Post Final Reflection Paper 

Reflect on your learning experiences this semester.

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

My way of thinking and perspectives on languages, especially the connection to cultural has changed drastically. Before coming in my focus was just learning the language. I was in a competition with myself to learn languages at the quickest rate possible without any regards to the culture. In fact I thought learning the culture of a language was irrelevant and a waste of time. However and I dig deeper into learning Hebrew, I realized that languages, especially Hebrew, have a lot of context which helps you learn the language quicker if you have even a bit of cultural context.

A simple example is "shalom", the word hello and goodbye. It also has the meanings of peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility. I have talked to a lot of native Hebrew speakers and many have told me that the meaning of shalom is not clear cut like the English word of hello and goodbye. Shalom has multi-dimensions. In other words shalom depending on the context (sometimes not even) can convey the 7 meanings listed above. Shalom will show up in many context with completely different meanings. Ma sh'lom'cha literal translation is “What is your peace?” and is the English equivalent of “How are you”, whereas means peace upon the person is commonly referred to a deceased person. In this context the peace and harmony is conveyed but the completeness and tranquility is also present in the phrase. So understanding the cultural background information aids in learning the language quick and more importantly correctly by knowing the right time and place for the language.  

I surprisingly enjoy finding the background knowledge about the topics that I am about to read. I see them as context clues that help understand the topic I am learning about in the big picture type. With the extra cultural context I am able to zoom out and have a bird eye view of the language because they smoothly connect together. I will continue my studies through the use of Mango and Duolingo even though I know that they are not the best resources out there to seriously learn a language. I find that as an accounting major student, Mango gives me enough encouragement to make me have small progresses while not overwhelming with too much to learn. All the topics presented in mango is relevant and things that I am able to use with everyday life. It covers all the context, language that I am interested in. It gives me the pronunciation, written, words, breaks up chunk by chunk and gives reviews at the end of each chapter. Hopefully I can also sign up for SDLC 110 to continue my language learning next semester. A language partner will be extremely useful and helpful in my process.

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

I found that the linguistic analysis was useful but from time to time I found myself trying to find the semantics and pragmatics of the language to help me further understand the language. I like how we went back to the basics and asked yourself simple questions such as what is a word. I enjoyed learning about morphemes and finding the differences between morphemes and words. I also found that learning about the anatomy, physiology, and acoustics of the human vocal tract interesting. We learned about them in the beginning classes. Realizing that different positions of the tongue and lips make different sounds and is what changes one vowel sound and another. I get concerned about how my larynx is behaving and if it is the correct way to pronounce a certain sound or word in Hebrew. I wished we learnt more about children's language development. I found that topic interesting and oftentimes frustrating because we know that children especially toddlers are great at picking up languages unknowingly while adults dedicate countless of hours, energy, and money to learn a language and still struggle while the child can be comparable to a native in a same situation.  Overall, I enjoyed all the articles and topics we covered in class. They were interesting and relevant to the average college student struggling with learning languages. Thanks alot Dr. Soloway for a fun semester!

• Reflect on your experiences of (trying to) read and write in your target language.   
• Trying to read Hebrew so far has been easier than writing. I can read Hebrew but I won't know what it means, especially in classical Hebrew, aided with nikkud, then reading Hebrew and pronouncing them out loud is easier than comprehensions them. I am able to recall hebrew vocabulary much easier when I see them. If I see the same words on Duolingo or Mango, then I am able to read and correctly pronounce them and know their definition and what the cause/senescence means but if I were to try to write it again by myself I won't be able to do it, even with bits and pieces as hints. I think the reason is because there are many similar sounds in the aleph-bets and I am not  at the point where I have a strong enough foundation to be able to tell which letter I use for this type of word. Another small reason is also because I don't practice enough the words. I can incorporate the words I used in my daily life much more but I only review and go over hebrew about twice a week. Frankly, sometimes that number goes down to one when I am swamp with other work. Lately I been keeping up with Hebrew/Israeli culture because of the holidays that are happening. Rosh Hasanah (Jewish Holiday) and Sukkot was some major holidays that just happened. I am more motivated to study Hebrew when I learn about the culture in addition to learning the langauge opposed to just learning about the language. 
• In class I tried teaching my classmate how to read a basic word, shalom,
  
