Tenaya Bien's Posts (40)
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In this artifact I explain and give examples of how the Turkish number system works. This is important for my goal of travel vocabulary in that you can ask how much something is, or ask for a certain number of things, or ask for a building number or bus number.
This semester I learned a lot not just about the Turkish language and culture, but also about myself as a language learner. At the beginning of this semester I was nervous that it would be really hard for me to start learning a third language given that the only other language I know other than my L1 is Spanish which I started learning at the age of 5 and in an immersion program. I was apprehensive about learning a language in the conventional classroom style and on my own through technology. However, this semester has shown me that I think my brain having already learned a second language is primed to learn other languages as well. I have re-established techniques that I've used in learning Spanish when it come to learning vocabulary or constructing phrases. Obviously I am still very much a beginner level Turkish learner, but I hope that I can keep learning on my own until I can find someone to practice with and teach me more Turkish back at home.
I decided to do my final cultural presentation on Turkish baths or hamams. I thought this topic was interesting because it has such a long history in Turkish culture and because we don't have a bath culture in our society. My list of vocabulary not listed in the presentation but read out loud included:
hamam - bath
vakif - charity
camekan - entrance hall
sicaklik - hot room
gibes tasi - the big pedestal thing in the middle
sogukluk - cooling down room
nailn - bath clogs
tas - bath bowl
kese - bath mitt
pestemal - thin bath towels in a plaid design
What struck me the most about the cultural presentations that were given in class, was the fact that almost all of the Korean presentations were about education or jobs or stress. Even considering that it is well known that Korean culture is one of high-stress and high expectations, I found myself wondering if the side that was being presented over and over again was actually all that you could see in Korean culture or if there is a more relaxed side but that just didn't get presented on. I also didn't know that it was so difficult to live there. It seems to me that even Koreans have a difficult time living in Korean society. Simple things like getting a job seem nearly impossible and I'm not sure if they just meant within the big cities or if there are just a load of unemployed people all over Korea. Overall, these presentations about stress did not make me want to visit Korea as much as I had thought I wanted to because it seems that Korean society could be very preoccupied and very difficult to interact with as an outsider.
I think that Turkish people have a great sense of family bonds. Sezgi often uses the example of a Turkish wedding in our class to help explain cultural concepts that we are learning. She describes the act of proposal where the groom-to-be along with his ENTIRE family (extended family as well) goes to the house of the bride (she basically knows it's coming, it's not a surprise) where she and her ENTIRE family are waiting to receive them. He then has to ask the girl's father for his daughter's hand and with her parents' blessing they can be engaged. The bride-to-be then has to make and serve Turkish coffee to everyone from both families and she puts salt in the groom-to-be's coffee to represent possible hardship in the marriage. If he can stand to drink it, it means that he will be able to take the hard times in their marriage too. From this example of the Turkish wedding, I think it shows how close families generally are and how important it is that they are involved in each others' lives.
According to Sezgi, people in Turkey have a very relaxed attitude towards time. She says that for the most part Turkish people are always late or it is expected that people will be late. She says that even transportation runs behind schedule. Although she says that public transportation in-between cities does not generally run late, it is more so the buses within the cities that are never on time. This doesn't really surprise me given what I have learned from my research on things such as raki culture or when Sezgi talks about meals in Turkey. It seems to me that Turkish people value time spent with people and on conversation rather than valuing a more strict sense of being on time.
This week in class we talked about family. This was kind of confusing for me because it just seems like there are so many different words that aren't very similar for all the different relations. For example, there are two words for grandmother but only one for grandfather. It doesn't make sense to me why there is a distinction between the mom of your mom and the mom of your dad, but not the dads of your parents. In Chinese, there is a distinction for both. It is interesting to me how even at the end of the semester as we lear new things, the cultural component of language learning keeps popping up. I would like to know why this is the case for these words and I think this is a big part of language learning that is sometimes forgotten about when you're just learning new vocabulary on your own.
This week, my goal was to start a new section in uTalk. I started learning directions and travel. Starting a new section has made me realize that I want to learn a variety of subjects like food and restaurant words which are equally as important and if not even more practical when traveling. Overall, I find that I get excited but also overwhelmed when I start learning a new topic because I want to use it but I also want to learn more. The more I learn, the harder it is for me to recall as quickly or sometimes I'll recall the wrong word. This is going to take more repetition practice.
This week, I worked on rewriting the words and phrases we have learned so far. The hard part is not being sure of which vowels are supposed to be making the sound I think I am hearing. Again this has to do with listening and being able to recognize and distinguish sounds which is still hard for me. I think that by writing out the words, hopefully I can better understand the distinction between the sounds and the vowels that are making them.
My goal for this week was to start listening to more Turkish. The way I practiced this was by looking up Turkish songs and their lyrics online. Then I would listen to the same song a few times to see if I could recognize any of the words. If I thought I heard one I recognized, I would find it in the lyrics and then try to look it up to remind myself what that word meant. I obviously don't have enough vocabulary to be able to figure out what the song means but I think this exercise also helps me with my pronunciation.
