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   After reading David Crystal’s articles on “How the brain handles language” and “How we mean and How we analyze meaning” I learned a great deal about the biomechanics behind language comprehension and usage as well as the intricacies of how we process meaning and convey our thoughts relative to the world around us. One question that I pondered as I read the text was the significant disparity between homogeneity in right-handed people where 95% of estimates show dominance in the left hemisphere of the brain for language whereas in left-handed people, 60% of estimates show that their left hemisphere is either dominant or very involved in language as well.

   No, I do not think language is a purely biological phenomenon. While biology does play a crucial role in our ability to perceive, understand, and effectively use language for communication, it does not tell us much about the origins of language or how it came to be. Since human beings are the only species currently known to be able to form and communicate such complex thoughts and emotions in a ‘fairly’ standardized manner, it follows that civilization, ethnic roots, and cultural heritage all played a significant role in shaping modern languages.

   There are several areas of the brain that play a vital role in the production and comprehension of speech. There is Broca’s area in the left hemisphere of the brain responsible for speech production and articulation. Connected to Broca’s area is Wernicke’s area in the posterior superior temporal lobe which is responsible mainly for comprehension. Finally, the angular gyrus allows us to incorporate auditory, visual, and sensory information to language related information.

   We conceptualize or process meaning through semantics—through collocations and sense relations between lexemes which are the basic lexical units of a language. Collocations are the tendency of certain lexemes to occur in sequence. As we discussed in class, if someone says the word “for” most people think of the next word to be “example” and I think that is recognition pattern helps us in logically understanding the context of what is being said. There are many different types of sense relations but one of the most commonly known ones would be synonymy i.e., words that are similar but not the same. As mentioned in the text, car and automobile are viable substitutes thus, if I were to know what a car is and that the word automobile is a synonym for car then I would be perfectly capable of understanding the sentence “I got a new automobile today” even though this is not the commonly spoken way of expressing that particular idea.

   A part of the text I found particularly interesting was about distinguishing “sense” from “reference.” As I advance in my foreign language studies, I will keep in the mind the importance of explaining a word’s meaning in sense as opposed to in reference to avoid future confusions or wrongful deductions based solely on observation. For example, rather than pointing to a pen to explain what a pen is, it is more beneficial to break it down into something like “An object containing ink that helps me write on paper.”  

I spent the first two weeks of this new semester reviewing my Korean notes regarding grammar and vocabulary that I had learned last semester. Although I am rusty with my Korean, reviewing my notes actually did get me up to speed quickly. I noticed some of the issues that I still need to work on for this semester to truly gain some fluency and proficiency in Korean. One of these is sentence construction. I spent most of last semester learning the intricate grammar rules and vocabulary in Korean and I did not do a lot of sentence construction or comprehension. I hope to expand greatly in this respect this semester and will try to increase the amount of spoken Korean during my learning sessions with Jannette. I also need to heavily practice Korean particles in conjunction with sentence construction. 

I recently have been reading Korean webtoons on Naver to practice my reading comprehension but I still need to use translators to understand the meaning of most phrases. This significantly slows down my reading speed; this is a good thing for comprehension. But, I still find that retaining most words in my vocab difficult. I have seen phrases that I studied last semester showing up in the texts, which is nice. Spoken Korean is still a blur though since it takes me too much time to understand what native speakers say sometimes. 

I did plan on reviewing Korean earlier during winter break using the KORLINK app but I found it difficult to do so without a Korean speaker to interact with weekly. Weekly sessions helped to remind me why I learning Korean could be so fun. I initially started to learn because I saw it as a instrument for enhancing my hobbies in Korean culture but interacting with native speakers in their own language turned out to be pretty fun. One thing that I did pick up recently was texting in Korean. The Korean keyboard apps are pretty intuitive and I had lots of fun texting Somyung and Jannette in Korean. Typing Korean isn't nearly as easy and writing it though and I found handwriting to be pretty forgiving when it came to autocomplete. One strategy that I will continue doing this semester is writing down vocab and phrases that I can look back on in my notebook. Many of the insights that I had last semester carried over well in that regard.

I spent the first learning session with Jannette introducing ourselves and our background and interest in Korean. She is a native speaker that moved to America in her youth so I am grateful to learn from her and her expertise. Although Covid makes meeting up extremely difficult, we still plan to have two sessions per week. One session will be one-on-one and the other will be in a group setting. This is for scheduling convenience and also testing the ability to communicate in Korean in a classroom like setting. We will also be delving more into Korean history and culture during these group sessions. This will extend into the authentic cultural assignments for this SDLC. 