• I think I have a good grasp of where to start for basic to teach someone hebrew. I told them that hebrew was read from right to left. There are 26 basic alphabet called alephbet and there are vowels called nikkud. It is easier for beginners to read with nikkuds showing because we do not know the rules of what or how to pronounce with different alephbet. we quickly went over the 26 alphabets then I walked them through on how 

  שלום

• New York Times:  Why Bilinguals are Smarter
• ScienceLine:  Are Bilinguals Really Smarter?
• My first thoughts without reading the article was that that bilinguals aren't "smarter" as in IQ or EQ but they are able to switch from one language to another easy, so they have the fluid cells allowing them to switch from one thing to another easily. It helps in other activities that uses the same cells such as music, learning other languages, art...etc. I personally speak 3 languages fluently, but then I don't think that I have the same type of fluency in the three languages. I definitely speak and read English better than Thai and Chinese. I feel like I can improve my English at a much faster rate than Thai or Chinese because my foundation in English is much stronger than my Thai and Chinese. I think my level of bilingualism went through both coordinate and compound bilingualism. Coordinate bilingualism is learning a language through school and at home. So my way was that I learnt English at school and a bit at home but what I learn most was Thai and Chinese but more Thai. Thai was more prevalent because Thai influences and culture was much more stronger. This way it would be compound bilingualism. 
• After reading the article, I assume I was on the right path. Being bilingual helps with the executive functions and aid with functions such as planning, problem solving and other mentally demanding tasks. Bilingualism allow people to minimize distractions as in focus less on them. The example they gave in the article was be able to remember words while driving. I think the reason why people who speak more than two languages are able to concentrate and learn better with less distractions is because they are always constantly filled with unnecessary words to aid in their everyday conversation. it became practice so when there are actually test, then people with two or more languages fare much better than people with just one language. 
• Compound Bilingualism: In Compound Bilingualism there is no such dividing line; the individual learns the languages in the same environment and context and they are often used concurrently or even interchangeably. Sometimes known as additive bilingualism, an example of this would be when a child is raised by bilingual parents and both languages are used in the home. In the individual’s mind, the languages are not separate and can be switched between at will, even while speaking. 
• Because the languages are not separate and can be switch at will so sometimes a con of bilingualism is that because you can switch between two or more languages so easily that you get confused and switch between languages when talking during the same phrases. Another cons of knowing two or more languages is that how you logically think about something may not be how others with only one language process it because it you are exposed to more "juices" more ways of thinking due to exposed culture and ways of thinking. However because bilingualism are exposed to more then when they are thinking in one languages sometimes (unhelpfully) the other language pops up when. 

• How many new words have you learned in your target language?  How did you learn them?  Do you have realistic goals for your acquisition of vocabulary?
• I try to  learn about 10 vocabulary words a week but lately I been slacking off because I am not officially in the 110 SDLC class.  So far I have about 80 vocabulary words. I learned them through a list that gave me all the basic Hebrew words. They are organized through root words. All the words I know now have root words that begin with א (Alepf). א is the first letter of the alep-bet. I am not sure of their similarities beyond the א. It is difficult learning even basic words because each word has a different name depending on who's using it and who it's referring to. For example saying They have the pie.. The word "They" can be female or male and it depends on who they are. If they have all females then use the female version of they. That is pretty straightforward and it is the same for male. However if the group is a female majority but has even just one male then male version of "they" is used. So Hebrew is a romance language and tends to lean towards men when both gender are involved. 
• My goals for acquiring vocabulary is not really realistic right now. I just try to read what Duolingo has for me each day but I don't think it is an effective learning technique. I often forget the new vocabulary I learn after I move on to the next chapter. Also Duolingo does not do a good job in building a strong step by step foundation to learn a language. They words they introduce through the chapter are often unsystematic and do not relate in anyway. 
• A more realistic way of building vocabulary-personally- would be to have a language partner work with me by keeping track of my process and help connect them with other relevant words. Right now I am learning vocabulary that can not be used in a single conversation. The words I know are like 

  ad	a-ba	אבא
  watermelon	a-va-ti-akh	אבטיח
  Spring	a-viv	אביב
  but	a-val	אבל
  thumb	a-gu-dal	אגודל
  walnut	e-goz me-lekh	אגוז מלך
  pear	a-gas	אגס
  red	a-dom	אדום
  or

