The first meeting was awesome! It really feels like it is all coming together now. It is always beneficial to feel like you have the option of talking with someone who actually understands what is going on in a language you are just beginning. I really enjoyed hearing a native speaker explain things and simplify them more than a website or book is able to do. Overall, I am feeling very confident about learning Farsi :D
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Posted by ReidSchluter on January 27, 2009 at 4:25pm
The key thing I have been working on this week has been my pronunciation. The 'g'/'ch' hebrew-like sound has been difficult for me to pick up, as has the 'r'--which can either be rolling or throaty, but must always be pronounced. I've seen marked improvement in the last week though, and am meeting with my language partner for the first time tomorrow. He will obviously be a huge resource in aiding my pronunciation, and is fortunately from the Holland region which possesses the dialect I would like to acquire.I have been working through 'Colloquial Dutch' over the past week. I'm close to finishing the second unit following an introduction on pronunciation. There are not very many audio examples given with the book though, which I have found to be a major shortcoming. However, the two resources I added to Diigo are both extremely comprehensive (and free), and fortunately include a fair portion of listening exercises. I think that between 'Colloquial Dutch', my language partner, & these online resources, I could foreseeably gain an intermediate knowledge of Dutch by the end of the semester. It would take a consistent effort, but would certainly be achievable.Overall this week, I've become comfortable with the language. In effect what that means is that I have gained the ability to write, speak, read, & listen to the language without hesitation. Of course I still go fairly slow in each of these disciplines, but there is a visible learning curve, which I'm very optimistic about. Specifically this week I have learned about: personal pronouns, present verb conjugations, having a basic 'how are you' conversation, about 30 verbs including the 5 irregular ones, noun gender, & various basic vocabulary (which I have a broader background in from both my time there & using Tell Me More. Repetition will be key so these things become second-nature, but I know & understand them.
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Posted by Brian Mahoney on January 27, 2009 at 4:19pm
I spent most of this week reviewing things that I have already learned in Farsi, but haven't looked at in a while. The most important things that I have been freshening up on are personal pronouns, possessive suffixes and conjugation in simple past tense. I have done a lot of writing simple sentences to practice these as well as getting used to sentence structure and syntax. As far as vocabulary goes, I've focused on re-learning colors, numbers and words for people and family members. I'm already familiar with a lot of common sayings and greetings, so I have been focusing on listening to them and trying to improve my pronunciation of them.Most of what I've learned so far has been from Easypersian.com. I think they do a really good job of introducing the language to someone who has no experience with it. They do a relatively good job with grammar and language basics, but a lot of the information is not as useful as it would otherwise be because it is not that well organized once you get past the earliest lessons. I have also been using Byki a lot. I had already learned most of the vocabulary and sayings they have, but it has proven especially useful in working on speaking and pronunciation. I have ordered a textbook from Amazon, but it hasn't arrived yet so I'm looking forward to getting that, which I think will help in a lot of ways.
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At first my goals for January were going to be mastery of the alphabet, simple greetings, basic adjectives along with learning definite/indefinite articles, gender, prepositions and demonstrative adjectives. As I have just finished the alphabet and am currently working on basic greetings I feel that my goals were slightly ambitious. Therefore I am going to readjust them to include mastery of the alphabet, simple greetings, basic adjectives and numbers.My previous experience with Arabic was helpful in that learning the alphabet was not as difficult as I imagined however I am having trouble with the pronunciation of some letters, particularly those that were not in the Arabic alphabet. However, the practice session with our language partner was helpful because she worked on pronunciation with us. The most frustrating thing I am finding with learning Farsi independently is the variety of resources which at times are contradictory. For example, I found several sites with basic greetings each having a different way of saying certain words such as good evening. As a result I think I am going to stick with BYKI to learn my vocabulary as much as possible so I can have some consistency in the words I am learning. I also tried doing the Rosetta Stone for Farsi but I found it more difficult to learn the vocabulary and what they were trying to convey than with BYKI.In general I feel like I am progressing in Farsi and I am looking forward to my next language partner session. The lesson that I have learned so far is I need to be more realistic in setting goals for what I would like to accomplish in a week or I need to devote more time than I am to Farsi to achieving the goals I originally set.