It has been over a year since I took SDLC 110. During the Fall 2019 semester, I studied Korean with Professor Sumi Kim from the Lord Jesus Korean Church and Jenna, my UR language partner. That was the first time I formally learned Korean. Before that, I knew only a few words and phrases. The most important thing that Professor Kim and Jenna taught me was how to read and write using the Korean alphabet. Since then, I have read Korean whenever I had the chance – whether it was on a poster, a card, a cooking ingredient, subtitles, et cetera. I have become much faster at reading Korean. When I first learned the alphabet, it would take me a few seconds to sound out each individual character, let alone one word. Now, it has become more second-nature to me to read in Korean. I am still not a fast reader, but I am happy with how my reading level has progressed. This was a good strategy for me to develop my reading skills because in my daily life (especially at home), I am surrounded by Korean words. Stopping to read whatever Korean words were around me was an effective strategy in advancing my reading level because it was a constant way for me to practice. Now that it has been over a year since I have studied Korean with a teacher, I am glad I continually read in Korean so that I did not forget the alphabet.

This past week, I met with Jannette, my language partner this semester. We briefly reviewed the Korean alphabet so that she could assess my reading and speaking level. I was able to say most of the letters correctly. I was unsure of how to say some of the complex vowels. I remember learning them, but I do not see them often in Korean words. Jannette and I also developed a learning plan for this semester. I want to focus on listening and speaking, particularly practicing proper pronunciation. During the past year, I read and wrote in Korean more often than I listened and spoke because I did not have a formal teacher or language partner. Now, I hope to speak often in Korean so that I sound understandable.

One way I will develop my Korean speaking skills is by reading out loud. I have already checked out Korean children’s books, which I look forward to reading. This will also teach me more vocabulary words and simple grammar rules. Another exercise which I learned from Talk To Me In Korean is listening to a Korean word and then writing it out. This will help me improve my listening and writing skills. I also plan on using other Talk To Me In Korean resources. They have many courses on their website, such as “How Korean Sentences Work,” “Korean Pronunciation Guide,” “Must-Know Words In Korean,” and “Short & Useful Korean Phrases for Beginners.”

Overall, I am very excited to formally study Korean again this semester. I am meeting with Jannette individually and as a group with her other students. I am particularly looking forward to our group meetings, which will hopefully give me a chance to communicate in Korean with people with a similar language level.

During the first two weeks of the semester, I got to meet Farida, the language partner for Bahasa Indonesia. We utilize a hybrid structure, with 1-hour online sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a 1-hour in-person session on Wednesdays, and an asynchronous portion on Fridays. I think it is a nice balance to maximize learning opportunities.

Even though I am Indonesian, I was born and raised in the US and do not know a lot of other Indonesian people outside of my family, so it is nice to be able to communicate with Farida. She knows it is my heritage language, so she tries to speak in Bahasa as much as possible, as I am already familiar with basic grammar and vocabulary. I still find myself mixing in English when I speak in Indonesian, so I want to work on producing purely Indonesian sentences. Essentially, there are a lot of gaps in my knowledge of Indonesian language, so I hope to fill those gaps and develop my speaking, listening, reading, and writing abilities.

With Indonesian being my heritage language, I mainly spoke it as a child, so it did not fully develop, especially when I started going to school. I noticed that were many things I did not know or realize about the language, one being the differences between formal and informal speaking. This was evident on our lessons about pronouns- I knew all the informal ones but I had never heard of the formal versions. When I speak Indonesian around my family, I mostly use informal, so it was difficult for me to distinguish between the two. As a result, I somewhat internalized Indonesian to be a mainly “informal” language, but I now know that this is not the case. It was further emphasized in another lesson about honorifics.

For our lecture and speaking classes, I started learning about greetings, pronouns, and introductions (self and other people). As I mentioned above, the hardest part about the lessons were learning about the formal versions. I had never heard of most of the formal words before, so I had to take extra steps to remember the distinctions. I appreciate the structure of the class, as it mixes several language skills such as speaking and writing. For example, Farida might lecture for a few minutes about the topic and introduce key points, but then she will have me create sentences by speaking or by writing in the chat or a Google doc. This was especially helpful when learning about pronouns because I had to use each different pronoun but also switch the subject/object around. Our language table and asynchronous portions focus more on cultural lessons about Indonesia. Our lessons have included public spaces in Indonesia and transportation. I find these lessons helpful to learn about life in Indonesia as well as its history. Since I have visited Indonesia several times, I am also able to contribute my previous knowledge and expand on it. These lessons have included the usage of videos, then comprehension questions afterwards to assess my understanding or clarify the content. For the asynchronous class, I have a journal assignment afterwards which I find helpful to practice my writing skills. During every class session, I write any new vocabulary or grammar points that come up.

Over break, other than verbally communicating with my family as well as coworkers, some (albeit light) reading, and the occasional YouTube video binge, I had very few use of Vietnamese. As a result, the past two weeks were spent reviewing basic grammar as well as conducting Vietnamese drills as a means to review vocabulary. My language partner and I are also drawing up a rough learning plan and goals for this semester.

We reviewed basic grammar such as basic sentence structure, measured words (classifiers), conjunction, and tenses. Vietnamese and English share similar sentence structure in that they both utilize the SVO structure; that is, subject + verb + object. Vietnamese conjunctions uses và (“and”), nhưng (“but”), hay (“or”), hoặc (“either … or”) similarly to the way conjunctions are used in English.