• As you can tell they are start with the same base letter but have no relevance in anyway beyond the א. I think this is not the most efficient and easy way of learning a langauage. So my 

• Respond to the reading, reflecting on what is lost when languages die.  (You might want to watch the interview with David Harrison posted to the front page of the Ning.) 
• Instinctively I would think what is lost is small specific things such as the accuracy of the lost language being pronounced if it is revived back again. It is incredible to think how there are only a handful of people who speak a language and they are trying to revive it back, however if some had some mispronunciations and was adamant that it was correct even if it isn't correct then even if people thought it was incorrect, they don't have a reference to debate over it. All the references are based on unofficial sources.
• Additionally, what is lost when a language dies is more about the exterior factors than the languages itself. As people evolve, move from one place to another and lose languages then parts or sometimes unfortunately all of the language's culture and history connected it changes or is lost. Languages is like a puzzle piece. It contains many local knowledge about secrets, wisdom, ecological problems, weather and climate problems, spiritual attitudes, artistic, and mythological histories. An example would be the Yiddish phrase of "Oy Vey"; is it directly translated as "oh dear" however those growing up with a strong jewish-yiddish culture can tell you that the"oh dear" translation does not convey the feelings and full meaning that varies from sad, hurt, to worried and aggravation. 
• When a tribe moves, dies out or gets conquered, then a new language is usually forced upon. The new language becomes the main language communicated in public and over time becomes the official language. When this happens then how we process and sees the world changes. Each language makes us think differently and hence process the world differently. If that language dies, then the thought process is eradicated. 
• • Respond to the reading, reflecting on what is lost when languages die.  (You might want to watch the interview with David Harrison posted to the front page of the Ning.)
  • When a language dies or comes close to dying, leaving only a handful speaking it, then many aspects of the language and culture is altered. Some examples is the writing, pronunciation, definition, grammar to name a few changes.
  • Writing, pronunciation,, definition, and grammar could be altered when reviving a language because the only handful of people who do know a limited knowledge of the language could be pronouncing, writing, using, defining the language in a biased and possibly incorrect way. 
  • Relating it back to Hebrew, Hebrew has gone through 4 stages of development: 1. Biblical (before 0 CE) 2. Rabbinic (~0-700 CE) 3. Medieval 4. Modern. Medieval Hebrew was a literary language and mostly differs from rabbinic Hebrew because of the adoption of new words from Greek and Arabic philosophy. 
  • So when reviving an old language, there might be new influences from modern cultural into the language, and hence why reviving the language will never be the same, or come close to the original language. 
  • Old hebrew and modern hebrew is a good example. In terms of writing, old hebrew and modern hebrew is fairly the same. Pronunciation, depending on who you ask is also the same or completely different. Modern hebrew does not care as much to differentiate the subtle sounds whereas old hebrew does. Grammar is also less strict and constricted. Old hebrew has vowels known as nikkud to guide readers whereas modern hebrew does not. Modern hebrew also does not have as many vowels or alphabets as old hebrew. Modern Hebrew employs the same grammatical system as old hebrew, but has a contemporary vocabulary.

Knowing a language's history can help me learn the language in not just understanding and recalling the newly learnt language but also gain deeper insight into similarly clustered languages with the same family. It is similar in ways such as knowing the roots to a word to aid in conferencing the word's definition. A language history's may connect the dots similar to what Dr. Atlansin in the NY Times article said "and colleagues have taken the existing vocabulary and geographical range of 103 Indo-European languages". Languages sometimes gives information on history instead of the other way around. An example was in the article that "Romanian and other Romance languages, for instance, started to diverge from Latin after A.D. 270, when Roman troops pulled back from the Roman province of Dacia. Applying those dates to a few branches in its tree, the computer was able to estimate dates for all the rest." 

Knowing that modern Hebrew has history from Biblical Hebrew is what aided the revival of hebrew. Imagine how a religious group recreate the language of their tribe thousands of years ago and re-adopt it as a mother language - of course it won't be perfect but it is after rediscovering the language after not speaking it for 2000 years. The Bible was obviously written in a very different world from today which means that some Biblical Hebrew are used today to represent a different thing, but a thing that performs the same function.