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Posted by Becky Walker on January 26, 2009 at 8:48pm
Mission accomplished, I set goals for the month of January, and as the end of the month is approaching, I am nearing completion. I decided, that though writing was not going to be a main focus, that it would be best if I learned the Farsi script and numbers before attempting to learn words and phrases. For some reason, reading them is still more difficult than writing them, but I do still have a few days left in the month to practice reading them.The next section of farsi that I will be attempting is learning a variety of greetings (and responses) and which greeting belongs in which situation. I had my first drill class today, and am already realizing that the words I am learning are the formal/polite forms of the greetings. Though theses are certainly necessary, my goal is to practice the greetings that I will use most often, not necessarily the ones reserved for the elders.As of now, I am preferring the BYKI flashcards to the Rosetta stone, because I am finding it far too easy to cheat using the Rosetta Stone. Whereas in the BYKI model I am not associating pictures with sounds, but reading the letters in the words. I'll continue to look through the sites posted on our group page to see if there are any other interesting and useful sights for learning the basics.For now, ba'adan mibinamet.
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Posted by Brian Mahoney on January 23, 2009 at 1:03pm
The only real experience I have had in learning a language formally is with Spanish. Starting in seventh grade I took four years of Spanish before stopping after my sophomore year of high school. I was exempted from the language requirement at UR so I haven't taken any language courses here before now. At the time I was grateful that I didn't have to take a language, but I've since changed my mind and am now looking forward to the opportunity to learn a new language. I wasn't excellent at Spanish, but in general I was fairly successful in learning the language. Despite how long it has been since I've taken any Spanish, I have found that I have retained substantially more of what I learned than I would have expected.In general, I would say that I fall mostly within the insightful category of the FIRE model. I am much more able to learn and retain knowledge when I can apply some sort of rational system that it fits into. I think this is one of the reasons that I was relatively successful in Spanish. There are so many similarities and connections between English and Spanish that I had an easy time making connections between the two and fitting what I learned into an analogous framework. In order for me to learn a new language, therefore, one of the most important things for me to do is to get a good understanding of its grammar. I am much less successful when it comes to memorization and strict recollection then in other areas. I find that I lose almost all motivation when dealing with something that has to be approached through memorization. Because of this, I think activities such as reading the language is the best way for me to learn. My vocabulary will grow faster through exposure to new words through some sort of medium than by simply memorizing lists of words. It will also be important for me to listen to the language a lot, as I have found that oral comprehension is the area of language learning that I typically struggle the most with.
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As an autonmous learner and based on my previous experiances of learning a language I can learn best when learning begings with the big picture concepts or theories and works toward the particular applications. I can remember words once I see the pictures and hear them over and over.In the past I have learned language by using flash cards, CD players and simply playing with words. I am expanding my knowledge of Farsi by reading online farsi articles, use farsi dictionary and translating from English to farsi. I can speak the language and have some difficulty in writing and structuring sentances in farsi and I am aiming to work on those areas.Sofia Jelanizada
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Well, the only language I can use as a barometer to judge my experience as a language learner was Spanish. However, from the outset and throughout my journeys in learning Spanish, I never truly had any passion to learn the language. I spent seven years in that language and it was a strain on me the whole time. I am much more enthusiastic to learn Farsi than I ever was with Spanish, so that main hurdle of enthusiasm and desire is already met. But with regards to what kind of learner I am, I am believe I fit the "Rational" model more so than any of the others. It's very tough for me to learn following someone else's rigid guidelines, I'm much more open to learning when I can exercise my imagination, and when I'm forced otherwise, I usually find disappointment and fatigue. Learning activities like short stories and movies will escalate my learning a lot more so than rigid tutorials. Having a language partner is extremely vital throughout the learning process, just to have someone to bounce your ideas to can really promote awareness for things otherwise most likely not assumed. I also understand that I work best by myself rather than a group environment, I usually find other people as obstacles in my progress rather than aides.