Vietnamese also utilizes adjectives much like English, however, unlike English, Vietnamese adjectives are always placed after the nouns they modify. Another dissimilarity between the two languages lies in that there are also no word forms (i.e inflection) in Vietnamese. Additional words are used to indicate additional or altered meanings as well as tenses. For Vietnamese, the only major verb tenses are:

• present simple -> uses only the verb, just like in English
• present continuous -> indicated using đang - the equivalent of the verb -ing form in English - before the verb
• past simple -> indicated using đã (“already”) before the verb or rồi (“already”) at the end of the sentence.
• future simple -> indicated using sẽ (“will”) before the verb

In comparison, English utilizes twelve verb tenses: 

• simple present 
  • E.g. They run home.
• simple past
  • E.g. They ran home.
• simple future
  • E.g. They will run home.
• Present Continuous
  • E.g. They are running home.
• Past Continuous
  • E.g. They were running home when they came across the cat.
• Future continuous
  • E.g. They will be running home.
• Present perfect 
  • E.g. They have lived here since last year.
• Past perfect
  • E.g. They had been here before.
• Future perfect
  • E.g. They will have been here by now.
• Present perfect continuous
  • E.g. They are running.
• Past perfect continuous 
  • E.g. They were running.
• Future perfect continuous 
  • E.g. They will be running.

For the drill, my partner and I decided to talk about our activities over the break. I talked about how I’ve  been working for the Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) as well as helping at my family’s friend’s Vietnamese restaurant. Since it’s a family owned business, most of the people who work there are also Vietnamese. Many of them are Vietnam war immigrants or first generation Vietnamese Americans (which we all often jokingly refers to as Việt kiều which means “overseas Vietnamese” or “Vietnamese diasapora”). It was surprisingly easy to communicate with them despite my barely intermediate level of Vietnamese, but since  most of them are Vietnam War refugees, we speak a common accent from the south so that could have also aided in my comprehension. However, I was told that I don’t carry the typical Vietnamese-American accent that their children or themselves carry when they speak in Vietnamese or English. 

This week I had my first meetings with my Korean language partner, Jannette! We started off assessing my background in Korean -- which was none, complete beginner here! So then we discussed my previous language learning experiences and what I felt worked well and what I would like to work on this semester, which we also touched on in class this week. This week was very helpful as I learned new strategies to approach language learning that I had never considered before but would be super helpful, such as listening to the language through music or YouTube videos so I can be able to slow down and learn how words are pronounced. I also enjoyed learning about the different programs and resources that the Global Studio provides to help us improve our language skills, such as EdPuzzle, SCOLA interactive video lessons and other online programs targeted towards learning Korean, so I definitely plan on utilizing these in my learning with my language partner. As I’m continuing to work on my language plan, I shared with Jannette how my primary goal is to be able to have casual conversations in Korean so I can be more involved with my group of friends on campus who have a Korean background. Since I spend most of my time with them, I really would like to more fully understand their culture without them always having to explain things to me. In the next coming weeks, I hope to learn the basics such as the alphabet and key phrases used in conversation. I was so interested in class when we watched the TEDTalk about the key to learning multiple languages, and I never considered how there are words in our native language that give us access to thousands of words in different languages and language families. I always heard of cognates when learning Spanish, but never considered that they could apply to other languages, so as I start out learning Korean I also plan to incorporate learning collocations and trying to identify the most common words used in conversations in English so that I can learn to say them in Korean.

I also had a group meeting with Jannette and Eden, so that was very exciting and I feel like that will benefit me to be able to speak with other students who are also learning Korean. Hopefully that will take away some of my anxieties and need for perfectionism in pronouncing words correctly. We also discussed some of the activities we will incorporate to learn more about Korean culture, such as watching and listening to Korean dramas and videos about the history of Korea, as well as learning about Korean cultural artifacts and even possibly learning to cook traditional Korean dishes! I think this is a really great aspect of SDLC compared to my prior language learning experiences since we mainly were “taught” the culture through textbooks rather than trying activities to immerse ourselves in the cultural norms and practices of the target language. Overall, in terms of progress in learning actual Korean language, I learned to say hello in casual conversation and learned about how you add an ending when talking to someone older and respected. I honestly felt weird trying to mimic the sounds Jannette was making to teach me how to pronounce hello; it reminded me of comments in class feeling like an American trying to speak Korean. I finally started to understand what Dr. Marsh-Soloway meant when he told me I would have to make sounds that I’m not used to making in English! This week made me realize how much I’m going to have to practice by actually speaking to really learn the language, which was what the TEDTalk also touched on. However, I feel like my excitement with the things I’ve been learning in class have helped ease my nerves about learning Korean -- I feel up to the challenge and am looking forward to finalizing my goals for this semester!

