The following things are topics that dropped out of my learning plan:
- How to count in Bangla past what I already know (I can only count up to 20 and the 10s)
- Memorize the days of the week.
Halfway through the course I realized that I felt it was more important to me to learn how to read and write in Bangla more than it was to learn the little things that I did not know. I know that because I am already familiar in the language the only thing that I'd have to do in order to learn the things that I skipped in my learning plan is to memorize them so they fell pretty low in my priorities.
I am happy with the fact that I can recognize Bengali letters and that I know their sounds and can pronounce them together. Aside from conjuncts and some errors in differentiating certain letters from others because of how identical they look, I can read Bengali fairly well now, though at a slow stumbling pace.
I learned how to write and I'm very excited about that! I find writing much easier than reading, ironically. I can speak the language, yet I have difficulty reading and am better at writing. I recognize the letters well enough to write them, but when it comes to reading somehow I manage to mix the letters up and read what I don't mean. I think this has to do with the fact that I give myself more time to deliberate what I'm about to write than when I read. I cannot write or identify most conjuncts, but that's something I plan on working towards in the future.
As for comprehension, I still don't know shuddo bangla as well as I wanted to, but I know that I understand Bangla more than I gave myself credit for in the beginning. The reason for this lies solely in the pronunciation and I'm not sure if I want to do more in developing an ear for that on my own as opposed to hearing others and being exposed to it and getting used to it. Different pronunciations throw me off. I'm going to Bangladesh this summer for a month so I'm going to have the perfect opportunity to work on that!
I signed up for SDLC 111 for the upcoming fall and my plans are more succinct because I know which aspects I want to focus on. I definitely know that I need to work on my reading; that will have to be practice and reading more on my own. There won't be a better way than that to learn the conjuncts that I'm not familiar with (and good lord are there tons!!!) and get used to them. I want to read a book in Bangla for children so that I can transition to a higher level. I also need to pick up a good English to Bangla dictionary during my stay in Bangladesh. As for writing, I just need to learn the technical things like grammar rules for writing and such. I thought I would need to learn Bangla grammar, but turns out I already know it from speaking it- who would've known?
My ultimate goal for Spring 2014 (a whole year from now) is to be able to either read Bangla literature or write fluently.
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