I had hoped to continue vocabulary expansion and to improve my reading skills during the last two weeks and have continued with some of the activities mentioned in my last bi-weekly language post. The vocabulary topics we've covered since my last post are school subjects, weather, and fruits. We've tried to include the new vocabulary in the free-talk sessions to further comprehension. This was pretty successful and also allowed for some interesting cultural information about these topics to come up. For example, some of the fruits I learned are unique to Southeast Asia like Durian (sầu riêng). We discussed it's unique smell and taste, why fruit is so cheap, the problems in food safety measures, and things to be careful about when eating in Vietnam. Additionally, in my last bi-weekly language post I said that I will continue using newspaper articles as reading practice. The last article we read was about a business man who started a fruit production and export business in Vietnam. This article was helpful as it pointed out to my language partner which letters and accent marks I am still confused about. Furthermore, the article employed a lot of proverbs which was fun to learn.
Other than that we also watched several different clips for listening practice. This activity was a bit of a trial and error kind of thing because we had to figure out what the right level was. The first news video we tried was in a northern dialect and the talking speed was so fast that I could only catch every other word. The topic was also on the UN and world politics, making it too difficult for me to comprehend what was being conveyed at the spoken speed. We tried again with a news video that spoke slower and had a central dialect which worked much better. There was still new vocabulary in this video, but I wasn't overwhelmed by the speed. Now that we've figured out my listening level, future listening practice activities should be much smoother. Another listening activity we did was watching a video that had two girls, one with a northern dialect and another with a southern dialect, pointing out differences in pronunciation and word use in the two regions. This was really interesting to watch because I realized that there are some words that I use that are actually from the north even though I have a southern dialect. I think I want to continue with this dialectal practice and will probably combine it with listening practice.
In the last class, my language partner and I talked a bit about having a midterm before Spring break. The midterm will test vocabulary, dictation, reading, and listening. As I was most concerned about the dictation part, we agreed to spend the next week doing dictation practice. Also, the agreed on new vocabulary for the next lesson is household utensils.
Overall, I feel like my comfort level has improved immensely. I used to find it really difficult to speak to strangers in Vietnamese, but now I feel more at ease doing so. I met some friends of my language partner's and was able to converse with them in Vietnamese. I also went out to eat at a Vietnamese restaurant and was able to have a smooth conversation with the waiter about the Lunar New Year. I look forward to improving other areas in my language skills and for the next two weeks will be focusing on writing.
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