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I was first introduced to Korean culture when I was in primary school. Korean dramas became very popular at that time, so I began to be interested in Korea. As I grew up, Kpop became more and more popular, so I got more access to the Korean culture. From listening to Kpop songs and watching Korean dramas, I found out that Korean and Chinese share a lot of similarities in speaking and writing.

Chinese was first introduced to Korea in the first century BC when the Han dynasty invaded the north of the peninsula and established the Four Commanderies. Buddhism arrived in Korea from China in the late 4th century and spread from there to Japan. The Goguryeo kingdom strengthened itself by adopting Chinese institutions, laws, and culture, including Buddhism. Research shows that all formal writing, including the official annals of the Korean dynasties and all government documents, was done in Chinese until the late 19th century. This explains why the Korean language now has different writing characters, but a lot of them still share the similar pronunciation with Chinese. This similarity makes it easier to understand Korean since the sentence composition and grammar all not entirely novel for me. When I practice Korean speaking, I could combine my knowledge in Chinese with the Korean grammar to learn faster. And during my learning, I found it fascinating that the Korean language borrows English as well. It is very interesting for me to compare the Korean language with the languages I am familiar with,

Growing up, I always assumed the Korean that my parents spoke to me in was the Korean that everyone spoke. However, after many confused stares from family friends' kids and soft chuckles from their parents I soon learned that there are many different dialects of Korean in which there are many unique phrases and pronunciations of words- hence, the stares and laughter. 

Due to Korea's mountainous terrain, Korean is split into small local dialects. There is the Seoul dialect which is spoken in Gyeonggi, Incheon, Seoul, and Kaesŏng (North Korea). This is the basis of the standard language. Others are Yeongseo and Chungcheong dialects. The Gyeongsang dialects also called Southeastern dialects are spoken in cities such as Busan, Daegu, and Ulsan and are easily distinguishable from the Seoul dialect due to their varied pitch. The Jeolla dialects or Southwestern dialects are spoken in Gwangju(where my parents are from). The Jeju dialect is spoken on Jeju Island which sometimes considered a separate Korean language. 

Dialects are the different ways in which sound is produced within the same language. These dialects may stem from the different uses of primary and secondary manners such as complete obstruction to no obstruction of the production of sounds and voicing, length, stress and pitch.

Not only are dialects fun and interesting to listen to but they also create a smaller culture of that region within the culture of Korea just like in the United States. In researching, I would need to learn some unique common phrases of some of the dialects as well as the linguistic differences in how they pronounce different words whether that be lengthening vowels or emphasizing different parts of words. I plan on speaking with my parents and learning more words of Jeolla dialect as well as seeking out videos and movies that feature dialect in their dialogue. I would also like to find the history of how these dialects came to be depending on social, environmental or foreign influences. 

Even though I grew up surrounded by Korean culture, I've never learned about the differences between the Korean language in South Korea and that of North Korea. I've heard from my mom that my grandfather was forced to leave his family in North Korea in order to move down to South Korea, so I think this would be a good opportunity to learn more about the history and how the separation influenced the language. For my final presentation, I may want to dive a bit deeper into the spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation differences between North and South Korea. As I research, I think the phonetic transcriptions we learned about in class would help.

This is a table of some words that North and South Korea pronounce differently.

And this is another table that gives some examples of the grammatical differences.

I think it's interesting to see how the language in both countries changed and developed over time.

Other topics I might want to do for my presentation are food, dialects, and maybe the differences between the Korean language of the past and today.

Food has always been a big part of my life, especially among my family members. Korean cuisine is something I’ve grown up with, and I honestly cannot imagine myself without it even for a day. I wanted to know more about traditional Korean cuisine, but I need to know more Korean in order to do so since there are traditional Korean vocabularies used. There is a lot of history involved with this topic, since it has been around since ancient times, and I would also like to research the actual history of Korean cuisine on my own. There’s also a social aspect within the history, for people in different social classes ate different kinds of food. In order to fully understand this concept, I would need to include learning new vocabulary words in my learning plans.

Turkey has always been a fascinating country to me. It is one of the cultural centers of the Middle East, both a giver to those cultures around it and a receiver of those cultures as well. Simply a look at Istanbul or any other major Turkish city shows the beautiful remnants of the Silk Road and hundreds of years of culture compacted into one living, breathing city. The beauty of Turkish architecture is echoed all throughout the Middle East, and the architecture of other parts of the Middle East are visible in Turkey as well.

