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http://www.haberler.com/rusya-da-emniyet-seridi-isgali-pahaliya-mal-oldu-5295176-haberi/
So this might not be the most positive post due to the large amount of frustration I feel towards Swedish right now. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the class and learning about the language and culture but it is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. We have a midterm scheduled for next Wednesday on everything we have covered up until this point. I made a study guide and barley remember half the terms. I think what I need to start doing is make myself review everything each week. Because I am quite good at cramming and then we take the test, I do well and then I forget everything and with learning a language you can't do that. I think it's also that point in the semester where I am starting to loose steam. When starting the year I was going to get all As and be amazing in all my classes, but its at the point where it's hard to motivate myself to do things. I need to find something inventive and new that will excite me into doing more than the expected work in Swedish. If I put in more than the required amount of work I will do well. In class this week we had a test on food (which I did't know much of) and discussed the body parts and clothing. Another tid bit I also need to realize is I can't memorize too many words at once. I need to get the basics down and then move forward to the more intricate things. Cause as of now I am expecting myself to know both at the same time, which is extremely difficult and gets be discouraged. I plan to meet with Lousie this weekend to have a little one on one time to fix the areas where I desperately need help. This week has been frustrating, but ill get there.
How are you learning new words? How many new words have you learned? Do you have realistic goals?
In order to learn new hindi words, I have asked my language partner to send me 10 new vocab words every few days. I then put these words on notecards and walk around campus memorizing the words. Then when I meet up with my language partner, we go over pronunciation of the words to make sure that I am saying them correctly. She then helps me use the words in a sentence. This is the best way I have found for me to learn new words.
I am unaware as to exactly how many new words I have managed to learn, however, I can definitely see improvement in my Hindi speaking. Not only do I learn from my notecards, but also when I meet my language partner, I ask her how to say things that I find myself saying in my everyday life. I have also been watching Hindi movies and listening to Hindi music to keep my ear used to the language.
Working on learning Hindi, I have realized how much harder it is than I originally thought. My goals have become more realistic in that I know I will not be a fluent speaker by the end of the semester. However, having taken this class, I have learned how to teach myself the language and I plan to continue to do so even after the semester ends.
Reflect on Presentations of classmates.
The presentations of my fellow classmates were very interesting!! I loved learning about the Swedish coffee/tea time - called "Fika". Although I must admit, it was definitely making me a little hungry! The presentation about Rakshabandan was also very interesting. Although I already knew a little bit about it, it was interesting to hear more details about it. All in all, it is always interesting to learn something new about a different culture. It was nice to see some pictures instead of just talking about it as a change of pace. I love having the opportunity to talk to my fellow classmates about the cultures they are learning about because it helps expand my own personal knowledge about the world.
Body Language/Linguistic Aspects
A major linguistic difference between English and Hindi is the alphabet. The Hindi language is made up of approximately half the vowels and double the consonants of the English alphabet. The Devanagari script consists of 10 vowels and 40 consonants. In other words the sounds phonetically and otherwise is completely different to that of the English language. It is for this reason that Hindi speakers have a difficult time pronouncing the difference between "photOgraph" and "photOgrapher", for example. However, it is also very difficult for the English speaker to get accustomed to making sounds and hearing sounds that they are not used to ever hearing. While I have been learning how to make the sounds in the Hindi language, I have personally been having a hard time making all of the sounds correctly, and making sure I hear the differences between sounds. My language partner informed me that it is easier for Hindi speakers because they have been learning the differences since they were children. However, with practice, I hope to improve!
The following link begins to explain some of the differences between english and hindi.
http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/language/index.pl?read=2206
Bekir Efendi 1777 yilinda Bahcekapi'da kendi dukkanini acti. Onun sekerleri ve lokumlari kisa zamanda meshur oldu. Bir insan Turkiyeden Ingiltereye bu sekeri getirdi ve ozaman bu sekeri cok unlu ve herkes biliyor bu bir Turkish Delight. Haci Bekir altin ve gumus madalyalar kazandi cunku bu sekerleri cok lezzetli.
Ismail Hakki Zade onun magazasi 1864te kuruldu. Bu dukkani 84 numarali dukkaninda. Hafiz Mustafa pogaca buldu ve o Avrupa'da 11 adet madalya kazandi.
