsi students who agreed and who had also hoped to get through a lot more of the Rosetta Stone lessons than they were able to.  I was hoping to at least complete all of Level 1 for Farsi, and had even hoped to begin Level 2.  However, I only made it through about half of Level 1, completing 2.5 of the lessons provided.  Since I've been studying French and Spanish throughout college, I've gotten used to those languages coming pretty easy for me, and so Farsi was also frustrating because I was starting from scratch once again. 

The alphabet proved to be more difficult to learn than I'd expected.  I sort of just thought that most of the letters would have English equivalents and that there would be one letter to correspond to each sound, however, because of Arabic influences there are sometimes many ways to write one sound, such as the four different "s" and "z"'s.  This made learning to spell quite difficult because although I could recognize the sound, I wouldn't be positive of which letter I should use, and it became more about memorization than about pronunciation.  Additionally, the Farsi alphabet does not contain vowels, so I wasn't able to simply look at a word and know how to pronounce it, instead I would need a native speaker to pronounce the word for me or I would have to look it up in a dictionary that included phonetic pronunciations.

What I've really enjoyed about this class has been the cultural aspect that comes along with learning.  Not only did I learn to say the different names for rooms in houses, but I also learned about the style of homes, problems facing modern-day Kabul, and how houses can be representations of family-life and structure. 

I really would like to continue learning Farsi.  I think that this language will be very useful in my future career, and after putting in a semester of work, I would really hate to just see those skills lost.  With language-learning, practice really is necessary, so I know I will have to continue to make myself work to study Farsi.  I plan on making my own calendar, similar to the learning plan that I've used this semester so that I can hold myself accountable for future learning. 

All in all, this has been a very positive experience.  I didn't learn as much grammar as I would have liked, and I'm not really able to just form sentences or describe my actions, I am however able to talk about my family, my house, tell the time, and have introductory conversations.  I definitely have a great basis to continue working with and I think that now that I have some basic knowledge of Farsi, with the help of native speakers, it will be a lot easier to continue with my self-directed language learning. 

This is a video that I had a friend film where I write out the Farsi alphabet, while saying the letters' Farsi names. 

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

Clothing.mov

This is a movie that I made where I say the number, type, and color of different items of clothing. 

For this learning activity, I decided that it would be easiest to just work on pronunciation and to ignore spelling.  The alphabet took a while for me to learn, and I figured that for someone only learning a few phrases, knowing how to spell them wasn't really necessary.  I would teach someone to say "Hi. How are you? I'm fine thank you.  And you?" 

To begin teaching this I would start by teaching the word for hello "Salaam".  The other person would repeat the word after me a few times.  Then, I would change the subject and we would talk about something else for a little while until I again asked them to say hello and they would repeat "Salaam". 

Next, I would teach "How are you?", which in Farsi is "Chetoree".  Similar to how I taught "Salaam", I would take "Salaam" and then wait for them to ask me "Chetoree".  We would take turns saying the two phrases so that the other person got comfortable with them.  Next, I would teach "I am fine, thank you.  And you?"  which in Farsi is "Khoobam, merci.  Va shoma?".  We would go over the conversation many times.  The "Kh" sound is difficult to pronounce at first so we would spend a little longer trying to get the sound right, which needs to be pronounced from the throat.  We would practice this conversation many times, taking turns starting it so that both parts could be learned.

I tried this method with my boyfriend, and he actually seemed to pick up pretty fast.  The problem seemed to be though, that he had simply memorized the order of the phrases and so if I switched up the order a little, he wouldn't know what to respond with.  I found that this could be fixed by spending more time on each phrase so that he could truly understand the meaning of it, and not just the order. 

familytree.mp3

In this recording I say my own name, my parents' names and my brother's name.  I also say how many siblings my parents have and then I make a distinction between the 8 different words for "cousin" by saying how many of each type of cousin I have. 

Artifact1.mp3

This is a conversation that Michael and I recorded where we introduce ourselves, say where we are from, and ask for and say the time.

This week I worked on learning the different parts of the body.  I have completed most of my other language tasks, and so as a group we decided to learn each others' personal goals as well and one students was to learn body parts.