What stood out most to me in the text was the functional relationship between the brain’s left and right hemispheres. In particular, it was really interesting how whether someone is left-handed or right-handed can impact which hemisphere is dominant for language (173). For example, in right-handed people the left hemisphere is dominant for language, whereas the right hemisphere is dominant for processes such as emotional expression and recognition (174).Since I honestly didn’t understand what it meant by dominant for “language” because there are many cognitive processes involved in language processing, such as being able to communicate through writing or speech, interpreting meaning of language, hearing speech and seeing visual cues for communication, etc. so I don’t necessarily know what they mean by language. I also found the theory of cerebral localization to be interesting, as some parts of the brain have been found to be related to specific behavioral abilities that are necessary for language processing and communication (174). For example, parts of the parietal and temporal lobes play important roles in the production and comprehension of speech (175). However, I disagree with this idea since similarly there is no hemisphere of the brain that is more important than the other to process language and other information; it’s a matter of both of the hemispheres working together that really enhances one’s cognitive abilities (174).

In thinking of the meaning of words, I never realized that there were different perspectives on the relationship between words and things. After learning about the naturalist and conventionalist views, I realized I resonate more with the conventionalist as I always wondered how and why certain words became our point of reference for certain things. Like how did we come up with naming different fruits what they were? What about an apple makes it an apple? I also found it very insightful in class when we discussed the importance of not trying to automatically associate words that we learn in our target language with what we call the things in our native language; in other words trying to translate everything back to what feels natural to us (188). I think that is so important to keep in mind because it truly limits our scope of how we view the world and we noticeably get trapped in an ethnocentric way of thinking our culture is more relevant and important than the beautifully diverse cultures in the world that we can learn so much from. It was also interesting to think of words in more simplified ways with various forms as I learned about lexemes; for example “walk” is a lexeme, which is the most basic form that changes form when different roots are added to it, such as “walks,” “walking,” “walked,” etc. (193). Now that I have this new knowledge, I think it would be very helpful to start learning lexemes and collocations in Korean, so then I can gradually learn about different root endings to help expand my vocabulary in conversations. Sense relations of words was also an interesting concept to me, because I feel like we identify relationships of words without actually knowing it; for example synonymy when words have similar meanings; inclusion when a word is a kind of a different word; antonymy when a word is the opposite of another word; and incompatibility as lexemes are grouped together in categories (195-197). I think this will also be a helpful strategy as I learn vocabulary in Korean so that I can think of the different sense relationships between the vocabulary relevant for me to achieve my language tasks that I’m outlining for my learning plan.

Before meeting with my language tutor this week, I only knew two Slovak words, ahoy and

dobry den (Ahoy is used as an informal hello and dobry den is used as a formal hello). I knew

next to nothing about the Slovak language and that terrified me. I was even caught by

surprise when I signed on to my first italki tutoring session and my tutor, Adriana, said ako

sa mas? (how are you?). I just stared back at her as I desperately tried to translate the

phrase but, eventually, I understood her question through context clues. This first moment in

my tutoring session perfectly encapsulates my experiences in Slovak thus far. I am always

on my toes due to the one-on-one attention and the completely new conventions of the

Slovak language. However, cognates and critical thinking (like using context clues) has

massively helped me to understand certain words or phrases without the help of my tutor.

There are moments in my tutoring sessions where I feel a little overwhelmed by all of the information. The pronunciations really require me to reposition my lips and tongue in order to make these new (at least to me) sounds. The English language shares a few commonalities with Slovak, but pronunciation is definitely not one of them. However, my tutor is really helpful in instructing me to properly sound out any challenging words and we continue to work on the proper sounds of each letter in the alphabet. Adriana always makes sure that I am reading my lessons aloud with the proper pronunciation and intonation. I am especially grateful for her help with pronunciation and her focus on the Slovak alphabet because an understandable Slovak accent is one of my biggest goals for this semester.

We also focused on basic verb conjugation and common vocabulary. However, Adriana’s approach to learning verbs and vocabulary is much different than my other language experiences. My language education in Spanish and Danish were much more formal because my teachers typically introduced grammar through long lectures and introduced vocabulary through study guides and flash cards. In contrast, Adriana focuses on faster pace learning with short introductions to verb conjugation or new vocabulary. After each lesson, I focus on reviewing the content by forming different sentences/discussions and practicing pronunciation.

I also really enjoy working with Adriana because she also mentions the more culturally relevant/acceptable words or phrases used in Slovak. I remember talking to one of my dad’s friends in Spanish who quickly admonished me for my constant use of Spanglish. These were phrases and words presented to me as the “right” way to speak Spanish. However, in actual conversation, I soon found out that these words and phrases marked me as an outsider, a foreign Spanish speaker. One example of Adriana’s help in gaining cultural competence is when she first introduced the word prosím as please or excuse me. However, she also added that Slovaks answer the phone with the word prosím. This a piece of cultural knowledge that I would not have learned if not for the cultural expertise of Adriana.

Despite only having a week of Slovak tutoring, I know how restricted I felt as a Spanish and Danish learner. My teachers never emphasized individual attention, individual goals or cultural competency. I am excited to continue my tutoring sessions with Adriana and excited to continue working on my Slovak pronunciation and comprehension. In the next few weeks, I want to focus on consuming different types of Slovak entertainment and news in order to find some kind of music or television program that I can regularly watch.