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Reflection on experiences as a language learner:->Takes a while, but eventually happens.->Rough goingIn accordance with FIRE Model-> Factual- 1-> Insightful- 7,6,5-> Rational- 2,4,6-> Evaluative- 6Course Goals--> Familiarization with alphabet-> Familiarization with basic greetings and commands-> More interested in the cultural aspects
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Looking back on the FIRE model that was handed out in class, I found it difficult to categorize myself as one type of learner. If I had to place myself as one type of learner it would be the 7th level on the evaluative style. For me, I seem to excel with small groups that are collaborative as opposed to competitive. However, I feel that I am not single faceted and could learn to participate in other styles of learning as well.
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Posted by ReidSchluter on January 20, 2009 at 11:20am
My language learning experiences up until this point have been fairly diverse. I began in middle school by taking two years of elementary Latin. I found this very hard, and credit it for allowing me to learn other languages easily (I had the most trouble with the noun cases in Latin) as well as more enthusiastically.From that point, I took four years of Spanish throughout high school, and then took intensive intermediate Spanish my first semester at UR. Therefore, although it has not developed much recently, my working knowledge of Spanish is still quite good. Listening has always been my shortcoming as I typically cannot pick of all of the intricacies of most statements. However, I have the ability to speak it well (served as translator on construction site & spoke nearly seamlessly while spending time in Madrid) while also being able to read and write rather well. I would have to be immersed in the language--as I was in Madrid--to fully rediscover these skills since it has been a few years, but I still retain a very good knowledge of Spanish.My only other formal language learning experience was with French. I took one year of French early in high school at the same time I was in Spanish 2. I had a very easy time learning the language--at this point the fourth I had studied at an elementary level--but occasionally became mixed-up with Spanish, as I had not fully learned that language yet. Nevertheless, I did extremely well on all of my assignments and examinations. Due to the teacher undeservedly lowering my grades for 'classroom participation' and a variety of scheduling conflicts, I was forced to stop taking French Junior year. I've since forgotten a lot of it, but again have the ability to recall my skills given the proper setting.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In terms of my particular learning skills, I think I fit most easily within the 'Factual' framework. History has always been my best subject, and as a result is my college major despite the fact that I will not be pursuing any sort of historical job following graduation. I believe that I've been so successful as a history student due almost exclusively to my factual learning style. I have a very good--and specific--memory, and have always had the ability to remember a large amount of objective information--particularly facts. I also possess an amount of insightful learning qualities. I consistently do very well on papers that require me to use more factual examples in order to prove a much greater theoretical point. I consider this closely related to factual learning, and it requires some time for me to organize my thoughts.Language learning activities that fit within this factual framework would be best suited to me. I have the ability to sit down and remember almost any factual information whatsoever. In a language scenario, that means I could quickly remember all of the conjugations of a few irregular verbs. The activities I would ideally like to do would require me to apply this knowledge in order that it can be more than just memorized facts. Once I acquire an amount of facts about Dutch (be it vocabulary or something greater), I will need activities that incorporate into my knowledge as more than just facts. In other words, I will need to know a theoretical framework behind my newfound knowledge that allows me to apply it properly, since I will be able to solely remember everything on my own.I think that is the best way I could expand my learning activities into more of a rational or evaluative framework. It will be important for me to stick with factual and insightful because that is the way I retain information, and will surely produce the greatest level of success for me in this class. By utilizing the two models less suited to me, I think I could learn even more however. If I can learn more about the theoretical framework behind any segment of the Dutch language, than it will only serve to allow me to utilize and recall the tremendous amount of information I store even easier.
