Journal Entries 1-8 - Bethany Marcelle- 110

[bethany marcelle]

I kept my journal entries as one running Word document and I have attached it below. =) Dari%20Journal%20.doc

[Global Studio]

A really interesting approach to learning, but it seems to work for you.

[bethany marcelle]

oops here's the spell checked version ;) 

Bethany Marcelle’s journal for learning Dari.

 

Week One: There’s a difference between Dari and Farsi and for the longest time I had no idea there was one. I thought it was a different way to say it like “Spanish” and “Espanol”, but apparently no. While the two languages can understand each other there is different pronunciation and word choice more so than English in England and English in the US. Angela asked me if I wanted to learn Dari or Farsi. I don’t really know anyone from Iran so I guess I’m going to be learning Dari. We started today with the alphabet, just to learn sounds not to learn to read and write. There are a few sounds that to my ear repeat, but I’m hoping to get better at them. I’m madly in love with the guttural “kh” sound. It’s phenomenal. I’ve been practicing the sounds in front of the mirror trying to focus on how Angela moved her throat and mouth and trying to do the same. (A trick I learned from Dr. Grove’s ESL class when learning about pronunciation.)

 

Week two: Today I learned greetings. I think it went well. I was glad that some of them are familiar (only because I have some friends from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan). I need to figure out the grammatical structure of the language. It’s still eluding me somewhat. I’m going to practice my Dari greetings with Krystin’s Hindi greetings and we will go back and forth in different languages, anything to get daily practice in. lol

 

Week three: Today I learned small talk about where I’m from and what jobs people have. Some of these are really hard words because they are so long and I’m still a little confused as to the grammatical structure even though I’m seeing some patterns. It’s also a little hard for me to distinguish when I’d ask certain questions and when they’d be rude, but I guess that will take more cultural research and understanding.

 

Week four: Watched a few films in Dari this week. I could follow only because I know the plot line of the movies because they are in English, but I didn’t watch with English subtitles. I didn’t understand almost anything, but I remember from Dr. Grove’s ESL teaching class that if you listen to a language for 100 hours you become exponentially better at speaking it, even if you didn’t really understand most of what you are hearing. I want to be able to recognize Dari like I can recognize French and German and Italian even though I only know a few words in each of those.

 

Week five: Today I learned about hospitality and food words! (The best kind of words! Yum! Afghan food is AMAZING!) I learned cultural ques of when to offer food and how to offer food and that you should always eat the food offered unless you are super super close and in your 20s and then it’s ok if you’re just with friends to say no, but even then only sometimes. I learned the words for meat, fruit, veggies, water, bread, rice, tea, apples and a few others. Angela says that will work well for me for now. It was fun, made me want to go eat Afghan food.

 

Week six: Counting and numbers. I really wanted to learn how to say rainbow. There is an official word, but people don’t use it. Angela taught me a more slang version of the word “kamany-e-rustam” incase you were wondering. I also learned the command for look. I wasn’t trying to, but Angela said the sentence look there’s a rainbow and I now remember the command look. It’s “bi-bin” in case you’d like to tell someone to look at something. I like when I learn words in moments. When I learn a word because it’s connected with a specific memory that wasn’t an intentional “I’m going to learn this word now” vocabulary decision. I feel that those words that I just happen to learn are the ones that stick best.

 

Week seven: I had fun this week showing off my art skills as Angela would help me pronounce the words for different articles of women’s clothing and I’d write the word in roman characters and then draw the article of clothing. I’m a more visual and kinesthetic learner so it’s important for me to do something out of response to what I’m learning. I was very surprised to hear that almost all of the women in Kabul wear high heels. I find it a little hard to believe, especially given the unrest there. I’d think I’d wear sneakers, but they rock “sim-quree” even if they are wearing a burqah.

 

Week eight: Now I’m reviewing my words and trying to form simple sentences as I listen to the same films in Dari again and again and did I mention again. I really want to have a good accent because I have found that with Spanish a good accent covers a multitude of sins. I’d take a good accent and more limited vocabulary over an accent that makes the native speaker struggle to understand and a huge vocabulary. I’ve been writing out conversations and having roommates and friends run lines with me. It sort of feels like a play, but it helps me with memorization.