Blogs

John singing the body parts

This link is of John singing the body parts in Hebrew.  To get him to perform on camera was difficult, but he eventually allowed me to video tape.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Israeli-group-quietly-feeding-Syrian-refugees-in-Jordan-329385

    I was now interested in learning about how Israel IS helping out the Refugees.  My next cultural post will be an update on what is happening with the refugees but I found this article from October 22, 2013 to be quite compelling.   A company called IsraAid is provided anonymous support to the Syrian refugees in Syria and Jordan.  This company has raised over $100,000 to help the refugees in this area and are gaining more and more help daily.  70 volunteers cross the border to Jordan weekly with medicine, food, and supplies.   Just because the country of Israel is not as friendly to refugees as some people would like does not mean that the country does not support or help with refugees across the world.  IsraAid is a non-profit, NGO, that has provided aid to other countries such as Japan, Kenya and Haiti.   IsraAid is currently working on bringing Social Workers to Jordan and Syria to help with the psychological trauma of warfare.  

http://israaid.co.il/projects/jordan

Going straight to the website IsraAid, I was able to learn a bit more about the project and the statistics.  They estimate that there are over 6.8 million people who are in need of humanitarian efforts.  This was astonishing to me.  Their efforts they have distributed over 10 tons of supplies to the refugees and helped over 7,000 people.  

10 yil icinde, ben Kanadada yasacagim. Orada buyuk bir muhasebe firmda yapacagim. Buyuk bir ailem var. Dunya seyahat edecegim. Avustralyaya gidecegim. Orada birkac yil oturacagim. 15 yil icinde, Universitede calisacagim. Muhasebe ogretecegim. Ogrencileri yardim edecegim! 

Education%20in%20Sweden.pptx

Swedish%20education%20presentation.docx

Eighth Cultural Post:  Reflect upon what you have learned from the cultural projects presented in class

I was extremely interested by the education in Sweden. What stroke me the most was that higher education used to be free (until 2011) to everyone  in the country which obviously says a lot about the country and the culture. A country that put a strong stress on education clearly cares about the way of living and the success of its citizens. The fact that almost all the schools but two are public is also very important. It contributes to the idea that Swedes are part of a big community where there are not much social differences among them. Which is important because with the reduction of differences, people can relate to each other more easily and can by consequence work better and do things much more efficiently than other countries where personal success is central.

The women in the military force in Israel was also interesting and also relate to education. By promoting the number of women in the army the country conveys a good message that is the equality of sex, women have the same rights than men and can fight for their country. The army is apparently a great and honorable path to follow in the country, probably due to the conflicting nature of the state of Israel that is constantly under attacks. The fact that Israelis volunteer at a very young age and choose to stay in the army their entire life reveals the dedication to their country and the importance of their identity in their life.

Throughout week 7 I learned the names of animals that one would see at a zoo. Speaking of zoo, my language partner and I discussed what locations are popular among Ukrainian people for their outings and the zoo is considered a popular location. After we covered animals, we went into occupations and workplaces. I found it interesting that many of the business terms in English such as management, consulting, marketing, etc. are basically the exact same words in Ukrainian. Several other occupation names were also similar to the Russian language making this topic one of the easiest to learn for me. However, there were some occupations that were completely different in Ukrainian and unlike any other language I am familiar with so we allocated the majority of our time so I could become familiar with those. We also went over addressing university major and minors and how to incorporate that into a conversation in Ukrainian appropriately. Learning these terms an how to apply them appropriately has helped me with my confidence in speaking Ukrainian. 

For week 6, my language partner and I focused on telling and asking for the time. It was a little tricky since there are ways of telling the time that are different and unique from Russian. For example: “half of first” means 12:30, or “the 11^th hour” which means 11:00. It is still a little confusing but I am getting more used to it, practicing has definitely helped me a lot in maintaining my knowledge of everything that we have learned so far in the semester. My language partner and I have been going over more in-depth conversations in Ukrainian that effectively make me dig deep into everything I have learned so far in order to properly conduct the conversation. We have also been covering imperfect grammatical conjugations that are very similar to the Russian grammar scheme. Overall my knowledge in Russian has been able to ease my grammar learning in Ukrainian since it is almost identical.