This week, my goals are to be more confident in using the limited Turkish that I do know. I Skyped with a friend this week and he was at a Turkish restaurant and I was like "oh! I know a little Turkish!". I think that the hardest part of actually using the Turkish I know is being able to recall words and construct phrases on the spot. For this I realize that my practice should be a lot of repetition so that I don't have to think about it so much when I want to recall something to be able to use it. Flash cards are a good way to practice words and repetition, but in terms of constructing phrases I haven't found a particularly efficient way to practice this.
So far, I think that my techniques have been pretty effective to help me learn Turkish. I would like to be able to dedicate more focused time to reviewing what we learn in our lessons and maybe rewriting them would help to cement them. In addition, I would like to be able to spend some time on my own in a quite place practicing listening and pronouncing out loud the new words I've been learning. The applications and programs are good but it is hard to find a quiet spot to practice out loud. I'll have to work on that. Overall, I think that my learning plan has been effective. In addition, Sezgi has been teaching us other basic topics that are not part of my learning plan but will probably be useful. Things like the weather that I never really considered learning as part of a basic practice. I enjoy learning these things with her since I wouldn't have thought to learn them first even though it might help to just generally strengthen my vocabulary and comprehension skills.
My goal for this week is to improve my pronunciation. I still sometimes get tripped up on the difference between the "o" and "ö" sounds, the "u" and "ü" sounds, and the "i" and the i without a dot sounds. Overall, I think I just need to listen to them being said more in words and practice repeating them. I like that some of the programs I've been using let you slow down the word when they pronounce it so you can more clearly hear the individual sounds. I also have been practicing recording myself saying the words to compare the pronunciation with the pre-recorded ones.
For this cultural presentation, Joora and I worked together to present on the topic of the transition between Ottoman Turkish and Modern Turkish. I learned that Ottoman Turkish was a language of the elite that used the Arabic alphabet and borrowed most of its words from Persian and Arabic. I was also interested in learning the history of the transition between the two languages which we talked about in our presentation. Basically, the first president of Turkey declared that he wanted to secularized the country and one of the biggest reforms was that he was going to make a new Modern Turkish that used a western, Latin alphabet and more exclusively Turkish words rather than Persian and Arabic words. They started by outlawing the use of Arabic number and then later the whole alphabet. They had scholars go around the country to teach the people of Turkey this essentially new language since now they had an entire country that was illiterate.
The writing system in Turkish is in the Latin alphabet. This is part of the reason I chose Turkish in the first place. As my third language and the only one I didn't learn as a small child, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to learn a third language or that it would be significantly more difficult. By choosing a language that uses a Latin alphabet, I gave myself a better chance because I didn't have to learn a whole other writing system. What I didn't know was the modern Turkish also uses suffixes which means that it is a language that basically just uses building blocks to contract sentences and phrases. I also learned that Ottoman Turkish used to use the Arabic alphabet which would have been really really hard for me to learn in one semester.
I think that my first artifact was a great demonstration of the phrases we learned so far. I liked that I got to do a video with other people, it made it easier to use all the phrases together in conversation. In terms of meeting my goals for weeks 4 and 5, I am glad that we started to use more phrases in class because now I can incorporate the words I have started learning on my own. Although what I am learning on my own and what we are learning in class doesn't always line up.
In weeks four and five, I would like to continue to bolster my vocabulary. I am still working through the First Words section of the uTalk app and will continue to do this. I like this app so much because even though all of the words are pretty basic and cannot really be used to make real sentences, they are still useful words rather than Duolingo which I find teaches you random words like "Apple" first which are not as practical. I'm using this app to learn but also to help me with my recall. I plan to use the games to work on my recall. I also hope that between this week and next week I can become more consistent in my practice rather than doing big chunks at random times.
My first topic of culture is Turkish raki. Raki is a liquor that is a traditional drink of Turkish culture. While Turkey has long been a secular state, the new government which is much more conservative and religious is trying to diminish the presence of alcohol in Turkish society by taxing it heavily and making it expensive to drink. However, raki is seen not just as a drink but as a tradition or custom of Turkish society. The tradition of drinking raki is mostly about the conversations you have around the table while drinking this drink with family and close friends. Some instances in which you might drink raki are: a new birth in the family, a wedding, a promotion, a bout of hard times, or even just after a long day at work. I think the importance of raki is that it brings people together to talk about and reflect on life, share advice and be a part of each others' lives.
In this learning plan, I think I outline realistic goals of what I want to accomplish. For the most part, my goals are related to basic interactions between me and someone else. Directions, ordering and interacting with shopkeepers are my main goals since I think my Turkish would best serve me in a traveling setting. I hope that my focus on certain topical areas doesn't limit my vocabulary too much but i think that is just something to be aware of.