I thought that the body parts would be a lot more difficult to learn than they actually were.  In fact, I sort of felt like a little kid again, studying my cartoon figure with the names listed.  One part that was especially easy was the fact that there is not a specific word for "toes", in Farsi it's just the same word that is used for fingers.

As I mention in my cultural post, I've really enjoyed watching the other students give their cultural presentation.  Often in class, we'll discuss our language progress and so we hear small bits about what the other students have been studying, but these cultural projects have really allowed me to actually learn more about what the other students are doing. 

This week I worked a surprising lot with Rosetta Stone, attempting to learn the different names of rooms of houses.  Rosetta Stone had a few very good activities on this.  It did not include any information about furniture, so I have not learned those words, but I can identify the different rooms. For my cultural project, I have decided to research housing in Afghanistan.  For this reason, I spent my weekly meeting with Wadia discussing housing.  Typically, Wadia and I work on grammar, vocabulary, or pronunciation; so I usually have a lot to report back here about my progress.  This week, however, was more culture-related and so my language progress during my practice session wasn't as great as it's been in other weeks. 

I did come out of the meeting feeling like I'd learned a lot about living in Afghanistan, which to me seems more valuable than learning some new vocab words.  First, Wadia told me a lot about how different social classes live, and she got on google to look up some different styles of houses for me.  She also taught me about decorations around houses and made a point to teach me the difference between the public and private life.  She also showed me pictures of curtains and explained that they're typically very thick and heavy so that they can truly separate the private inside life from the public view.  She also explained the influence that Western culture has had on Afghanistan and told me about how her house has a very Western style.  What I found most interesting though, was that despite the Western influence, appliances are still very different.  Traditional homes do not have refrigerators, dish washers, dining tables, or even western-style beds.  She did explain that her house does have separate rooms for separate family members and that they have western style beds.  Refrigerators, however, are a strange commodity and even rich people do not necessarily have them.  Freezers are a sign of wealth.  They show that someone is able to have cold drinks, which is a luxury in Afghanistan. 

Conversations about homes gradually led to conversations about family.  Wadia got on Facebook and showed me pictures of her siblings and cousins.  Back when I was learning vocabulary about family members, I was a bit thrown off by the 8 words for "cousin".  However, when Wadia was showing me pictures of her cousins and siblings hanging out together, it made sense to me why their culture has more words for our one word.  In Afghanistan, families are much more close-knit than I'm used to here in the US.  Cousins will often live under one roof and so it is necessary to have 8 words in order to differentiate between father's sister's sons and mother's brother's daughters. 

Since our class has decided to stray away from the syllabus, there isn't a reading for me to comment on this week.  The syllabus does mention cross-cultural experiences, so I can talk about a few of the experiences that I have had.  I've had a few cross-cultural experiences throughout my life, most of them occurring in the past four years while at the University of Richmond.  The largest of these experiences definitely occurred in my time studying abroad in Rennes, France.  Not only was I immersed in a completely new culture, but I was also surrounded by people who were also foreign to France.  When I first decided to study abroad in France, I was a bit disappointed that I wouldn't be going somewhere exotic like some of my other friends and classmates.  I'd already traveled to France before, and thought that European cultures weren't that different from the culture here in the United States.  This underestimation of differences, however, proved to make transitioning even more difficult.  It was the small differences that I hadn't even considered that actually were the most drastic changes.  Meals were different sizes and eaten at different times of the day.  Breakfast usually consisted of a cup of coffee and a piece of baguette, lunch was the largest and longest meal, usually including a type of meat, and dinner was eaten very late (sometimes not until 1030 at night) and was a small meal, either a type of salad, a dinner crepe, or quiche.  Something that seemed so small (the reordering and resizing of meals) made a huge impact on my day to day life, in that it affected my mood, my level of energy, and even my daily planning.  For instance, I didn't have as much energy after lunch because I'd just eaten a huge meal and wanted to relax, or there was the fact that I had to make my night plans much later because I had to take family dinner into consideration.

What I really learned from that experience was not just that meals take place at different times and in different orders in different cultures, but that ever difference (no matter how small) must be considered.  The experience in France also made an impact on me in that when meeting with Wadia and Maroof, I asked them more questions about the cultural associations that come with different vocabulary.