Gulluoglu bir aile ve onlar baklava yapiyor. Onlar cok unlu. Bu isi 1800da basladi. Cok ozellikli hammaddeleri kullaniyorlar. Biz de Bosnada baklava var, ama bizim baklavamizi Turkceden dana farkli.
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter?
In this article, Bhattacarjee states that in recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people."Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter". I do agree with Bhattacarjee and think that bilinguals are smart because if they were not smart, they would not be able to learn totally a different language first of all because learning a different language rather your native language is not an easy thing. You have to be smart, keen, and shape in order to learn a different language. You have to been even superb in order communicate and keep up both of the languages, because you have a great mind in order not to forget either you own language by learning the other one or in the reverse. In addition, as Bhattacarjee mentions that there is "ample evidence that in a bilingual’s brain both language systems are active even when he is using only one language." I think it is such a great point because everything is controlled by brain and if someone has an active and sharp brain then he can actively which it is being smart.
The "Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction" was a very interesting article. It was very informative the new ideas about creating dictionaries. One part of the article which states" There were people who had listened to the elders, like Mr. Lane, and there were old recordings, made by anthropologists who came through the West in the 1930s and 1960s, but not much else. Mr. Lane wants to incorporate some of those scratchy recordings into future versions of the dictionary." I do agree that with him that it can build a bridge an ancient language’s roots to younger tribe members and it can sound pretty cool. Actually, the article reminded me of a new version of Iranian dictionary that so many new words have been taken from ancient texts and by adding and bringing some changes. The words sound pretty fancy and cool. It have been used as new modern dictionary in Iran. It is just fascinating that how little things bring big changes to somethings that you could not even think of. :)
Reflect on how knowing a language’s history can help you learn the language:
Before starting how the history of Urdu language helps me as learner to learn the language, it is good to start with some information about it at first hand.Urdu is the first official language of Pakistan.Urdu is written right-to left in an extension of the Persian alphabet and it has38 letters with no distinct letter cases. Urdu language in 10th century and started its literature through poetry. Urdu came from a Turki word Ordu (Army)/ Lashkar. The language was known as Hindi before 1837 but the division between Hindu and Muslims came to a point that they ended up having different languages. So the people of Pakistan thought to "Khalis"/"purify" Urdu. In order to do that, they used the writing system of Arabic and Persian. So the history of Urdu language helps me to do some researcher on the base of it when i face problems. For instance, if something did not make really sense in Urdu, i go back and search that in Arabic because the base of Urdu is Arabic language. It might not be the same with everyone, especially when some does not have any background in Arabic but as an individual i see it helpful. :)
Culture Shock was a great video and I really enjoyed watching it. There were so many things that came up in the video that I have never even considered. One of the things that really stuck with me was how Americans say "hi, how are you?" but do not really care about the response. I think this is so typical of Americans - in more ways that one! First of all, we are truly always in a rush. Things in the US are just so fast paced. We run by the clock and we think that punctuality is the most important thing in the world. I for sure subscribe to this - I am never late, and I hate when other people are. But at the same time, being nice and kind and having great relationships with people is really important to me, and I would never want anyone to think that I don't care about their response to my question. According to Culture Shock, however, I do that all the time! That is just insane. I didn't think about that. I also didn't really think about the period of time that it takes international students to adjust to life here in the US. When I think about my trips overseas, I have never had a hard time adjusting because I haven't tried to. Since I have just been traveling, and not preparing to live for a period of time, I have not been setting up my life for a period of time and I had no culture to which I needed to adjust. I think it's fascinating that I just took this period of adjustment for granted for these international students. Watching this video made me much more aware of what many of these students enter into/leave behind when they come to America to study, and I will try to be more aware of how their practices might differ from mine (i.e. not raising their hands as much in class).
This week I did some research on Swedish history and I found that the things I'd learned explained a lot about either Swedish culture or language. For the purpose of this journal I will list the things I've learned along with the significance of these facts for my studies.
Swedish History
-800-1050: The Vikings have a strong exploring presence around the world and discover territories in the Middle East, Russia, and in what is now the northern United States and Canada. The Vikings had their own alphabet and number system which was very sophisticated. They also believed in many gods such as Oden, Thor, and Freja. Now that I know that the Vikings worshiped these gods I understand why Wednesday is called onsdag (Oden's day), Thursday is called torsdag (Tor's day), and Friday is called fredag (Freja's day).