Biblical Hebrew is usually pronounced with Modern Hebrew pronunciation, so lots of people aren't aware of how Biblical Hebrew used to be pronounced. It had a lot of sounds that are only present in Arabic. They cannot be found in Modern Hebrew because modern hebrew was first revived by Europeans speaking Yiddish. This goes to point how difficult to accurate revive a language after thousands of years especially if aiming for accuracy. 

• Reflect on your language learning so far and the relationship between understanding the target culture and the target language.  What do you need to improve your communicative competence?
• I think I understand the target culture and the target because of my interest in hebrew prior to this class. I think that learning the structure of a language and what makes of languages helps significantly alot in understanding a language. I am still not entirely sure how a culture might influence the learning of a language since for hebrew, religion culture is deeply immersed in the language as a religious factor, so I don't know how to compare that to a language without a non religious factor. 
• I need to improve my communicative competence by writing and using the language more through music, news, and talking with native. My plan is not to get rid of my accent because I speak three other languages and I know how difficult it is to get rid of accents while learning the language. My main goal is to communicative basic terms that will allow me to get around in Hebrew speaking communities such as Israel (and only Israel). 

Complete Reflection Paper #2 (500 words) and Post to Your Blog in the Ning

• Reflect on your language learning so far and the relationship between understanding the target culture and the target language.  What do you need to improve your communicative competence?

• I am beginning to understand the importance of  learning the target language and the target culture and how they go hand and hand. In the beginning I thought that understanding the culture of the target language is trivial because learning a language can just be learning a language. Culture is language itself! Learning a language is automatically learning a culture. A big example where learning a language is impossible without learning the culture is expressions of phrases.Phrases, words, syntactic forms and concepts are impossible to translate directly because they sometimes don’t exist in some languages. Differences in language between cultures are evident when you compare how some countries have different definitions for certain phrases. A prime example is that generally a “good day” for a Western speaker means a sunny day, however a “good day” for an African speaker will mean a rainy day. It is all context. If I were to learn an African language and did not know this cultural references then I would not understand a lot of the context and fail at accurately understanding the language.

• Culture can also have a huge influence on how we communicate. For example in Thai, the words we tend to chose are like a pyramid where formal talk is reserved only when talking to or about the royal family. Then the formality goes down based on age no matter their position. For example; at work, if A is lower in position but older than person B (person B has higher position but is younger), person B will still have to address person A as if A was B’s superior. However in America and many English speaking communities, this is not necessary and in fact frowned upon. If I were not to know these differences then learning the language would be difficult since I would not know what is appropriate and what is not. Hebrew also has the same references as one would address a boy versus a man versus an old man. The degrees of seniority or importances determines what word choices you should use.

• I think to improve my communicative competence, definitely learning the cultural by reading the newspaper, talking to natives, watching movies, music...etc will definitely learn the culture and the language at the same time, so you’re killing two birds with one stone. However also sitting down and learning the language is also important in achieve communicative competence. Learning the language is a formal setting will help me track my progress and learn Hebrew “correctly”. I think that some people after spending time with many speakers of that language are able to pick up phrases but if you wanted them to build their foundation and to continue the language they are unable  to do so because their foundation was not strong enough to continue and build. I still feel incompetent in learning the basic root words in semitic languages. I don’t understand what it means to find root words because I can’t find the similarities. I also have problems but they are similar to this where I just a need a few clarification and from then on, if I see the problem I am able to relate it and build upon my skills.  Fortunately, I am still young and have ample of time to build my solid foundation into rock solid knowledge. I am not too worried about my communicative incompetence because I know I can improve with more effort and time.

My classmates did a great job on their presentations! I really liked how there were many varied of topics ranging from language itself to food to karaoke to cars. Each of their presentations reflected their personality and how they organize the presentation. It was very unique to each from the topics within their subject, to what kind knd of specific details they chose to include. I think this tells us alot about what they expect and want to learn from their targeted language and how they go about learning about it. 