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Over the past ten years I have studied several languages in a variety of settings. I have learned Spanish, Arabic and now endeavoring to learn Farsi each with varying degrees of success and frustration. For Spanish I took formal classes with a teacher for 7 years complemented by two study abroad programs in Central and South America, one for 3 weeks and another for 6 weeks. I studied Arabic for 1 year at college followed by a semester long program in Jordan, where 6 weeks of the program was partially devoted to Arabic. After coming back from Jordan I tried to reintegrate myself into the Richmond Arabic program, but had difficulty doing so because of the different teaching styles so I am currently studying the language independently using a variety of resources. From these two experiences learning languages I have learned what methods of learning I respond best to and how to best maximize the amount of Farsi I learn this semester.Spanish and Arabic taught me that I like a language course with structure that is analytical and not abstract. I learn best with lists and charts and dislike learning through role-play and open-ended questions. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like dialogue practices with native speakers, because my study abroad experiences helped me realize that I learned more when I was forced to use the language to communicate with native speakers on a frequent basis. I think because I am a more analytical and shy person I don’t like language activities that involve spontaneous role-play or even coming up with conversations to be acted out in front of people. I prefer activities that are more writing intensive or at least allow me the opportunity to write things down before I have to speak about them. Language activities I like the most include matching phrases with pictures, matching words with definitions, filling in the blank and other similar activities. These were the activities that I did in my Spanish courses and Arabic in Jordan, which was much more helpful to me than Arabic at Richmond where I felt that there was no structure to the class and there were no activities, simply explanations.I would like to work on my ability to be able to converse with more ease, which will involve working on exercises that force me to speak and think on my feet more quickly that writing does. I think that studying Farsi independently will allow me to accomplish this goal because I will be able to create my own structure and goals each week and move at the pace that I feel comfortable with while also challenging my conversational skills through the use of drill instructors. I am hoping that my previous language learning experiences will allow me to understand what works best with me and maximize the amount of Farsi I learn in the upcoming weeks.
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Posted by Becky Walker on January 16, 2009 at 11:36am
Languages have not always come easily to me. Notoriously, my strengths lie in conversation, not reading and writing. Though I have now taken Arabic for a semester, I am just progressing onto the past tense. However, I am optimistic about Farsi, simply because I will be able to dictate how I learn it, as opposed to having a full class instruction which molds to the masses.According to the FIRE model for learning, I am a balance between an insightful and rationale learner. My responses actually were exclusively a balance of those two, as the factual and evaluative remained blank. Essentially, my translation of this, is that I like to do things my way--which is again why I am hopeful about the self-directed foundation for this course.The challenge for me this semester will be finding a way to include the factual learning style into my preferred learning style, as I do acknowledge its importance. There are many components of a language that are as they are, they cannot be changed simply due to my willing them to be more abstract. Thus I will constantly have to remind myself that this is a learning process not only to learn a language, but reteach myself alternative ways of learning.
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Reading the information about autonomous learning was really intriguing. There were a lot of sections that talked about people and styles that heighten learning. Such as "repetition, when imitating others' speech;resourcing, i.e., having recourse to dictionaries and other materials; translation, that is, using their mother tongue as a basis for understanding and/or producing the target language; note-taking; deduction, i.e., conscious application of L2 rules...(http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html)"I think all these things are very important to learning a new language. Many people do not think of learning a language in the sense that it can have a formula and steps just like a math or science problem.The reading, What is Learner Autonomy and How Can It Be Fostered?, also mentions constructivism. Which is key to creating a formula in learning languages; especially for teaching yourself a language.For me once I learned one language it was easy to see how to replicate the teaching style. Start with pronunciation, move to simple vocabulary - cognates, etc.From then FIRE chart i am generally a Factual and Insightful learner with a few Rational tendencies when it comes to teaching styles and grading/acknowledgement of work.As a learner I think the best plan is going to be laying out a detailed map of the oder in which to tackle tasks. What Vocabulary, grammar, and verbs to tackle fist. I will need to find ways to create a system of checking my progress - so making/finding worksheets.
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My best experience as a language learner came on my first trip to France, when I spent six weeks in classes more intense than anything I had experienced in high school.
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