This week, I was working on learning the different names for food items and on how to order in a restaurant.  Keeping in mind the question of how culture impacts these words, I asked many questions about restaurant etiquette and what types of foods are associated with which meals.  First, because Iran and Afghanistan are Muslim countries, pork is not eaten and so I did not learn the word for pork.  Also, tips are not left at restaurants, and restaurants are typically much more casual than in the US.  I was trying to gain the right vocabulary for ordering in a restaurant, but Maroof constantly told me that all you do is point on the menu and say the name of the thing that you want.  Wadia also showed me some menus and we had a good laugh at certain items...like "French Fries" written out in persian letters, but pronounced the exact same way.  It is very easy in this way to see the influence that the West has had on Persian-speaking countries.  I didn't do too much this week as I spent some time searching for phrases for ordering, and then learned that they don't really exist in a cultural context.  So mainly, this week was spent on food vocabulary, which mostly meant practicing pronunciation as many types of foods are specific plates with made with chicken, lamb, or beef.  All in all, I learned that the most important thing to know for ordering is the different names for types of meet, as the rest of the menu doesn't really have direct translations into English anyways.   

The beginning of this reading talked a lot about dialects and accents.  I had always noticed that there was a difference in the two words' definitions, but had never really stopped to think about what this difference was.  As I learned from the reading, accent refers to distinct pronunciation whereas dialect refers to spoken grammar and vocabulary.  Additionally, people of the same dialect can have different accents.  What I found to be interesting from this part of the reading was the part about the chain of dialects.  In studying different languages, I have noticed the similarities that exist between them, and have often wondered if people who spoke similar languages would be able to understand one another.  As the reading pointed out, people who live in adjacent areas will usually speak dialects of the same language or different languages, so, someone who lives on the border of Spain and Portugal may speak a dialect of Spanish that is similar to a dialect of Portuguese spoken by a neighbor so that, although the two speak different languages, they would be able to verbally communicate.   

This reading also talked about the connections because nationalism, ethnicity, and language.  In particular it discussed the case of the Basque language and its role in forming a national identity. 

This week I worked on learning different parts of the body and names of family members, as well as some simple verb conjugations.  With this new vocabulary and grammar I am able to form some simple sentences, such as saying "I have a brother" or "My father's name is Jeff".  I am still finding that my language learning has slowed a bit, and this has been very frustrating for me.  In the beginning of the semester, it was easier to go to the global studio and spend a few hours on Rosetta Stone, but I've found that as the semester has progressed, my other classes have become more consuming and so it's harder to actually find the time to go to the studio.  I really wish that I would have been able to use Rosetta Stone from my own laptop in my room (I know this isn't possible because of licensing) because I know that I would have used it a lot more.  This way I could have used it everyday for an hour, but somehow needing to go to the Global Studio (especially as a senior who doesn't take many scheduled classes and has other commitments) has proven more difficult than I would have thought. 

Work has continued to progress with my language partners.  Typically we'll go over what I've been practicing each week and then they help me with pronunciation and spelling.  I was initially very excited about having two different language partners, but it's actually been more difficult having two than one.  Since my partners are from different areas, they pronounce letters differently and sometimes use different words.  Also, it does take up more time because I must explain my progress to each partner and they like to work the sessions in different ways.  For this reason, I'd suggest that in the future, students only have one language partner.  I believe that there should still be a group meeting and then an individual meeting each week, but that each student should have the same partner for both meetings to keep consistency and lessen confusion. 

I really found this reading interesting because I love looking at how different languages relate.  When learning Spanish, I found that I was often comparing it to my previous knowledge of French and English.  And although the similarities seem to be less frequent in Farsi, I still enjoy learning about the it connects to other languages.  One such similarity is actually expressed in the book with the different words for father in various Indo-European languages.  Although not included as an example, the Persian word for father, pedaer, fits into the model shown. 

As explained in Cultural Post #2, Farsi is a part of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European languages.  For me, it's interesting to look at the other languages in this branch such as Panjabi, Bengali, or Kurdish, because I enjoy seeing which languages are closest to Farsi. 

