I thought week 2’s readings were very interesting. I particularly liked the what is meaning reading. It made me think about the differences between english and other languages I have learned. Meaning definitely does not translate as clearly as the literal definition of words and I learned that when I was studying abroad and learning French. I relied heavily on google translate when I first moved into my host family’s home and knew zero French. Though, they understood what I meant, some of the things that google translates is not exactly the way they would say it in French. For example, in a restaurant I would say can I or may I have french fries. But in French they say I will take french fries instead.
As I saw in the reading some languages have words for mother’s brother while there is no word for that in English. It is similar in Thai, there are words for an aunt who is older than your parents (pa), aunt or uncle from your father’s side (aa), and aunt or uncle from your mother’s side (na), which is also used in general when referring to people your parent’s might know. And when you call someone you put that in front of their name. For example, my cousins call my mom na Rattana. I never really paid so much attention to the differences in languages like this. But I suspect there will be plenty of ways to say certain things in Korean that we do not have in English. Therefore, I cannot always rely on translating a language in my head to English first and then try to formulate a sentence for a response like I did in the past with Spanish. This is why I think to learn a language it is best to learn it in a setting where you are immersed in it like through studying abroad. When you hear the language around you a lot, you hear the different words in different contexts and you begin to understand the differences with your own native language and be able to speak the foreign language more like a native speaker would.
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