All Posts (56)
Sort by
Benim en sevdigim sarkici Emina Jahovic. O Bosnada yasti, ama simdi Turkiyede yasiyor. O Mustafa Sandalin kadi. Onlar iki cocuklar var. O otuz uc. Onun en unlu sarkilar "Dal ona zna", "Posle mene". Bosnadan Turkiyeye birkac yil once gitti. When she was cocuk, o basketbol oynudu. Emina cok yuksek (178 cm). O cok siska, ve because of that onun annesi onu basketbol oynamak yasak. Bir erker kardesi ve bir kiz kardesi var. Onun erkek kardesi NBAda oynuyor. Onun babasi oldu. Balkanda Emina ve onun erkek kardesi cok unlu. Onun telefon numarasi 0038770342345.
Reading "Figuring Foreigners Out" was very interesting because I could personally relate to a lot of it. Having grown up in the United States in a typical Indian household, one could say that I have had the best of both worlds. I would go to school and be American and then I would come home and be Indian. However, that is not to say that there were never times when certain behaviors and manners would overlap. I feel like I was good at keeping both my worlds balanced but reflecting on my own behaviors it is true what the article is saying about different cultures. The American society is an individualist society. Always worried about themselves and pursuing their interests and goals. Not knowing exactly how to explain it, but having grown up within the American culture, it is obvious to me that the American people, including myself, are very self-sufficient and independent. Whereas within the Indian culture, it a very collectivist society. The people in your family will always be there no matter what and you can always depend on them. In fact when you don't ask them for help, they will force themselves upon you. As an Indian you also have certain responsibilities towards the members in your family. There is a close tie between you all and it is a tie you must respect.Who you are as an Indian, is directly reflective of your parents within the Indian society, not of you. The interrelations amongst Indians are very deep and very complex, interrelations nonexistent amongst Americans.
Another interesting point made in the article that I could relate to was that of monochronic versus polychronic. Having studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina for 6 months, I was able to full embrace the latino culture, not to mention that I was born in Santiago, Chile, and have been well attuned to the latino culture all my life. While studying abroad in Argentina, however, one thing struck me as extremely different, more different than any other observation I made while living there, and that was the Argentinians' sense of time. Having grown up and spent most of my life in the United States, I am accustomed to the fast paced lifestyle of Americans. Americans are always thinking about what's next, they never pause to appreciate the moment they are in. In comparison the Argentinians never think about what's next. They are extremely calm and relaxed. They spend 3-4 hours at dinner, for example. They also don't worry about being late to meetings or classes, whereas in America it is a big no no to be late. Their motto is to enjoy life and to figure it out as they go. Having grown up in America, this drove me crazy because it was hard for me to just stop and relax and enjoy the moment. I realized that I would stress myself out for absolutely no reason. Having come back to the states now, I am trying to combine both lifestyles within my own.
Reading the chapters by Crystal on how the brain processes languages and then how languages are structured was very interesting and very relevant to what i've been studying in Hindi. While I am not a science major, and therefore know nothing about the workings of a brain, it was cool to read about how the brain processes different information. The brain is definitely a unique organ and the explanations of how we read, write, listen, process, etc is simply fascinating. Moving on to Crystal's chapter on how to "investigate language structure," it was refreshing to read about what I have been experiencing. It helped reassure me that learning a new language is a slow and difficult process and that it takes time. It is true that the order in which words are placed makes a big difference depending on the language. Having grown up bilingual, speaking english and spanish fluently, understanding the idea that the order of words in one language may not be the exact order in which they are translated is one that is not alien to me. Having grown up listening to Hindi all my life, I can somewhat understand the order in which the words should come. However, there are still times when I struggle with that and am surprised by a word that I need to put in between two other words. Following that, one of the interesting points I think she made in the last chapter about "How We Mean," was that of isolated words. It is true that for basic every day words there are multiple meanings that could go along with the word and therefore must be put in context before defining. This can be challenging when learning another language because one must be conscious of the fact that there are some basic words that will have multiple meanings. I am trying to be careful of this while learning Hindi!
This article really touched on some points that I have talked about in class (and in blog posts as well I believe) that I think are very important when speaking a language.
When it comes to speaking a language there are the hard skills such as grammar and vocabulary and there are the soft skills such as body language and intonation. The article talked about the importance of the soft skills when speaking because it highly changes the meaning of a phrase. The example they gave about saying, "I don't like this casserole" could be interpreted in many different ways (an insult, apology, sad, joking, etc.) and neither the grammar of vocabulary influence this.
Last year when I was at the French Food Festival in Richmond I sat down at a table with a family speaking french. They turned to me and spoke to me in french as if I were a native too. We chatted for a while and then they asked me when I moved to the US, I said I was born here. They they asked me how many years I lived in France for and I said only four months. They were all shocked, they thought I was a native because I spoke like a french person even though we only talked about simple things. This was mostly do to the soft skills I learned while living in France with a french family. The article talks about how a native speaker as a natural inclination to speak a certain way and I think it can be learned because it seems that I learned it last year.