Before this course, I never really thought about how knowing a language's history could help me to learn the language.  I never really learned language history while studying French or Spanish and now actually wonder about how it could have helped me in the process.  For me, the most helpful part about knowing the history of Persian, comes from understanding the use of borrowed words.  In learning the history, I learned about the Arabic invasion and conquest, which explains the use of many Arabic words.  I'm also thankful that the language has evolved as it has, because the older versions of Persian were actually more grammatically complicated as nouns had genders and there was a different form used for counting nouns.

Unfortunately, I didn't accomplish as much over break as I would have liked.  I did receive my new book "Spoken World Farsi" and began looking through it.  So far, I really like the way that the book works.  It's set up to be like an actual course, so I'll have to follow the chapters successively as they build on points and vocabulary learned in previous chapters.  There is also a set of cds that comes with the book.  One cd contains the spoken dialogue of the conversations that are transcribed in the book.  This way I can either follow along in the book as I read, or, as I get better I can test myself by just listening to the dialogues.  There is also another cd that is used for "on the go" learning.  This cd contains lessons that are spoken aloud so that I can learn when I'm in the car or at the gym, which is perfect for me as I've had a hard time scheduling time to practice my Farsi.  For the most part, the book contains lessons that are a part of my learning plan so I'm really looking forward to putting this to use. 

Over the break, I also developed new inspiration for learning Farsi.  As I'd previously stated, I wanted to learn the language because I was interested in working for an agency (governmental or non) that would do international work.  I wasn't quite sure about this though, and although I'm in school now and learning, I wasn't sure if this would continue to inspire me to learn Farsi after graduation.  I was recently accepted into a graduate program for conflict analysis and resolution and because of this I know that I should definitely stay devoted to my Farsi studies, as this language skill will be very useful in my future profession. 

Of all the readings from How Language Works, I found this portion to be the most interesting.  As I've already mentioned, most of the previous readings have been more of review for me since many of the topics were covered in my linguistics course; this information, however, was new to me and I really enjoyed it.  I was completely shocked to read that on average, a language is dying somewhere in the world every two weeks.  I believe that languages are an extremely important aspect of culture.  Just by viewing the vocabulary of a language, so much can be learned about that culture.  And so, I believe that language preservation is extremely important even as the world becomes more "flat" and globalized.  When traveling, I always note how people of others cultures usually know multiple words in English and are able to communicate in English, even if that communication is very minimal.  While in France, I became easily frustrated when I attempted to speak French in stores and the sales associates (or even street vendors) would insist on responding in English as soon as they noted my American accent.  English has become such an important language to know and tends to be the common language between people of non-English speaking countries.  For this reason, I have often wondered if everyone in the world will just begin to speak a common language, and if that language will be English.  Even though certain aspects of life would become easier with a common language, I would hate for this to happen.  Sure, people would feel more comfortable traveling to foreign countries, business would be easier to conduct, and everyone could enjoy the same television programs, music, and literature, but at what cost?  I believe that if this were to occur, nations would lose a lot of their individuality.  Personally, I love being able to understand multiple languages.  As great as it is to read translated fables by La Fontaine, there's something so satisfying about reading it in the original French, the way it was written and the way it was meant to be read. 

Reading about the revitalization of Hebrew really did give me a sense of hope about the futures of other dying languages.  As the book mentions, the process of revitalization begins once a community realizes that the language is in danger, so I believe that there should be increased awareness in such communities.  Although as also mentioned, in these communities, people are usually worried about their own personal survival and not linguistic survival.  Because of the cost and effort involved in revitalizing a language, it seems to be that people must weigh the importance of the continuance of a language before deciding if that language is worth revitalization.  For me, determining the importance would include looking at the literature of the language, the possibility of the survival of the people who speak the language, and that language's historic role. 

Another aspect of this reading that I found intriguing was the chapter "How languages changes".  In my linguistic studies, I have been fascinated by the evolution of language.  While studying French, I love to focus on etymology.  I find that doing this makes learning new words and remembering their meaning easier, because I understand their history.  I also loved learning about the role that poetry has played in knowing how words used to be pronounced. 