The two chapters from How Language Works reminded me of the objective and scientific nature of linguistics. Often, language appears messy and abstract with polysemic words, fluctuations in formality and obscure idioms. There are so many parts of language that feel uncontrollable and random. However, the study of linguistics attempts to tame the abstract concept of language through categorization, established linguistic formulas and neurological studies. I find it both strange and liberating in observing the systematic nature of linguistics when the same elements (words, sentences, syntax, etc.) of this field make up the great novels of William Faulkner and Maya Angelou. It is fascinating to see that their complex language can be broken down so precisely and scientifically by linguistic scholars.

The Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area were emphasized as especially important for speech production and comprehension. Any damage to these areas of the brain may impair someone’s ability to produce or understand speech. It’s incredible to think that these small parts of matter can determine a person’s ability to understand and communicate with others. When I speak in my first language of English, these biological processes happen quickly and seamlessly. However, every time I start to learn a new language, my brain’s speech and comprehension abilities seem to chug along at a snail-like pace. In these moments, I truly realize the incredible processing power of the human brain and its capacity to complete multi-step processes in seconds.

Language cannot be considered a purely biological phenomenon when considering the influence of individual cultures and histories on language. The processing and production of words may belong to a more biological process, but linguistic nuisances such as intonation, body language and pronunciation likely are created outside of the neurological processing of one individual. The cultural and social context/environment surrounding a person likely influences the content being processed by the brain.

During the past two weeks I met with my language partner, Somyung. In our first meeting we set some rules and expectations we want to follow during our lessons. We decided to meet every morning on saturday and a rule we set was to speak only in Korean. I also told her the area I wanted to improve my korean this semester which was writing. We discussed some of our plans to improve my skills such as writing diaries every week. Also, my language partner will be providing me with some prompts to write about during our lesson. We will also be watching XX which are short videos in Korean to try to improve my vocabulary for my writing. My end goal for learning Korean is to be able to write essays or educational paragraphs in Korean. I really feel relieved and excited at the steps we are taking to get to my end goal. Usually, Korean tutors would overburden students with a workload of essays to write to improve their skills. However, I am more engaged in my learning since we are taking small steps and moving along with how I progress. 

Today, I met with my language partner in the morning. We went over my homework, the diary I wrote for this week, and fixed my grammar mistakes. I noticed that I would write my diary in a way I would speak. So I would leave out a lot of 을 behind words. I also made a mistake where I was saying I went to eat food. So “I went” is 갔다 but I misspelled it as 같다 which means “same”. My language partner noticed how my diary was written like the schedule of my day. She advised me to try writing more of how I felt about an event or activity because my writing felt very choppy. This is my first time writing anything in korean other than the alphabet or text messages. I have a lot of areas to improve in. Next, we watched a short video of XX episode 1 and I heard familiar vocabulary in this episode. By the end of the semester I want to be able to know some vocabulary other than the commonly understood words. The last assignment we did today was writing a page that answers a prompt Somyung prepared for me. The prompt asked to write about my favorite and least favorite food from the cafeteria. I had difficulty starting this prompt because I didn’t really know how to start. So I started by saying which school and I went and introduced the cafeteria we had here. While I was writing I noticed that I had some difficulty spelling out some vocabulary like 풍경 which means scenery. I became aware of the difference of knowing the vocabulary word from speaking to actually trying to write it and spell it out. My language partner let me look it up but later I want to make sure I reduce the amount of times I look up how to spell words.

This past week, I focused on completing two main tasks, which were to write diaries about my day and listening to radio stations. While writing my diaries, I wanted to figure out what I struggled with the most. I realized that I hesitate when I write in Korean because I forgot the basics of Korean. I did not remember how to differentiate double vowels and vowels when writing. Many double vowels and vowels sound similar, which is what makes writing in Korean difficult for me. I set a specific time every day to write my diary about how my day went. Having a set time in the day was an effective way for me to remember to write. For writing diaries, I want to continue to use this strategy as I continue my Korean learning journey this semester. Having a set time allows me to create a daily routine, which could keep me on track, and I will rarely miss a day if I continue to be consistent. When I realized that I still lacked the basic grammar rules, it hurt my pride because I thought I had confidence in the basic rules. However, it seems that since I did not have the chance to write in Korean a lot, I get confused between the vowels. After learning from this experience, I included improving my grammar in my language learning plan. I asked my language partner, Rachel, to help me find some worksheets on the grammar topics I struggle with. Before we meet up again, we both agreed to find different worksheets on the specific part of grammar that I am struggling with, and we will pick the best one together. However, if we fail to find one that is right for me, she offered to make me a worksheet herself, and she will correct my mistakes and help me understand the differences. Since I am also an audial learner, I will watch youtube videos if the worksheets do not help me understand the rules. However, I want to try the worksheets out first because I do think that doing task-oriented activities is crucial in building a strong foundation for language learning. 

