March 20- 27, 2014
I had an extended spring break to spend time with my niece since she and my sister were planning to go back to Bangladesh before I would come home for summer break, so me and Sabrina did our class session over skype. We began by talking in Bangla about our breaks and then I downloaded a Bangla keyboard and chatted with her over skype messages. She couldn't write to me in Bangla because she couldn't find a keyboard that worked for her computer so she answered me over the webcam. There's more on the conversation in one of my artifacts. It was helpful making myself familiar with the Bangla keyboard because I plan on talking to my cousins in Bangla through Facebook for the ones that don't speak English very well. I've had very brief conversations with them in Bangla. Here's an example:
কি আপু তোরকি খবর।ভালোত? What's going on with you, is everything good?
- November 29, 2013
Noraya Razzaqueভাল অছি ভাইয্যা, পরিখা ছল্চে অর স্ত্রেস্সেদ অমি. কিন্তু দূই হপ্তার পরে ঘরে জাব! I'm doing okay, it's just exam time so I'm stressed out. But after two weeks, I will be going home!তুমি কেমন অছ? টুমার হাতুর ওবস্তা কেমন অছে? But how are you? Is your knee okay? (Had gotten into an motor vehicle accident before).
- November 30, 2013
Mahamud Hasanআমি ভালো আছি।tor ki kobor apu. I'm doing fine, how are you?
It's a little hard talking to my cousins sometimes because the conversation tends to be circular...
April 3-10, 2014
We spent these two class sessions reading more of "Aaj Himur Biye" and I was able to read it a little faster than normal! Consistently reading the same text every week has been helpful in identifying words because some words appear often and then my eyes become accustomed to the word or the style of the word, which helps me read words with similar structures later. Another way that it's helpful is that it enables me to contextualize the reading and understand it better instead of pausing and going back and rereading it several times to figure out what is happening. A lot of the times when I read Bangla, I concentrate on the letters so much that the meaning eludes me, which is why I end up rereading it a lot and taking up more time to read than it should actually take me. I've been working on that with my reading.
In the reading, Himu's aunt calls him up and tells him that the boy Renu, the girl, had an affair with was sitting outside the house waiting for her to come out. She tells Himu to come over immediately to take care of the situation. She compares the boy to a monkey and Himu jokes that he'll stop by and bring a bunch of bananas to give to him and he'll munch on it like a fatso. Himu's character is very comical and so he says a lot of other random things.
April 17-24, 2014
We kept forgetting to look for Facebook pages and Bangla websites to contextualize my knowledge of Bangla reading at Sharon's suggestion, so this week we searched for Facebook pages and websites. This is what we found: http://www.kishorkanthabd.com/
We found the facebook page for this initially which led us to this site. I'm not sure how to describe this website since it has a lot of different parts that make it up. I think it's just a cumulative site with sections about Bangladeshi lifestyle or culture. There are sections about sports, religion (Qur'an and Hadith), stories, and more. It was hard for me to navigate the webpage without Sabrina because I didn't know what all the links or tabs were saying since I didn't know the Bengali words for them in English. There were some terms that were strange/unfamiliar to Sabrina as well, so we just guessed what they meant in context or by clicking on them and figuring it out. It was hard to find a Facebook page that would update with Bengali statuses or things that I could read because it was too advanced/news-like or too long. We both wanted something shorter and engaging. We figured that I could read the statuses my relatives from Bangladesh posted on Facebook and what they'd share from Bangladesh media.
The next session, we read a story about a king and loud foxes. Here's the text and my translation for it:
রাজা ও মন্ত্রীর কথোপকথন ১ম রাত্রে The king and the minister had a conversation on the first night
অসুস্থ রাজা : শিয়ালগুলো ডাকছে কেন? King: Why are the foxes calling?
মন্ত্রী : শীতের রাত তো তাই। Minister: It’s a cold night, that’s why.
রাজা : তাহলে ওদেরকে রাজকোষ থেকে কম্বল দেয়া হোক। King: Then give them some blankets from the coffer.
মন্ত্রী : জি হুজুর, আগামীকালই দেবো। Minister: Yes, sir. I will tomorrow.
২য় রাত্রে (Second night)
রাজা : মন্ত্রী! শিয়ালগুলোর ডাক থামেনি কেন? King: Minster! Why didn’t the foxes’ cries stop yet?
মন্ত্রী : কম্বল পেয়ে ওরা হুজুরের শোকর গুজার করছে। Minister: Receiving the blankets, they’re praising you, sir.
৩য় রাত্রে (Third night)
রাজা : মন্ত্রী, ওরা কতদিন শোকর গুজারি ডাক ডাকবে? King: Minister, how many days will they proclaim their appreciation?
মন্ত্রী : যতদিন ওরা আপনার দেয়া কম্বল ব্যবহার করবে। Minister: For however many days they use your blankets.
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