(a) What insights have you gained about yourself as a language learner and cultural explorer? What did you find difficult? What have you enjoyed? How will you continue your learning?
I really enjoy being a cultural explorer, even I’m not able to speak multiple languages. I would love to learn about other cultures and the language and traditions that go along with the culture. It is fascinating to me that the world is so complicated yet beautiful with all the different cultures and people. Especially the life philosophy, art, architecture, and food of different cultures. Also, besides all the wonderful thing about other cultures, as I learn, I could also find out about the negative side of certain cultures. For example, some cultural traditions that are violating human rights, etc. If I were not exploring, I would not know that there are still people struggling with their culture because of the transitions to the globalized world and economic market.
However, though I love languages, too, I’m less competent with learning the language. In my lifetime, I’ve tried to learn English, Japanese, Spanish and Danish. I can master none of them except English. Mostly because of that I didn’t learn the language consistently. I took Spanish for one semester, then gave up because the school changed the professor to another that has very different accent than the previous one. This indicates that how important the variation within a language is. I took Japanese for a year, but then gave up because I went abroad for a semester and had not practiced with Japanese for so long. When I came back to school, I found out that it was very difficult to pick it up again. This shows how important the consistency of learning a language is. Similar things happened to Danish. I learned Danish for four months when I was in Denmark. But when I came back to U.S, even if I want to continue, Danish is not popular here and I can’t learn it without a proper amount of practice.
Thus, overall, I do enjoy learning about other cultures, and learning languages. But language does require a lot more than just the culture: time, consistency, patience, practices, etc.
(b) Which readings and learning activities did you find most useful? What would you like to learn more about?
I’ve learned a lot in almost every supplement reading. I didn’t know that languages and cultures are not just difference because of the pronunciation and writing, but the history, the geography, and interactions with other cultures and languages. Readings are interesting and have reasonable length. Some are more scientific than others, which is good, too, because I got to know how the function of the brain has to do with languages. The presentations are very useful as well. I learned a lot while researching and preparing the presentation. Those presentations made me think creatively and critically about cultures and languages.
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