Again, my actual language learning didn't progress as much as I would have liked this week.  I went over telling the time again with Wadia, and I think that this is just something I'm going to have to practice a lot as it combines knowledge of numbers with grammatical knowledge; which is difficult for me to put together at this point.  Wadia also told me that she is going to give me a mini quiz on Thursday to check my progress.  In this quiz she said sthat she will have me write the alphabet, beginning and ending at different points, and have me write the vocabulary that I have learned thus far, as well as the numbers.  This worried me a little because I'm still having some trouble with writing, but after thinking about it I know that this is a good idea for me, because it will force me to really learn the alphabet and my vocab words.  So far, I've been keeping my alphabet list with me and looking up the letters I'm still confused about, but for this quiz, I will have to know these letters by heart and I will not have the option of looking them up when I'm uncertain. 

I also began to get pretty frustrated with Rosetta Stone this week.  Although it's been great for learning new vocab like numbers, colors, clothes, and other random objects, I'm not learning any grammar.  I can repeat sentences about women/men reading/cooking/swimming, but I'm not sure how to form new sentences and am not really learning verb conjugations or sentence structures because Rosetta Stone doesn't single out certain parts of the sentences.  I tried using the books that are available in the cabinet, but didn't find any that I really liked, and also found it to be sort of a nuisance to have to be in the Global Studio to practice the language.  For this reason, I thought it'd be a good idea to buy my own textbook so that I can do more learning in my own apartment when I'm not able to make it to the Global Studio.  I was also thinking about how I am going to continue learning Farsi once I graduate and no longer have the same resourced available, so I really think it's important for me to start a collection of personal resources.  I went onto Amazon and read reviews of a few different Farsi textbooks and learning programs and ended up purchasing the "Living Language" program.  This program is designed for beginners with no previous knowledge of the language, so it's perfect for me.  It includes audio cds, a textbook, and a workbook, so I will be able to still hear word pronunciation, but will also be able to read explanations of the grammar, and then practice and test myself by using the workbook.  I'll be at home over spring break, and the program should arrive next Monday, so I plan on testing it out while I have plenty of time at home.  This is actually perfect timing as I was worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up my Farsi while home.  I'm very excited to try this out and really hope that it accelerates my language learning. 

This reading started out by talking about different writing systems.  Because I decided that I wanted to learn to speak, read, and write Farsi, I already have some knowledge of its writing system.  I learned new terms in this reading that I can now apply to my knowledge of Farsi.  Farsi's writing system is alphabetic, meaning that "there is a direct correspondence between graphemes and phonemes," (113).  Additionally, the Persian alphabet is consonantal, so only certain phonemes are represented graphically and the vowels are usually implied.  For beginners, vowels can be represented by using diacritics, which look like accent marks either above or below the consonant symbols.  At first, it was very difficult for me to learn to read certain words in Farsi because I wasn't used to this change.  However, I've gotten used to learning words' spellings as I learn their meanings.  This has made learning new words a slower process, but I've noticed that my writing has improved drastically since I've begun this process. 

This reading also contains a table on page 115 that shows examples of various alphabetic systems.  In looking at the Arabic column, I can see how similar the alphabet is to the Persian Alphabet, which contains many more letters.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, I was at first very confused by the Persian alphabet because of multiple variations of the same letters, but seeing the Arabic alphabet makes it more clear that these letters have different pronunciations and uses in Arabic, and are thus used in Persian because of borrowed words where the spelling remains the same, but now pronunciation differs. 

Another change that has been difficult to adapt to is the use of capital letters.  Unlike in English, capital letters in the Persian alphabet signify spelling, the letters place in the word, and how different letters connect.  This means that capital letters do not correspond to any grammar rules.  Additionally, it's been difficult to get used to reading and writing from right to left instead of left to write.  I often find myself first looking to the left, getting confused, and then remembering that I'm supposed to start from the right.  I'm hoping that this will improve with more practice and eventually looking to the right first will become something of habit. 