I don't think I ever experienced Culture shock as intense as those in the videos. I think part of the reason is due to my personality and my exposure from 2 different countries. First off, I try to be a laid back go with the flow type of person. So whatever comes, I won't try to question it to much and accept it. So when moving from one culture to another, I find that other people tend to compare it to their home culture or the culture they are used to then that either leads to them loving the new culture they are in or critizing it then building resentment in their new culture. Both are not good because if you keep comparing your new culture to your old culture and you love the new culture it brings you into a phrase similar to a honeymoon phrase and then one day youll wake up and see that it was not all honey and flowers. The other option of building resentment is also not ideal because then you'll end up most likely hating your new culture. Both of these outcomes is what I think the official term is cultural shock in a nutshell. Adapting is hard because you still have your old culture in you and you're analyzing it too much. I say this because it happened to me when I moved to Thailand when I was around 11 after living in the states for quite some time. I found myself experiecning culture shock and comparing everything to the US. I missed the US and after time I, I resented Thai culture. Now looking back I wished I analyzed less and just enjoy the culture because there's nothing I can do, especially the things that are instill in the culture for hundreds and thousands of years. Sometimes I don't think being passive is a good thing but in this case, passive will do you good.  

• What do you need to know about the structure of your target language?  How will you acquire the knowledge you need?  Do you think a reference grammar can be useful?  Why or why not?

It is extremely different from english. The basic structure of Modern Hebrew is generally SVO. (Subject verb object). When reading hebrew, it is oddly constructed compared to English languages. It is more on the same family as other semeitic languages since hebrew is a s emetic language. Some difference are as followed: Adjectives follow noun. The Hebrew text reads left to right. To make it more complicated, it is a romance language so that means like french wording is different for men and women.  Another example is a verb can come before its subject unlike as in English.

When asking a question, it can be seen as easier than english.  When you make a question, you don’t change the order of the words like in English. You can ask a question in many ways.The first is by simply taking a statement and putting a question mark in your voice then you raise your voice at the end of the sentence to make it sound questioning. 

Culture is a difficult topic because there is much to cover, discuss and debate about. Culture is not black and white. Culture can be tangible and intangible. Like the article, all culture will have elements of both individualistic collectivism poles.There is a culture within one's family and what makes up a culture. In individualist, you can even say that there is a culture within oneself. How one lives and survive, from their daily activities of brushing their teeth, to what clothes they choose to wear to the expressions and phrases they use. Nation-state culture can generally be summarized similarly but on a macro level. 

Knowing my learning will allow me to set goals, monitor my goals and at the end the semester, see if I accomplished it or not. Setting goals week by week will keep me on track. This is especially helpful because learning a language in this class is mainly self directed there is more responsibility on our shoulders than taking a class with a professor teaching and guiding the language. Knowing how our brain processes language is helpful since we are able to utilize to our understanding and learning of languages. Even though most children have a natural language window around three, and most of us here at SDLAP are either in our late teens or early twenties, it is not too late to imitate how little children learn languages. The video of toddlers able to differentiate sounds in India helped me realized that I need to be careful on pronouncing the sounds. It is usually subtle. It also made me realize that it is okay if I do not sound like a native. Having an accent as long as others can understand me is fine because I already speak three other languages fluently. 

Another thing I found interesting and helpful was the article what we mean. How the synaptax and phrase our langauge tells us alot about a language culture. For instance, many Asian countries I find tend to be more collective and so if reflects that in their communication and language. Another example is that many english speaking countries value individulism more than the collective communities so the language and our structure display that. 

Another example can be that some langauges have more words to describe something that cannot be describe in another language. For example, japanese has mutiple specific situations for describing anger where that can not be translated in english. This is another example how langauge affects what we mean. 

Interestingly, my learning style is auditory by 40% while my visual and tactile is each at 30%. I think I can relate that I am a auditory learner. Sometimes, I would record my lectures notes then review them by listening to them again and writing notes down. However, I also think that I would do well if I physically do problems and keep practicing through drilling will help me learn. This relates to my other survey that I am a body movement type of intelligence. When I physically write things down then I find it easier to recall the information. My second intelligence is nature. I can relate new words and phrases I learn to nature and the environment. Reading about nature and animals would aid in my learning experience.