-1520: The Danish invade Stockholm and the Stockholm’s bloodbath commences. Over 100 noblemen and other members of the government are publicly executed in the main square. This is the beginning of the hostility between Sweden and Denmark! For centuries the two countries battled over territory and power. Today there is still some underlying hostility between the two nations (Swedes and Danes can typically understand each others' languages but they refuse to speak the other language due to this deep-seated dislike).
-1523: Gustav (Vasa) Erikson elected King after rebel movement on June 6th. He is referred to as the founder of modern Sweden and father of the nation! This historical date is why June 6th is a national holiday in Sweden that is celebrated and adored by everyone in the country (it's often called "flag day" and is similar to our Fourth of July).
-Peace for 200 years because good at compromise and negotiation in both their personal lives and on a diplomatic scale. In fact, Sweden remained neutral in both of the World Wars in the 20th century. This fact is interesting and controversial because Sweden had resources that could have accelerated the liberation but they chose instead to remain neutral. This makes sense in terms of the Swedes I know because they tend to be people who avoid conflict in their daily lives and don't appreciate drama.
-1921: women are allowed to vote for the first time! This is interesting to me because Sweden today is a much more egalitarian country than the U.S. in terms of culture and policies and yet women in America were given the right to vote BEFORE Swedish women!
I hope these important dates/events are as helpful for you as they were for me in understanding Swedish culture and their language!
I have learned so many new words. Things got off to a slow start this semester, through a combination of several people's disorganization, but Emily, Stew and I are getting into a pattern. We meet a couple times a week and Stew and I come to the meeting with a list of things we want to know. Sometimes, Emily has ideas too. She has a good teaching style - we are getting to the point where I kinda can guess how to spell things, so she asks me to spell and I do my best. This gives me the opportunity to think about the word, see it, spell it, write it, hear her say it, all before I have even tried to speak it myself.
One of the things I have been considering in whether or not my language goals are realistic is how I am not learning verbs. I am confused by this. I think the verb conjugation structure is confusing, or maybe I am not advanced enough for it. At this point, I am just learning to "memorize" phrases and words. This works for me. Honestly, I have a lot of stuff going on right now, and sometimes all I can do is just work on the 20 words and phrases that we studied that night. But I know that I want to work on actual verb conjugation. This is my next goal. I am planning to take SDLC 111 next semester and it is going to be interesting to actually think about my goals again. I think my biggest goal is to actually just be more clear in my goals. I think both Emily and I are very capable. I just think we need to direct our energy to the same place and be very clear at the beginning of the semester what the place is, and I think because so much time passed at the beginning of this semester before I actually got my language partner, I lost sight of some of my goals and it just got confusing. So next semester I will make sure it is different!
Hebrew has a very long history. Ancient forms of the language date back almost six thousand years, and the exact form of Hebrew that I am using to read and write has been around since the 6th century BCE. This is crazy. Jesus and I wrote the same Hebrew! Just kidding but really. Hebrew has such a rich history. It began as a "proto-Canaanite" script, which was very similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. Basically, there were little pictures that represented the same letters that exist today. So the alphabet had the same nature and sounds, it was just written very differently. As the Ancient Israelites interacted with different groups in the Middle East, the Ancient Hebrew script changed slightly, and settled on the Ancient Biblical Hebrew several centuries before Jesus. I think this is a fascinating concept. While written Hebrew had died out by this time (with the destruction of the second temple), prayers were said in the same language 2500 years ago that I say now. That is crazy. I think this has an impact on my language learning experience because it makes me more connected to my experience. Sometimes, things happen in my religious life that really make me feel so connected to my faith - and that is one of the reasons that being Jewish is special, because with being connected to my faith comes being connected to this study of Hebrew. My mind is really blown right now with the things I have learned about how old Hebrew is as a language, and how remarkably little it has changed. It also makes me sad though. Yiddish, the mixture of Hebrew and German that was developed in Europe during the Middle Ages, pretty much died out because of the Holocaust (also as a result of the resurrection/creation of Modern Hebrew by Ben Yehuda at the end of the 19th century). The fact that the annihilation of a group of people caused the destruction of a language makes me feel even more certain that it is my job to continue learning Hebrew. Even though Hebrew has a whole country dedicated to it, I just feel that I need to make sure there are people who do not live in Israel and who are still interested in this language, its history, and its cultural components. It feels very important to me.