This past week I met with Dr. Scinicariello to discuss my learning plan and the use of artifacts.  We agreed that I should record a conversation with another Farsi student, but I haven't met with the entire group since that meeting so I haven't yet been able to schedule a time when another student will be available to record a conversation with me, hopefully that will be something that I can figure out in class tomorrow.  For presentational speaking, I would like to be able to describe people including: physical appearance, education and profession.  For an artifact for this, I was thinking of scanning in various pictures of family members or celebrities and then record myself giving descriptions.  I also wanted to learn vocabulary that pertains to homes, such as different styles of lodging, the names of different rooms in the home, and some describing words.  For this artifact, I could possibly use a voki where I describe my own home, or even my dream house.  Finally, I'd like to scan in some of my writing samples as I really am trying hard to get comfortable with my Persian handwriting. 

I wasn't able to use Rosetta Stone as much as I originally wanted to this week, so that was a little disappointing for me.  Since this week is relatively slow in my other classes, I should have a lot more free time where I can get to the studio and use Rosetta Stone.  During our meeting, Dr. Scinicariello told me about "Before You Know It", a free flashcard program online.  As soon as she mentioned this program, I knew that it fit my learning style.  I've found that it's extremely easy to use, and I've loved browsing through the lists and deciding which vocabulary I want to learn.  Already this week, I was able to learn colors and numbers through the program, so I'm definitely going to continue to use it. 

During my language-partner meetings we worked on telling time.  Since I came into it knowing the numbers, I figured that it'd be really easy to pick up, however I soon realized that I was easily getting confused because of all the different ways to tell time just as there are in English.  The time 9:15 can be expressed as "Nine, fifteen" "fifteen past nine" "Quarter after nine".  In Farsi, it seems that there are even more possibilities, and once I became comfortable with one way to express the time, I'd move onto the next, forgetting the previous way.  I've tried to spend time categorizing the different ways and trying to learn them, but I seem to be making up new words, so I think that for me it might be best to decide on one way and stick to it, instead of trying to learn them all at once. 

I really enjoyed the readings from Figuring Out Foreigners.  I found it interesting how the author was able to communicate ideas about cultures by comparing the extremes of cultural behaviors.  We talked a little about nonverbal communication the second week in class, and it was again mentioned in this reading.  I had already thought about how signals could have the same or different meanings in different cultures, but I didn't think about what might happen if someone accidentally used nonverbal communication when simply making a hand gesture that doesn't have a meaning in their own language.  This reading also made me question which cultures are considered individualist and which ones are collectivist.  I definitely think that the US (or at least the East Coast) is more of an individualist culture, with people working towards their own goals rather than the goals of the group.  The point about time is also extremely important.  I always just thought that all cultures were monochronic, but discovered how the US is more monochronic than many other cultures when I studied abroad.  While in France last year, I realized that French culture is more polychronic than the US.  In France, it was almost rude to arrive on time.  When invited to a dinner party at 20:00, guests were actually expected to arrive around 20:30 or 21:00.  I'd like to find out about how the Persian-speaking cultures treat time, and will be sure to ask Wadia or Maroof about this in our next meeting.  I really never thought about the approaches of indirect/direct communication.  Now that I think of it, while studying abroad, a lot of the American students found that French people were rude.  This mainly came about because they were very direct towards us, always saying exactly what they meant and not trying to sugarcoat or insinuate the true meaning.  If they thought that someone had a bad French accent, they would laugh or say how silly it sounded, whereas in American we were used to people calmly giving us tips and implying how to improve. 

From this reading, I've seen how important it is to learn nonverbal communication along with verbal.  It really is important aspect of how different cultures communicate, and has the possibility to lead to many misunderstandings and behavior that could be considered rule or insulting. 

I'm starting to make a lot of noticeable progress in my language learning.  I've continued to watch newsclips on BBC Persia, and have noticed that I'm getting used to the sound of the language.  For last week's meeting with Maroof, we were going to go over introductions.  Conveniently, I was just at that point in Rosetta Stone, so to prepare, I simply used Rosetta Stone, which taught me how to say "My name is_____" "What is your name?"  "I came from____" and "Where do you come from?".  I also learned the Persian names for many countries.  During the session with Maroof, we practiced saying these things together, and are now able to have basic conversations.  In the next few days I'd like to record an artifact with another Persian student in which we will have a conversation using everything that we have learned.  Maroof also had us practice some reading.  He would write short words on the board and then have us sound out the word.