Also I thought the diagrams in the article made a lot of sense; my pragmatic competence is definitely higher than my organizational competence and the skills they related to those two types of competence held true from my experience.
I hope this isn't too controversial or indecent (there go my American cultural sensitivies), but this week I wanted to talk about swear words. I read an article recently that talked about generational differences between swearers in Swedish and also the cultural differences between Sweden and the U.S. when it comes to obsenities. Interestingly, it seems like most of the very traditional swear words in Sweden actually originated from religion! I find this interesting, of course, because Sweden is not a particularly religious country today, it has a lot of atheists, and culturally they just don't talk about religion so I find it neat that their religious-based swear words remain even today. For instance, the most common swear word you will here in Swedish is "fan". People say that when they hurt themselves or when they're very angry. It literally means "devil" but it would be the equivalent to saying the F word in English. That said, people say it all the time in many different contexts because Swedes don't place too high a value on swear words and don't find as many instances in daily life where it wouldn't be appropriate to swear. Unlike the U.S. where swearing is less common and there are more restrictions on where and when someone should use swear words. It's all about time and place in America versus Sweden where they very rarely care. Swedes also often say "helvete" which means "hell".
As the article was mentioning, many younger Swedes these days are adopting American swear words! They say their own versions of the F word and the S word (fack and skit), whereas the older population does not typically use these American curse words and instead sticks to the old-fashioned/religiously-based swear words they grew up with. Also interestingly and not surprisingly, Swedes find no reason to bleep out swear words on TV or in movies. They don't see the words as having value and therefore they don't try to put restrictions on their usage. So if you watch TV in Sweden you will not only get to hear the traditional Swedish swear words but also common American curse words! A lot of the Swedes I know have actually found it funny that Americans are so sensitive about using curse words and the poor job that we do at bleeping these words on TV anyway. Below is the link:
This week we talked more about transportation and weather. On Monday we went over words associated with weather and Louise had us practice creating a dialogue using sentences structures we already knew and the vocabulary words we had just learned. I find that although it's nice to learn lots of vocab words so I can talk about many different things with the Swedes I know, the most helpful thing that we do with Louise is formulate sentences. The word order in Swedish is very different from English so this extra practice is really helpful. In Swedish, for instance, when you are asking a question the pronoun comes after the verb. The same is said for prepositions that come at the beginning of a sentence. So in Swedish you would say "Var bor du?" (where do you live?) rather than "Var du bor?" which would make more sense in English. Likewise, when you're coming up with sentences that start with prepositions like "on Wednesday" or "in February" the word order is also inverted. So I could say "Jag ska flyga till Spanien i februari." (I will fly to Spain in February." Or an inverted example could be "I februari ska jag flyga till Spanien." (In February I will fly to Spain." And even that example gets more complicated because you might think that it should go "ska flyga jag" but that isn't the case you can't end a phrase with a pronoun.
For these reasons it's really helpful that Malory and I have Louise guiding us. I think that by the end of the semester we will be better prepared to converse with one another in Swedish and we will be thankful that we are getting the practice. In the meantime we will keep learning lots of new words and adding in some grammar independently, but I think mostly practicing conversing together. What good is knowing a language if you aren't going to speak it to anyone??
After reading and talking about "Communicative Competence" during class, the part that struck me as most interesting and salient was when the author talked about not just being able to understand vocabulary that one might find in a textbook, but truly understanding the language within the context of the culture (and of course the colloquialisms. For instance, if a non-English speaker were to learn how to ask the time they would probably learn "What time is it?". So it would be confusing for them to hear an English speaker say "Hey, have you got the time?" because the non-English speaker would not be able to interpret that phrase literally. In Swedish this makes me think of the phrase for "how are you?" because in Swedish you would say "Hur står det till?". This literally means "How stands it to?" which doesn't make as much sense in English as it does in Swedish.
I think that having a language partner for learning a new language is invaluable in this sense because it is one thing to look up a word in a dictionary or use google translate, and a completely different thing to be able to converse colloquially with the people who speak the language and also to use proper grammar. I know that during this process of learning Swedish with Louise there have been times where I have looked up a way to say something and Louise has told me that I was not incorrect but that there would be a less formal way to say that. For instance, Swedes don't really say "please" (snälla) and are more likely to just ask for something and then say thanks at the end. Or, for instance, if you were to talk with a potential employeer about what you are studying in school you might use the word "studera", but with friends its fine to use the colloquial word "plugga".
Communicative Competence
Communicative competences have not been scientifically studied until recently; however being able to distinguish one's words and one's meaning is crucial in order to communicate effectively. People who do not have the same cultural background may interpret the same sentence in different ways which is why learning to understand others' point of view and background is important. This concept does not only apply to oral communication but also to body language. The article mentioned that if nodding would means "yes" in the United States and most of the western countries, in the South Asian Region it would be interepreted completely differentely.