Aside from writing diaries, I also listened to two different radio stations. I listened to at least one episode from Kang Han Na’s Volume Up Radio and Din Din’s Music High Radio. The first couple of minutes, I had a difficult time trying to focus. Rachel suggested that I find video recording uploads of the radio on youtube, and I found out that the broadcasting company uploads them on youtube. Having something to watch as I listen will help me stay focused more, and I will continue to listen to radio stations through this method. When making my language learning lesson plan, I asked my parents for show or drama recommendations to watch. They recommended different variety shows, such as Running Man, Radio Star, How Do You Play, 2 Days 1 Night, and many more. Although I enjoyed watching all of the shows that my parents recommended to me, I wanted to choose a television show that exposes me to different areas of South Korea, varieties of Korean cuisine, learn about the Korean historical and famous landmarks, and many more. Out of the shows I watched, I found that 2 Days 1 Night provides everything I mentioned. Rachel and I decided to watch this show together, and we will discuss it together in Korean while we are watching, and after as well. Since Rachel and I are roommates, we also discussed having a future karaoke session in our dorm room. We both loved going to karaoke before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and I think this will be a fun opportunity for both of us to do something we love together and make it part of our language learning journey.

Before reading “How the Brain Handles Language,” I always thought that producing and comprehending a language was a simple process in our brains that gradually developed as we grew and became more fluent in the language. However, this reading taught me how complex the process of producing and comprehending speech was. I learned that Wernicke's area and Broca’s area are the most important parts of the brain for speech production and comprehension. In the production of speech, Wernicke's area generates the utterance structure, and the structure gets sent to the Broca’s area for encoding. For comprehension, the signal gets transferred into Wernicke's area and becomes interpreted. I did not find any claims problematic. However, I wish that the author explained why it is not as likely that the right hemisphere is not always dominant in left-handed people while the left hemisphere is dominant for most right-handed people. 

I do not think that language is a purely biological phenomenon because we mainly learn language through interactions with other people. Without interaction with other people, we would not have the ability to communicate with others. As babies, we imitate the sounds we hear from our parents and our surroundings. However, I think that the biological features we were born with give us the ability to learn and acquire the language as we continue to hear it daily. 

Generally, I process meaning through context clues. I think about the general topic of what I am reading or hearing, and I utilize other words in the sentence and try to figure out what it could mean. After reading the collocations section, it inspired me to use collocations when I am learning Korean. Through collocations, I can learn the restrictions on which lexemes go together, which can help me sound more natural when speaking and writing. Since one of my main goals this semester is to expand my vocabulary and sound more fluent, I feel that learning collocations can help me advance in my Korean language abilities.

I was born and raised in Nepal where formal school education begins by the age of three. Majority of such early education is focused on teaching Nepali and English to students concurrently. Once students learn the alphabets, syntax, and grammar for both languages at a beginner level, most of the upper level education is offered only in Nepali and developing English proficiency becomes more of a choice than a need for students. Over time, my Nepali improved while my English remained at the beginner level because I never used it. I have no recollection of learning basic English or Nepali as I learnt it when I was really young. However, I do remember learning Hindi through a lot of cartoons and movies all throughout elementary school. This was mostly because Nepal just had a few news channels and most of the entertainment channels on our cable were Indian. When I grew up and moved to the United States five years ago, I began working on expanding my knowledge of the English language and have ultimately become fluent in it now.

Looking back at my language journey, I do not recall being a language learner in a formal setting, but I have a lot of experience as an independent learner. I think the most enjoyable aspect of learning both English and Hindi was associating that learning experience to a serious purpose. In elementary school, that purpose was to be able watch cartoons in Hindi and in the US, it was solely for survival- to get hired for a job, to get into college for undergrad, and to succeed in this liberal arts education system. The more time I devoted to learning the language, the better I became at it and it helped me fulfill those aforementioned goals. In addition, I loved how my understanding of the world and various cultures expanded as I learned other languages. It allowed me to compare and contrast how societal norms, values, and human behaviors vary across the world. I am also the kind of person that derives their energy from social interactions. Through my use of Hindi and English on the internet, I was also able to connect to a global audience from a small village in Nepal and it helped me grow immensely, both on a personal and professional level. On the other hand, I really disliked the feeling of being unsuccessful and/or imperfect during the learning process. I am a perfectionist and I get easily discouraged when something takes a long time to master. The biggest milestone in my language journey was convincing myself that it is not possible to know everything about any language- not even my native language. Language is constantly evolving and the best I can do is just persevere and keep  working on my language skills without expecting complete mastery. This realization has made me a much more patient and effective learner. Another thing that I really disliked while learning English was how my accent was very prominent and that really discouraged me. My insecurities stem from a few experiences where people were either dismissive or verbally abusive just because I spoke with an accent. Over time, I have begun to realize that those few people do not represent everyone and it is possible to meet people who are more interested in me and my thoughts than my accent.