It is now week 5 of my learning schedule and as the weeks have been progressing, I have become more and more confident with my skills in Ukrainian and its application in common settings. This week my language partner and I discussed Ukrainian food, table manners and cultural differences in a dining setting compared to the Russian culture. We then focused on learning basic food and dish names and how to place an order at a restaurant or any other dining setting. I also learned how to describe the food in terms of their characteristics such as healthy, ripe, fresh, medium-rare, etc. After establishing a strong foundation in the food category we went into weather. My language partner and I conducted conversations regarding the weather, temperature, and seasons of the year. My objective was to learn how to ask about the weather and conduct a conversation on that topic and I was able to do that relatively well by the end of the week.

Throughout my fourth week of learning Ukrainian, my language partner and I looked into the Ukrainian culture and language and how it has been influenced historically. Ukraine was conquered by Russia and Poland continuously for the past centuries, therefore the pure Ukrainian language became influenced by various cultures and languages that shaped it into the language that we know it as today. However, various elements of the original Ukrainian language are still an integral part of the language and have not been influenced by either the Russian or Polish language. For example, the word “cradle” in Russian actually means “tie” in Ukrainian. My language partner and I also spent time learning the various words in Ukrainian that are identical in meaning in the Russian language, as well as other words for objects that are completely different from Russian. We then incorporated the gained vocabulary knowledge into conversational skills, specifically to discussing a typical room setting and naming all my typical belongings. I also learned how to ask to borrow things such as a pen or phone. The remainder of the week as spent on learning how to describe items in regards to their color, shape, size.

It is now week 3 and at this point I have established a good foundation of grammar, sentence structure and conversation building in my knowledge of Ukrainian. From here on, my language partner and I decided that it would be a goo idea to continue to build on top of my conversational skills in Ukrainian. My language partner showed me a video of the Ukrainian Prime Minister delivering a speech on national television where he ended up using Russian language out of frustration in his failure to correctly pronounce eloquent Ukrainian speech. My language partner pointed out that a main reason why the Prime Minister was having trouble in his speech because he lacked the practice of using Ukrainian in a relaxed setting. Therefore we decided that I will be learning Ukrainian through language immersion since I will get accustomed to its use they way that I am used to using Russian language. We spent the rest of the week learning physical traits, addressing those in a proper sentence and with proper conjugation. I learned how to ask people common questions in regard to their name, height, age, hair, eye color, etc. as well as answer those questions appropriately when I myself am asked these questions. 

In my second week of learning Ukrainian I have already seen significant improvement from my first day of learning. My language partner and I have now been going over common phrases that I would use as a follow up to the greetings we learned in the prior week. Therefore we have been reenacting several scenarios where I would act as a tourist in Ukraine who is trying to ask for directions to a common facility. I also learned how to apply metrics when asking or providing directions such as: “walk straight for 200 meters and then turn left and continue for 100 meters.” We discussed the flow of Ukrainian conversation and how to transition from greetings to asking for directions so that I better understand the sentence structure in the Ukrainian language. So far, Ukrainian grammar is very similar to Russian and has been a relatively easy topic for me to cover. If I were dropped off in Kyiv, I would be fairly confident that I would be able to address a stranger in a friendly and appropriate manner as well as ask him/her/them/etc. for directions to a common facility such as a bank, library, or hospital.

In my first week of learning Ukrainian I have been able to apply my knowledge of Russian, specifically in the learning of the Ukrainian alphabet, which is very similar to the Russian alphabet. There are differences in pronunciation of some identical letters as well as some additional letters that are not present in the Russian alphabet. My language partner pointed out to me that my pronunciation is already pretty good, but I need to make sure that I remember the letters that are pronounced differently in Russian so that I don’t make mistakes further on in my learning. Therefore we spent time practicing words that are spelled the same in both languages but simultaneously sound different. I think that practice paid off and I will be able to remember these tendencies in the Ukrainian language. We then went over common greetings and reenacted several scenarios where the variables were: the time of day and the type of person I was addressing (sex, age, relationship, etc). We conjugated several greetings for me to understand the difference in use dependent on who exactly I am addressing in my conversations. I also learned numbers and their grammatical form of progressive adaptation.

These last two weeks we continued on with the book and we began preparing for my Hebrew exam for Hebrew University.  We began drilling verbs and vocabulary.  

HOW TO COOK DAAL 

These are the different types of daal most commonly used in Bangladesh cuisine.

Me and Sabrina cooked the orange colored one, masoor daal. Daal is as easy as cooking rice because it involves very little effort and the steps are quite simple. 