This mish-mash of hundreds of years is clearly reflected in the Turkish language, a language composed of original Turkish words, Arabic loan words, Persian loan words, and a bit of English and French loan words. Knowing Arabic, Persian, English, or French is not necessary to learn Turkish, but it is certainly helpful. I find many times my knowledge of Persian allows me to recognize many of the Arabic and Persian loan words. I do not know much about Arabic grammar, but I do find that the grammar of Turkish is very similar to Persian. The addition of suffixes to words to create sentences is identical in both languages, and the actual suffixes used are quite similar at times. I do want to consider adding the slight study of Persian vocabulary and grammar into my learning plan though because I actually believe it will help me in my understanding of Turkish greatly. Otherwise, my study of the Turkish language and its vocabulary as is already stated in my learning plan (study sets, interacting with my language partner, listening to Turkish music, etc.) is plenty enough to learn not only about Turkish but the other countries that gave rise to the current state of Turkish and Turkey.

SDLC%20Post%20Learning%20Journal%20%235.docx

     First, a brief comment on the cultural and linguistic diversity in India, the country where my target language is spoken. India has 22 official languages and hundreds of unofficial local languages and dialects, and along with those linguistic differences come cultural and historical differences. I am aware that it is not completely appropriate to speak of “Indian culture” and “Hindi-speaking culture” as equivalent. For the purpose of this course, I will try to focus my cultural awareness on North India (the more Hindi-speaking part), but I cannot guarantee that cultural artifacts I mention necessarily align with Hindi-speaking Indians.

     A few aspects of Indian culture that interest me so far are the history and architecture of India. I have been to such beautiful forts in India, and the stories surrounding them are fascinating! For example, in Jiapur, Rajisthan, I went to Nahargar Fort which contains beautifully painted rooms. A guide there told us that each bedroom was for a different wife of the king - and the king had hidden passageways built for him to move between the rooms! The same king had Jal Mahal, or Water Palace, built for his Queen. It is a whole palace built on a tiny island in the lake. Everybody can see it, especially when it is lit up at night, but nobody can access it to harm the queen!

     P.S. Fun fact about Nahargar Fort: it is rumored to be haunted by the spirit of a certain Nahar Singh Bhomia - hence the name! ;)

This is me in one of the bedrooms of Nahargar Fort. Photo credits go to Ashish Bharti and Snapoholic.

This is Jal Mahal, the Queen's Water Palace, at night. Photo credits go to Ashish Bharti and Snapoholic

     In the future, I would love to have conversations with native Hindi-speakers about their rich architectural history, but for this semester I think the closest I will get to talking about architecture and history will be something like “I like such-and-such place” and “This palace is beautiful”. I will leave more complex conversations about culture for when I can do them justice. In my learning plan, I do have goals related to telling about the past, so I suppose I could talk about times when I visited such places. For that, I shouldn’t need special vocabulary or linguistic knowledge besides knowing the names of places.

     For the past four weeks, my language learning partner Atul and I have been working on grasping a basic knowledge of the Hindi script. I used the textbook “Elementary Hindi” from the Global Studio and Atul helped me a lot to learn the letters and how to join them together. The script, with its many new letters and conjuncts, is more complex than I anticipated. Although I can read and transcribe basic words, I am not as far as I thought I would be by now. However, since my main goals this semester are related to interpersonal communication rather than written skills, I will move on with my learning plan to learn verbal skills in tandem with written skills.

     This week for verbal skills I been working on basic Hindi greetings and introductions, such as commenting on my origin, my job, and the weather. I did not learn numbers and dates yet as I planned, but I think I will try that after I get some more basics down. I listen to Mango lessons in the car during my commute, and I practice with Ashish (my fiance) and Atul. I think that combination is very effective - although the Mango lessons feel slow, they are really drilling the language into my head, and then I get joy from being able to creatively produce similar phrases. Following is an example of that. (It is correct as far as I remember.)

Namaste / Hello

Mera naam Kelly hain / My name is Kelly

Main Amriki Hun / I am American

Main student hun. / I am a student [Hindi-speakers often use common English words in place of the Hindi equivalents]

Aaj mosam bahut achha hain. Gurmee nahi hain. / Today the weather is very good. It is not hot.

     As far as near-future plans, for verbal practice, I am going to continue completing the Mango lessons - I hope to have all 69 lessons done by the end of the semester. It is so great that I can do them during my daily ~2 hours of commuting instead of that being wasted time. For writing practice, I really enjoy copying the practice passages from the textbook and translating them. It takes me a very long time, but it is like a satisfying puzzle to me if I can have the dedication to sit down and do it. I will attach an artifact of one of those passages. For interpersonal communication practice, I mostly try practicing what I learn from Mango. Specifically, my next learning task is talking about likes, dislikes, and daily activities. For this, I will set up a vocabulary deck to learn important nouns and verbs.

