10/25/20
During the past two weeks, we have had several units related to houses. We learned the names for the different rooms and common objects in each one. One of our assignments last week was to make a video that describes the different objects in our bedrooms, and this week we had to interview one another about our dream houses. I was excited that we learned a lot of new adjectives this week, including colors! As an artist, being able to say what things look like is important. Knowing adjectives is also helpful for describing words that I am not sure about.
We also learned prepositions, which was helpful. I always accidentally say in instead of di, but I think I’ve gotten over this habit now.
I also appreciate the cultural knowledge we've learned about houses - I didn't realize that parts of the city are often poorer than the rural areas and in much worse shape. I think it would be interesting to compare housing inequalities in the United States and Indonesia. The best part of this lesson was learning about a village that painted the houses rainbow colors--a creative art renovation project!
There have been a couple words that I’ve been having an especially hard time pronouncing: ungu (which means purple) and mengagumkan (which means awesome). The particular "ng" sound is difficult for me to pronounce, but I am continuing to practice. The articulatory phonetics framework can, fortunately, provide some insight on which part of the mouth is the point of articulation. Otherwise, I have not had too much trouble with Indonesian pronunciation.
I’ve said this before but it is still true: questions stress me out because I’m always afraid I won’t be responding to the right question! Thinking about communicative competence, I need to rely on context clues. Even if I do not catch every word, it is fair for me to assume that when I first log onto zoom, Farida will ask, "Bagaimana kabarmu?" or how are you? And if we are doing a unit on animals, she may ask, "Which is your favorite?" Even if I do answer wrong, that is okay! Language learning is a process, and we can learn from our mistakes. We are continuing to have our speaking class on Wednesdays, which is pushing me to speak more. Farida had the helpful advice that when we are responding to one of the images with two minutes of talking, we should think through the question words and include these in our response: who, what, when, where, why, how? This will help us organize our thoughts instead of rambling. I have also found it helpful to take a couple of notes in the margins so I remember what I would like to say.
In the upcoming two weeks, I will challenge myself to ask questions in Indonesian. Perhaps if I’m more comfortable asking questions, I’ll also be more comfortable responding to them when I hear them. I can repeat things back in Indonesian and use the language as a communication tool. I will also continue working on my vocabulary notebook because we’ve recently acquired a lot of new vocabulary, and I tend to remember things best if I write them down repeatedly. Having a print version of all my words may be more effective than just using an online translator. Ultimately, I’m excited by my Indonesian progress so far and look forward to continuing to learn more.
Comments
This sounds like such an interesting activity and I also think knowing prepositions is super important! I think smaller words like that are honestly just as important, if not more, than learning as much vocabulary as you can. Asking questions is also a really good way to learn language because you can use it in conversation and avoid talking too much about yourself, ha ha.
Casey, that sounds like such an interesting activity, describing your dream house! I love language learning activities that allow me to think creatively, and I always find that it helps me. And I think you have a "mengagumkan" approach towards learning languages and not being too afraid to make mistakes. Congratulations on your progress thus far!