In South Korea it is expected for people to bow when meeting someone, in western countries however bowing would be reserved for important official settings only and would be seen as "way too much" for people to bow when meeting someone. Another difference in body language communication would simply be the difference between the amount of gestures one would do in western countries, especially in Italy, Spain and other Latino countries as opposed to the Asian countries where gestures are minimal and rare, as a sign of modesty, respect and politness.For these reasons, learning directly from a Korean about the ways to interact is worth much more than simply learning in a textbook.
Week 1
Learn the alphabet
Learn common greetings (hello, good morning, good night, good afternoon)
Week 2
Learn common phrases (yes, no, maybe, a lot, a little)
Learn common facility names (hospital, school, bank, mall)
Week 3
Learn how to ask common questions about people (name, height, age, hair and eye color)
Learn how to answer common questions about myself (name, height, age, hair and eye color)
Week 4
Learn how to describe object attributes (color, shape, size,)
Learn basic object names (pen, wallet, door, table)
Week 5
Learn basic food names (tomato, beef, watermelon, cake)
Learn how to conduct a basic conversation
Week 6
Learn how to ask and tell the time
Learn how to ask for directions
Week 7
Learn common animal names (dog, cat, horse, bird)
Learn workplace names (bank teller, teacher, cab driver, construction worker)
Week 8
Learn country names (America, Germany, Russia, China)
Learn how to talk about my background in moderate depth
cultural competence:
The piece about Cultural Competence was very interesting and informative. I like it very much, especially in one part where there is a conversation between an American and two second language speakers.
American: What an unusual necklace, it is beautiful!
Samoan: Please take it.
American teacher: Would you like to read?
Russian student: No, i would not.
The above conversation is very interesting but i dont agree with one of the translation that Brown does in here about the first part. He says that in both cases the nonnative English speakers misunderstood the meaning of utterance in the context. Samoan who hears the comment about her necklace and says "please take it", i think, she didnt misunderstand the comment. It is just in some cultures that when you hear a comment like that about your stuff, you say you can have it or take it rather than just saying thank you.
Overall, the piece very informative and it is to good to read it in order to get information about different culture and to convey and interpret messages and negotiate meanings of them within specific contexts.
This week I think was the hardest week, due to vocab and that was mainly my fault. In addition to the words we are focusing on for the week, I attempted to add in the words I have learned through the mango program. Once I had made all of the note cards for that week, I realized I had over 75 words. I figured that knowing more words could be good but in the end I was proven extremely wrong. When taking our weekly test, I got many of the words confused and forgot a lot of them as well. I think this has taught me that I need to take words in moderation, that although it is ideal to learn a lot of new words, it's not necessarily realistic to learn that many in a week. I also have FINALLY started to read my grammar book, and surprise surprise it is actually helping. I think I knew it would, but I was too lazy to actually read about grammar. I intend to start reading this book more often and noting the things I find helpful and useful to me.
This week in class we had to choose a cultural topic of our target language, research it, and then present it to the class. I chose the concept of Jante's law. It is basically this old Scandinavian unspoken set of rules. There are 10 of them and the go:
•You're not to think you are anything special.
•You're not to think you are as good as us.
•You're not to think you are smarter than us.
•You're not to convince yourself that you are better than us.
•You're not to think you know more than us.
•You're not to think you are more important than us.
•You're not to think you are good at anything.
•You're not to laugh at us.
•You're not to think anyone cares about you.
•You're not to think you can teach us anything.
It is supposed to teach people to be humble and to not get too pompous or arrogant. The translation in English sounds rather negative but the concept is a good one. It can be seen in many Scandinavian cultures from business to day to day interaction. I think this is also where the informality with Swedish people can come into play. You wouldn't address someone as mr. or mrs. because ideally they should not think they are more special than you and so on.
*We didn't 't have class last week, hence why there is a skip from 4 to 6.
How many new words have you learned? Do you have realistic goals?
I have learned almost two hundred fifty new words in Urdu. I can use some of them comfortably in a sentence or in a basic conversation but not all of them. Although, I do recognize and understand if these words come up in a sentence, paragraph, or conversation. I have to pay more attention to conversation in order to understand the words that I have memorized because it seems more difficult to catch the word in the conversation, but I can comfortably recognize these words on the written texts. I have learned some of my favorite words in Urdu such as (Duffah oja -Get lost, Khawfnaak Khawb- nightmare, Dost- friend, Paarty- party, raqas- dance, paarty ke ejaazat detaa hay-lets party). One of the funniest phrase that my language partner thought me is Barayee Mehrabani Kahaanaa lee aaw which means Please bring me food but in a really funny way among Urdu speakers. :P