The artifact, transliteration, and translation follows.

Namaste. Mera naam Kavita hain.

Aapka naam kya hain?

Main Hindustani ladki Hun.

Kya aap Hindustani Hain? Kya aap Amriki hain?

Yeh Kaun hai? Yeh mera dost hai. Iska naam Deepak hai.

Yeh mera ghar. Mera ghar dilli main hai. Mera ghar bada hai.

Yeh mera kitab hai. Mera kitab neela hai.

Hello. My name is Kavita.

What is your name?

I am an Indian girl.

Are you Indian? Are you American?

Who is this? This is my friend. His name is Deepak.

This is my house. My house is in Delhi. My house is big.

This is my book. My book is blue.

Unlike English, Korean consists of phonology that is different in terms of where the sound comes and stops. The ㄹ for example, is a sound that does not exist in English because it sounds like the mixture of an L and an R. For example, pronouncing the word 한글 is extremely difficult with just English as the ㄹ make it almost impossible to pronounce using the English alphabet. In my experience, I feel that most Korean sounds use the tongue body and the palatal with exceptions to couple letters. Korean also feels more distinct in between each letters or words. For example, in between 한 and 글, there is a point where you stop the air from coming, which prevents the connecting of the sounds. Unlike English where all the letters within a word seem connected, Korean has something like "cut, cut, cut" in between the letters. In order to achieve the perfect native sounds, I think it just require practice and listening over and over again and having your language partner fix your production of sounds. 

I am interested in the alcohol culture in South Korea, I have seen in variety shows and movies a lot, where the people would constantly drink beer/sake and have fried chicken. I am interested in analyzing why that is. This topic relates to language because there are a lot of cultural norms and rules governing how individuals have to behave, towards similar age groups and elders. Korea has a strict rule on using formal language when referring to elders and this rule is also expressed over the dinner table, with alcohol. For this research, I would need to understand the different ways of using formal language, what words describe elders and the proper etiquette over the dinner table.

Korean has 19 consonants, and 21 vowels. I have been trying to memorize the alphabets, and expand my vocabulary. As expected, the words that I have been having the most difficulty remembering or pronouncing properly are the ones that don't exist in English. For example, the consonants ㅈ and ㅊ sound very similar to me because their sounds exist in English. The closest comparison in English would be a j and a ch sound, but none of them actually give the ㅈ and ㅊ sound. I have also been having difficulty with the vowels -- I am not used to using so many vowels and having to deliberately change the pitch in how I pronounce i's and e's. In Korean there are different i's, e's, and o's. Moreover depending on which consonant they are paired with, the stress that you use also changes. So far, I have been trying to listening to more recording, and have conversations with my language partner more often. Although I haven't been able to perfect my pronunciation, I think practicing has definitely helped me in distinguishing the sounds when I hear native speakers.

Talking about Korean, there are 21 vowels and 19 consonant. Inside the vowels, there are 2 groups. One group is called monophthong, have 10 vowels including a, i, e, and etc. The other group has 11 vowels called diphthong, for example, like ai, ao, and etc.

When I was studying Japanese, there are 5 single vowels and 53 consonants. For me, it is easier to memorize and pronounce. Personally, I think consonants are easier to pronounce than vowels. Vowels are similar so it is really hard for me to memorize every Korean vowel.

Compare Korean with English, Korean has way more vowels. There are lots of sounds in Korean which is not in English. In this case, I find proficiently and fluently pronounce Korean is really hard for me. For example, there are two ways to say ‘i’ in the Korean. Move to diphthong, ao, au are really similar and is really hard to pronounce. Some vowels sound really similar, for example, ㅓ(o) and ㅗ(o) and ㅜ(u).

I think the only way to practice and remodify my own pronunciation is to speak more often with the native Korean speaker and listen to more Korean video. When I studying Korean vowels, I plan to speak each sound 10 times per day. After practicing, I think I can fluently pronounce Korean. After learning it from teaching video, I will try to talk with my Korean friend or my friend who also studying Korean.

Korean has 19 consonant phonemes. There is a three-way contrast between unvoiced segments, which are distinguished as plain, tense, and aspirated. Korean language has eight vowel phonemes，and long vowels are pronounced somewhat more peripherally than short ones. There are some interesting facts about Korean Phonology. In Korean language, nasalized /r/ and /l/ are often interchangeable, and there are no consonant clusters in word-initial or word-final positions. Also, fricatives and affricates do not appear in word-final position. There are some phonemes in English that are not found in Korean include the following: /ŋ/, /f/, /v/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/, /ɹ/, and /w/. There sounds in my language that don’t exist in American English. The /n/ and /ŋ/ sound. In some words, we will prolong the /ŋ/ sound to make different meanings. In order to understand the sound system, I need to know the rules in the system and try to read words and understand the structures. I will practice by reading and writing. Every time I write down the word, I will speak out in order to help memorize the sound rules. I would also practice my pronunciation with my language partener to read correctly and practice to speak in a right tune.

