This week, I met with my language partner, who helped me study new vocabulary related to family and kinship, hobbies, and home life. I learned the construction of "to have X hobby" and how to say "I like X" (a particulary hobby). My language partner would say the word aloud, and I would try to write it/spell it on paper or on a dry-erase board. This activity really made me realize how important it is to keep reviewing "basic" elements of Hindi, like the alphabet! There were unfortunately some tricky, less-common letters that I had forgetten how to write. Luckily, however, this review helped a lot. The kinship expressions were a lot more detailed than I realized, because in Hindi, there are many different words related to family, like "father's older brother" vs "father's younger brother." I learned the main expressions for common family members.
With regard to writing practice, I wrote about 10-12 sentences relating to family and hobbies (introducing myself and my family). I tried to use the present progressive and present habitual (imperfect) tense, since those two tenses are the ones I have been studying. I also learned how to ask Sanya (my language partner) questions about her own family (examples: "What is your sister's name?" "How many sisters and brothers do you have?", etc). I recorded these questions, but I felt as though I didn't know how to transition between questions -- this is something I am going to work on and then re-record sometime this week.
For listening, I listened to the "My family" audio lesson on the GLOSS website (such a good resource! Here is the URL: http://gloss.dliflc.edu/Default.aspx) and did the related online comprehension activities, and then also did the "The Meeting" audio lesson + activities for more of a focus on culture + grammar (tenses).
For reading and vocab practice, my LP and I have just started to transition into studying food vocabulary (common fruits, vegetables, and restaurant dishes in India -- as well as how to order in a restaurant in India), and she also had a menu for me to read and sound out the words and then match them to the vocab I had just learned regarding food.
I have been realizing that I haven't been focusing on reading as much as conversational speaking and vocabulary, so I will be doing more reading over break and in the weeks to come.
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