This week rather than having our traditional Monday/Wednesday meetings we decided to meet on Saturday for multiple hours. We went to the grocery store to buy supplies for dinner and along the way we spoke Swedish, learned words for the specific ingredients we were buying, and talked about traditional Swedish food. We made the most delicious Swedish meatballs (köttbullar), mashed potatoes (potatismos), and ate lingonberries (lingonsylt). It's interesting because when I think of meatballs I think of the Italian meatballs that my mom makes which are served with red sauce and pasta. These were so different but also incredible!
We also learned phrases like "tack för maten" which is what you say to someone when they have paid for your meal or made your food (it literally means "thanks for the food"). Also, I know a lot more about Swedish customs when it comes to eating now! This was a really fun way to learn new vocabulary and it was nice to be able to use the food words in sentences and in a specific context. We took pictures to use for my artifacts too! I imagine we will go over the food words we learned tomorrow and have a test later this week :)
In honor of the Halloween festivities this past weekend I thought I would do this week's cultural post on Swedish Halloween! Halloween is not a holiday that was traditionally celebrated in Sweden but since the 1990s and with the help of American influences and some marketing efforts, Swedes have begun to enjoy the holiday like us Americans do. Although Swedes do not engage in trick-or-treating like Americans do for Halloween, they do dress up and go to fancy parties or have ghost parties. Lots of bars and restaurants also stage parties for celebration as Swedes begin to adopt the holiday. Also, many farms take part in pumpkin growing competitions!
Interestingly, after talking to my Swedish friends I have learned that Easter is actually the holiday when Swedes dress up and go trick-or-treating. While Americans tend to have Easter egg hunts, eat chocolate bunnies, and hang out with a giant Easter bunny, young Swedish children dress up in traditional garb that looks like old ladies and run around the neighborhood trick-or-treating (but it's not called that). I find this case so interesting because I can see how an American tradition is being incorporated into another culture and yet this culture still holds on to their unique traditions. My boyfriend is in graduate school right now in Madrid, Spain and his friends are from all over the world and yet they all wanted to dress up in traditional "American" Halloween costumes to celebrate.
http://sweden.se/collection/celebrating-the-swedish-way-a-year-of-traditions/article/halloween/
After reading communicative competence and discussing it with a few class mates the thing I began to think of most was the concept of sarcasm. I know it isn't entirely the same thing as the article discussed (the article spoke more about being able to understand the language outside of just vocabulary). But with sarcasm it is more about understanding the context of what the person is saying. When you first learn a new language it is primarily focused on learning the words and how to formulate sentences. But actually learning how to speak than language and understand the context of the language is a whole new thing. I know I am a very sarcastic person and a lot of my international friends have trouble understanding my sarcasm because they are doing the basic steps of translating the things I said and are trying to form a response. Another point I wanted to bring up about the article is that language is not always a literal translation and thats what can be so frustrating sometime. For example after I left Molly and Louise for our Swedish dinner I was trying to tell them "thank you for a goodnight" so I translated it to "tak for bra natt" but then Louise responded "tack for en trevlig kvall" (thanks for a nice night). Looking at what I said you could assume I was right because I was using the vocab I had learned but it was the context that made my statement incorrect. I think thats the next step of learning a language, is to learn the context and be able to combine everything you know.
This week instead of meeting at our usual times we combined both classes and met on a saturday. Before class we were supposed to look up the recipe for Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes. When we met on saturday we went to the grocery store and got at all the items we needed and learned the names for all those items. We also got this lingonberry sauce that is a very popular sauce to put on almost anything in Sweden. The cooking was fun and interesting to do and the meal was fantastic. Although this week we didn't really focus on the language as much as we did the culture. Learning how to make a traditional dish and learning the basic mannerisms for the table was our main focus. I think it was an interesting lesson, and was really cool to be able to have more of a hands on experience opposed to just learning vocabulary.