Thankfully Bahasa Indonesia does not have too many sounds that are not in the "sonic repertoire" of English and French. The sounds that prove to be most difficult to English speakers are the rolled "r" (e.g. "berjuan", "please", and "besar", "big/large") and the glottal stop (e.g. "tidak", "do not/is not", and "besok", "tomorrow"). I have experience rolling r's from my beginner knowledge of Spanish, but the glottal stop is a totally new sound for me, and thus is difficult to produce. This is a shared difficulty among western learners of Indonesian, and thus any progress beyond pronouncing a glottal stop past "tidack" is appreciated. When Indonesians pronounce a glottal stop it is very subtle, as if the sound tapers off in the last syllable and is just slightly cut off with the glottal stop. Thus it is sometimes difficult to distinguish which words require glottal stops and which do not. However, Thalia and Julie have kept their corrections of our pronunciations of words to a minimum at this point, focusing mostly on vocabulary and sparing corrections for only the most egregious of mistakes.

As a musician, I find that analyzing and picking up an accent is something that comes relatively naturally for me. However, another aspect of learning Indonesian, the intonation of sentences, is something that will take some time to feel natural. Indonesian is not a tonal language, so the majority of sentences is spoken "flat", with tonal jumps coming at the penultimate syllable of a sentence and falling on the ultimate syllable. Thankfully this is not a critical requirement of being understood while speaking Indonesian; as I continue my comprehension of spoken Indonesian, I plan to pay attention to the different ways in which people intone their voices.

Since Maltese has roots as a Semitic language, I believe the phonetics rely a bit on the glottalic airstream, in addition to the pulmonic airstream. In comparison to English, there are a couple of unfamiliar sounds and alphabet letters that are written differently, but sound familiar. First, the pronunciation of ċ is unique, but it is familiar to me because of the Italian alphabet. This sound is pronounced like the word fettuccini, which is how I remember it. In Maltese, an example of how this sound is used would be ċentro meaning center. Although the spelling is different, it is interesting that center is actually pronounced exactly the same in Italian.  

Next, the physical letter g has three forms: g, ġ, and gћ. As would be expected, the g makes the same English hard g sound, like in the word go. In Maltese, an example of the usage would be the word gwida, meaning guide. The ġ sound takes the English role of soft g, like in the word George, so in Maltese, we would say ġornata for the word day. Finally, the letter gћ called ajn (like the word sign), does in fact function as English gh does. The reading of this letter is silent, such as in the Maltese word gћasfur meaning bird.

One sound that I particularly struggle with is the pronunciation of the Maltese letter j. I am having a tough time distinguishing where the sound falls, or if it is silent. I believe the sound is similar to an English y sound, but very far back. For example, the Maltese word meaning lion is ljun, with the j functioning as a y. I hesitate to say that it sounds like a hard English i, because there is a Maltese character ie, that takes on this pronunciation.

Finally, two sounds that have been very difficult for me during the entire course of my language studies, are l (slightly rolled) and r (rolled). These two sounds appeared during my study of the Spanish language and have been nearly impossible for me since. For example, the words ilma (water) and baћar (sea), which are both very important. To improve my ability to properly pronounce these words, I think repetition is key.

Something important to keep in mind about the Maltese language is that a lot of the phonetics patterns overlap with English, in a written sense, but the pronunciation mimics Italian, with a few Semitic sounds. In addition, although there are six extra characters in the Maltese alphabet, the sounds they make are similar to other English letter combinations: ġ, gћ, ћ, ż, ie, ċ. Also, something important to keep in mind is that there are many soft sounds in English that can be pronounced a number of ways, but Maltese phonetics are very sharp.

As I have been doing, I am going to continue placing heavy emphasis on listening to learn the language. Although I am very good at memorizing words and picking up writing in other languages quickly, the listening is a component I always struggle with. I have been doing this primarily through watching videos of conversations in Maltese and reviewing sound clips online to learn the language. In addition, when I have some extra time, I would like to go through some of the words I am struggling with and write them out phonetically to see if that helps. In general, I have been suprised how many sounds I have recognized, the next step is going to be making the connection between what I am hearing versus seeing.