In my meeting with Wadia, I again practiced having these conversations.  Additionally, I told Wadia that I wanted to practice my writing.  To do this, she would tell me a word or phrase that was on my new vocab list and I would then try to write it, having her correct me.  I found that practicing like this really made the letters make more sense in my mind, and it got easier and easier to spell words.  To continue this practice, I've been writing my vocab list over and over, and then adding new words. 

This week, I am going to work on: counting, telling the time, and saying the date and days of the week.

I found the beginning of this reading to be extremely mechanical.  As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I took a Linguistics course so a lot of this was again review, but I feel that I would have had a hard time understanding the reading had I not had any previous knowledge of the subject.  I feel like learning the specifics of these sounds would be more helpful if I had a Farsi-speaking linguist who could identify how each sound is made in the language.  Since that doesn't exist, and since native speakers don't tend to think about exactly how sounds are formed as it just comes naturally, I'm not so sure that this information will be able to help me in learning Farsi.  I thought that chapters 13 and 14 were interesting because they talk about how children learn, which although my brain isn't developing like a child, I am learning a completely new language like they do.  Chapter 13 talked about how important surrounding sounds are because babies can learn to recognize several words even at a young age.  This point reminded me about the point made in class about listening.  In class, it seemed as if the majority of us didn't believe that listening to speech that we couldn't understand would actually help us to learn.  This reading, however, seemed to enforce the view that listening does in fact help because certain words used in repetition can eventually be recognized.

On that same point, I did try to do some more listening this week, although I wasn't able to get to 15 minutes per night.  Michael pointed out to me that BBC has a Persian page that has news articles and clips in Persian.  The site is pretty difficult to navigate since I don't know what the different tabs mean, but I managed to stumble upon various clips and just click on them to play.  Although I didn't really understand what was going on, I found that I was able to pick out some words that I'd learned, such as numbers and the names of some places.  After listening a few different days, I decided that this will be an effective way for me to learn and that I should continue listening.  Although I wasn't learning new words from the clips, I was getting used to hearing the sounds of the language, which I think will help me in my pronunciation.  I also got used to hearing the sentence structure, and noticing patterns in verb endings.

Aside from listening, I also met with both of my language partners this week.  In both sessions, we worked on the alphabet and on basic greetings and conversations.  Wadia wrote down some useful phrases for me to learn, such as: please, thank you, you're welcome, good morning, etc; and I have been practicing these phrases throughout the week. 

It's my goal to have the alphabet memorized and be able to recognize all of the letters and know the sounds that they make by the end of this week, so it's really important that I continue to practice writing.  I'm in the process of making note cards for each letter so that I'll be able to recognize them out of order too.

So far, Rosetta Stone has been most helpful in learning new vocabulary, but I'm finding it hard to really learn grammar from it, since I'm not sure about rules of verb conjugations and am sometimes confused about the actual meanings of sentences.  For this reason, I think that it's important to incorporate language textbooks into my learning.  This way, I will have some concrete rules on conjugations and tenses. 

Before this reading, I never really considered learning body language as a part of language learning.  The reading brought up several interesting aspects of body language, including the fact that "most gestures and facial expressions differ across cultures" (7).  This has made me want to also ask my language partners (Wadia and Maroof) about some of the gestures and facial expressions that go along with the Farsi language.  I was also interested by the idea of contact; "Some societies are much more tolerant of touching than others, so much so that a distinction has been proposed between contact and non-contact societies - those that favor touching (such as Arabs and Latin Americans), and those that avoid it (such as North Europeans and Indians).  I think that I will ask both Wadia and Maroof about their opinions of touching and if Farsi-speaking countries are contact societies. 

I actually took a linguistics course last spring where we studied the sounds of various languages.  As a part of the course, we were required to learn the International Phonetic Alphabet, and studied the different types of sounds that were discusses in most of this reading.  I remember that it was difficult to learn the different symbols for sounds that only have one symbol in English, such as the distinction between two different "TH" sounds, both being fricative dentals, but having some variations.  I found that it was helpful to review the IPA and realize that it is even more helpful now as I attempt to learn the Persian Alphabet.