Based on all my language learning experiences, I am the kind of learner that gets really motivated by a purpose. For ASL, my learning motive is that I want to be able to interact with patients that rely on ASL as their only method of communication. I want to be able to guide them and advocate for them on clinical settings, which are often known to be overwhelming. Next, I am also the kind of learner that thrives on autonomy regarding the pace and structure of the learning process. However, I do appreciate a little bit of push from the instructor every once in a while because I tend to obsess over small details and lose sight of the bigger picture. Regarding learning styles, I believe I learn the best when I get to practice with someone else. I like to link new words to the exact conversations they came up in, so that it is easier to remember the words and their meaning. In addition to human interactions, I also learn really well through visual media- it could be videos, movies, pictures, or even vivid descriptions that allow me to form mental images. Finally, I love activities that are collaborative and call for personal opinions as well as a lot of critical thinking. Connecting the language to human experiences and stories is absolutely essential for me. Based on the FIRE model, I think I am an evaluative learner. Going forward, I am thinking of trying out more commonly used methods by language learners such as flashcards and language apps. I have never used those before. So, I am interested to see whether they will make my learning process more effective. I am also hoping to find a volunteering site in Richmond where I will be able to put my language skills to use. ASL is unlike any other languages that I have learnt before. By taking ASL in a formal setting with clear goals and a designated language partner, I am venturing into a new method of language learning this semester and am really excited to see how it turns out.

Throughout my sixteen years as a student, I attempted to learn three different languages with each attempt getting a little less successful. I grew up in a mono-lingual household with English as my first language. My parents can speak a little French and Spanish, but the native languages of my immigrant ancestors were lost in the early twentieth century. I acquired English with relatively little difficulty, but I did require extra assistance in learning to read and pronounce English proficiently. My elementary school teachers resolved these issues by working with me individually, something that I still view as a valuable learning strategy.

At about ten years old, I began to learn the very basics of Spanish such as colors, greetings and the days of the week. I continued to study Spanish throughout middle school and high school; eventually, I received a seal of biliteracy in Spanish and English from the State of Illinois. To me, the award represents my most tangible accomplishment in my ten years of studying Spanish. Despite this award, I still felt disappointed in my Spanish speaking and listening abilities. My ten years of study left me with mediocre pronunciation skills and huge anxiety around speaking in Spanish. I enjoyed reading and writing in Spanish but speaking and listening always left me feeling uneasy and lacking confidence.

My third major experience with a new language happened during my semester abroad in Copenhagen. I took a beginners’ course in Danish at my study abroad institute. I really enjoyed attempting to learn Danish especially due to all the new pronunciations. Danish letters and words make completely different noises compared to English. Additionally, I liked compiling a list of Danish cognates that helped ease my anxiety around this completely new language. However, I did not enjoy my professor’s teaching methods as she focused mainly on memorization and recitation. During every class, we had to stand up and read aloud from our booklets. It reminded me a lot of a schoolhouse environment such as Little House on the Prairie. During these exercises, I always imagined myself behind a wooden desk, dressed in a bonnet and staring at a blackboard. Recitation and memorization become very useful while I study, but I really do not like to use these two strategies when first introduced to a new concept. These strategies stray away from comprehension and focus on quantity of knowledge accumulated. Ultimately, I classify this language experience as unsuccessful due to my lack of comprehension.

With my past experiences in mind, I want to focus on comprehension and confidence. My language goals will focus on producing language verbally and listening effectively, something that I have only accomplished in English. My strategy for accomplishing these goals relies on my visual learning style. I plan to use flashcards to learn necessary vocabulary and take organized and visually appealing notes. Additionally, in my past language learning experiences, I benefitted from speaking aloud to myself in order to explain and learn culture, grammar concepts, and important historical events. Additionally, I am a huge perfectionist in most things which causes me a lot of unnecessary anxiety. Even in learning to play instruments, like the flute or the piano, I would become frustrated with mistakes and could never play through the imperfections. I always stopped right after making a mistake and refused to play the entire song until I could master the botched notes. I really want to push myself to speak through potential mistakes or slip ups. My solution for chipping away at this perfectionism is to practice speaking by myself regularly and journaling about potential frustrations.    

   I have always been fascinated by the concept of language—how it originated, how it evolved, how it spread around the globe, and how it is has been adapted by a plethora of people from different cultural, ethnic, and social roots to form unique sounds, dialects, and practices that help convey complex thoughts and emotions. As of today, I consider myself to be a bilingual speaker of my native tongue Bengali along with English as my secondary language which I began learning during elementary school in Bangladesh. Aside from my formal education in these two languages, I have also had exposure to Hindi due to close geographical proximity and cultural ties to our neighboring country India and a brief stint in learning Arabic alphabets and phrases as part of my Islamic upbringing.