This week I did a lot of work on Alefba, the Persian Alphabet, with both of my language partners.  The order of Alefba is very different from the English Alphabet and there are many new sounds, which make it difficult to memorize and even pronounce.  Additionally the symbols are all different from English, so I spent a lot of time this week writing the letters over and over.  I find that a great resource for me is writing so I like to write the letter multiple times while saying it aloud.  Maroof had us start out with just five letters and then gave us some words that we can write using those letters, so it helped to actually see myself making progress and being able to spell whole words.  While going over Alefba with Maroof, I remembered how we had discussed in class that music is a great way to remember things so we asked him if there was a song that would help us to remember Alefba.  He sent us an audio file for alefba and I also looked up a few videos on youtube that put the letters to music so hopefully this will help me with memorization. 

I've been using Rosetta Stone a lot in my learning.  Sometimes I find that I'm just repeating words, not knowing what I'm saying, so I believe that better understanding the letters and Alefba will actually help me to learn faster with Rosetta Stone.  I seem to be picking up the new vocabulary pretty easily, and like that Rosetta Stone repeats the same words so many times and associates pictures with the words, this has really helped me to pick them up because I feel like I can use them in sentences.  I really do notice significant progress and can't believe that after three weeks I can already identify so many words.  Recently, I learned some basic colors and am working on how to count.  I like the idea of setting small goals for myself because I really do get a sense of fulfillment when I reach a milestone, which encourages me to continue working hard. 

I think that this week I am going to try to find some children's TV shows like Sesame Street in Farsi, hopefully they will have some small segments with counting, colors, and Alefba so I can really feel comfortable in these areas. 

I think it's pretty realistic for me to try to learn 5 new words each day.  I try to get to the Global Studio as much as possible, but find that it's sometimes difficult to find the time in my day to go sit down for a few hours and do work with Rosetta Stone, for this reason I think it'd be helpful to copy some pages of textbooks so that I can continue my learning even on days when I don't have the time to make it to the studio. 

I have never studied Farsi before, which of course sets my language skills as Beginning 0 in the novice level...if even that since as of now I don't know much.  I hope to complete the Beginning 2 level of novice this semester, meaning that I will be able to: find specific predictable information in simple everyday material such as advertisements, menus, schedules, and simple personal letters; understand phrases and commonly-used vocabulary related to areas of personal relevance; handle very short social exchanges; use a series of phrases and sentences to describe in simple terms a variety of things such as my family and other people, living conditions, my educational background, and my present or most recent job; and write short, simple notes and messages. 

I am also in the process of creating more specific tasks an a learning calendar.  So far, I believe that getting used to learning and using a new alphabet is going to be one of the hardest tasks.  With language, I tend to have a pretty good memory for things such as vocabulary and grammar so hopefully once I become accustomed to speaking a different type of language, it will not be as difficult to pick these things up. 

I have always loved language.  Throughout high school, I studied French and also learned to realize my fascination with English grammar.  As a freshman at Richmond, I began to study Spanish, deciding to become a French major and LAIS minor.  I have always thought about studying another language, but have been wary to choose one since I haven't found something to fit into my schedule.  This class really appeals to me because I believe that my genuine love for and curiosity of languages will allow me to be disciplined in my studies, while being able to learn at my own pace and in my own time. 

I decided to study Farsi because it is definitely unlike the other languages I have studied.  I am interested in learning a new alphabet and a language with a different structure than a Romance or Germanic language.  Additionally, as an IS major, I am considering working for the US state department and Farsi is a language that is in high demand, meaning that with knowledge of this language it may be easier for me to find employment.

I reviewed the FIRE model, but actually had a hard time determining one specific learning method that I follow.  I know for sure that I am an not a Factual learner.  I am probably mostly an Evaluative learner, but there are also Insightful and Rational aspects to my learning.  I find that I can't just memorize facts or vocabulary, but that I need to use words or ideas in order to really understand them.  For this I find that writing out sentences using vocab or new tenses is the easiest way for me to learn them.  Writing is definitely a skill that I use a lot to learn because I like to rewrite my notes and read them over.  I also find that reading helps me to learn a language, even if the level of writing is a little more advanced than I am at speaking.  Of course, immersion is the best way for me to learn.  For this reason I believe that meeting with my language partner will really improve my skills.