   While learning a new language may seem challenging, with the correct mindset and strategies it can be an enjoyable experience. Three aspects that I recall enjoying were the social dynamics, objective based tasks, and open lines of communication. Firstly, as a small classroom community of about 25 students in each section, we had close ties to one another and therefore most of our education was centered around peer interactions such as writing a letter to your friend, sharing a personal story in small groups, or putting together an entire classroom play! These interactions helped us to not just understand new words or grammar but also their practical applications and the subtle nuances which make every spoken tongue unique. Secondly, our courses were taught in a very organized and structured manner. Each new concept or challenge was part of the big picture we were trying to piece together. This brought a sense of objectivity and rationality to our lessons—we not only learned the lesson but also the ‘why’ behind learning it. Having a set objective that we were striving to achieve always added a sense of clarity and direction to our process. Finally, we were always receiving immediate feedback on our work and sometimes the teachers would set time aside to personally talk to students one-on-one to further discuss any discrepancies or challenges they were experiencing. As students, we were always encouraged to ask questions in class and share any concerns or new ideas that might help us learn better. This emphasis on communicating ensured that we were all on the same page going forwards and no one ever felt left behind. However, there were certain aspects of my education that I disliked. I recall when learning Arabic, my instructor placed a great emphasis on proper grammar and sentence structure, which I found to be detrimental to my overall learning experience. The primary goal of any language is to get your ideas across and as long as you can do that, I believe that you are an effective communicator regardless of whether what you said is ‘grammatically incorrect.’ When learning a foreign language, the aim should be to build basic conversational skills instead of technical proficiency. I would find myself knowing all the words yet feel discouraged to try and put them in a sentence because my grammar was not up to the instructor’s expectations. Learning a new language is an iterative process which does not happen overnight. It requires patience, consistency, feedback, and support which is why I ultimately left my Arabic instructor and decided to focus on improving the languages which I already spoke ‘properly’.

   Based on the FIRE model and surveys, I am primarily an auditory learner with a strong emphasis on rationality and strengths in nature, self, and social intelligences. While I may primarily have an inclination towards auditory learning, both visual and tactile learning make up 30% each of my learning style suggesting that a well-rounded holistic approach is what works best for me. My friends and family would describe as a rational being. I particularly enjoy thinking through open-ended questions in a systematic cause-and-effect manner and have dynamic interests across multiple disciplines. I enjoy learning but also place a great emphasis on autonomy and freedom to pursue what interests me in ways I find most effective rather than through a rigid one-size-fits-all approach which is why I am so excited to be taking this self-directed learning course and honing the skills necessary to be an efficient autonomous learner. Language learning activities that suit my learning style are one’s that incorporate speaking and listening as opposed to just reading, have an element of nature, involve writing down thoughts in a journal, reflecting on those thoughts later, and finally working in teams to achieve a shared common goal. However, given that the language I am trying to learn is ASL where there will be limited auditory interactions between myself and the instructor, I think that my overall learning process can be improved by expanding into a more interactive, visual, and real-world application-based approach that would push me out of my comfort zone and help me accomplish my end goal for the semester.

In my earlier years of learning Spanish in middle and high school, I really enjoyed learning the basics through engaging activities. We learned the alphabet through songs, watched lots of videos about Spanish culture, and there were a lot of project-based assessments to evaluate our knowledge as well as to learn new things. For example, I really enjoyed a party we had where everyone had to contribute something that related to Spanish culture, so I created a traditional Spanish dish to share with the class. Once I got the basics down, I thought it was helpful to learn with the teacher giving lessons on topics such as grammar, which were reinforced through working in our textbook and with practice worksheets. I also find it helpful to review answers after trying it on my own and not being penalized for making mistakes or not understanding a concept during the learning process. Honestly, learning to speak the language correctly by practicing to pronounce the words correctly was more anxiety-ridden for me, but I think because in a class setting I’m afraid of making mistakes. At times I would find it challenging in my more intermediate level courses of Spanish as the instructor would typically only speak in Spanish to the class, so a lot of times I struggled to understand exactly what they were saying, but I do think it helped me to get better at using context clues to understand and improve my language skills. 

As I reviewed the FIRE model, I’ve realized that I’m a combination of each of the different types of learning styles. I think I most resonate with Factual and Rational kinds of thinking. When I’m learning something new, it’s often helpful for me to start with a concrete concept and progressively build upon what I’ve been learning to more advanced concepts (factual), or to start with the big picture and then apply it to useful life applications (rational). I don’t enjoy my learning to be fast-paced, and I feel more insightful in my thinking as I prefer to have time to reflect on what I learned to make sure I have fully understood the topic. Although I prefer memorization of facts at times (simply because I’m good at it and can do so fairly quickly), I admit I often do not gain much from this method of learning and learn much more in collaboration with others and by being challenged to think of creative solutions to a problem. I learn best when my learning is organized, meaning I am given a clear outline in the beginning of what to learn, a plan of how we will accomplish those goals, and a guideline for when I should be proficient in a particular learning objective, so I’m really excited to be creating my own learning plan for studying Korean! Overall, I just appreciate learning practical information and skills that are valuable and applicable to my everyday life. For the most part, I don’t want to waste time learning things that aren’t useful to me, but I would if I were truly interested in a particular topic. I believe the language learning activities that would best suit my learning style would be the use of apps and technology or workbooks/worksheets to learn basic concepts such as the alphabet, memorizing vocabulary, grammar rules, writing etc. I also enjoy learning through videos and practicing one-on-one or in small groups to improve my pronunciation and speaking/listening skills. I think a goal for me to expand my learning activities this semester could be to get out of my comfort zone with my language learning and speak more often especially in group settings since I tend to avoid that at times due to not feeling confident in my language abilities.