Ingredients:

-Lentils

-Diced onions

-Diced garlic

-Diced thai peppers

-Cumin

-Turmeric 

-Mixed spices (masala)

-Salt

1. Wash the lentils

2. Boil the lentils in water until soft (you can boil it forever, if you want, daal is supposed to be soupy). 

In a separate pot, heat oil and then throw in cumin. I eyeballed the amounts of spices I used so I don't have approximates. After the cumin, add onions, garlic, and thai peppers in the oil and caramelize it. Add the remainder of spices as it caramelizes. Once the lentils are cooked, transfer it into the separate pot and bring it to a boil. After that, it is basically done, but how long the daal is boiled is based on preference. I prefer to boil it longer. In this case, I boiled it for about 10-15 minutes. 

This was the product of our cooking! It is thick and not soup-like because we used a lot of lentils and we didn't proportion it according to the amount of water we added. The more lentils you put in, the less soup-like the daal will be.

This is another dish we prepared. It's not a traditional dish, but we made it Bengali style in the way we cooked it and with the masalas we used. The ingredients were the same as the daal, except for the lentils. We also used vegetables (yellow squash, acorn squash, and potatoes) and shrimp. This was a spicy dish, which we both relished! 

What is a Bengali meal without rice? Rice is present in every meal and is eaten with different side dishes. We ate the rice mixed daal and then with the dish above. In Bangla, the dish above would be called a torkari which can refer to a variety of dishes. I suppose the easiest way to describe what a torkari is would be that it has jhol, the watery sauce like content that sets in the dish while cooking. That jhol remains, either in a low or high amount. It is not stir fry in any sort of way.

En sevdigim sehir

En sevdigim sehir Saraybosna. Saraybosna Bosnanin baskent ve en buyuk bir sehir.

Hakkinda 300,000 insanlar var. Bu sehirde farkli insanlar yasiyor. Her yil, cok turistler geliyor.

Orada cok Turkler yasiyor. Benim kiz kardesim de orada yasiyor. Memleketim baskentten yedi

saat uzak. Bu sehir bir muze ve bazi sinemalar var. Simdi muzeyi kapat cunku insanlar muzeye

gitmek sevmiyor. Sadece genc insanlar sinemaya gidiyor. Sehir buyuk bir nehir var. Nehirin adi

Miljacka ama bu nehir cok kirli. Cevapi unlu bir yemek. Cok insanlar dusunuyor, biz Turkiyeden

bu yemek getirdik. Bu yemek cok iyi cunku sadece et ve ekmek var. Bu yemek her gun yiyebilim.

Sehirde cok camilar var, ve insanlar camiye her gun gidiyor. Saraybosnanin yaninda unlu bir

sehir var. Adi Mostar. Bu sehirde okudum. Turistler Bosnadaken, Saraybosnaya ve Mostara

gitmek zorundalar. Saraybosnada her hafta bazi konserler var.

Olsa bile bu sehiri cok seviyorum, orada yasamak istemiyorum. Bu sehir tehlikeli. Cok

hirsizlar var. Insanlar her zaman caliyor ve diger insanlari olduruyor. Boylece, orada yasamak

With the semester winding down, I wanted to ensure that I had maintained a balanced approach with my language learning that I had hoped for at the beginning of the semester. This semester, I wanted to be able to improve as many aspects of my Dari knowledge as possible. Personally, I wanted to improve my writing, reading and listening comprehension, pronunciation and speaking skills. I truly felt I was able to hit upon all of the areas I had hoped to improve on. That said, in the final weeks I wanted to improve in an area where I felt I still needed some more work - listening comprehension.

My language partner and I decided it would be best to build upon the activities that I had done during weeks nine and ten; however, this time they would be much more intensive. I wanted to immerse myself in the language by replacing most of the media that I typically watch in English with a Dari counterpoint. For instance, I would watch the news, television shows and sports in Dari when I could. Of course, I did not always know what was being said, but I realized that the more time I spent watching thing in Dari the easier it was for me to gauge what was being said and link it back to what previous knowledge of the language I had. Weeks eleven and twelve were definitely an increase in difficulty over what I had done in weeks nine and ten and I was often frustrated when I would come across a news segment or part of a show that was too complex for me to understand. Despite that, the experience was truly worthwhile and something that I wish I had done more often earlier in the semester and hope to continue to do during winter break. With that in mind, to get a perspective of a sample listening comprehension task that I would perform, refer to my fourth artifact. 

Seventh Cultural Post:  Attitudes about Family in the Target Culture

Family is probably the only thing that comes in front of work in Korea. The country is still based around a very hierarchical system where members have a great respect for elders. For a very long time, families, over two generations lived together, it was not uncommon to see grandparents living in the same house as grand children. 
Recent trends, the stress of work and the pressure of being successful have impacted Koreans a lot and because more and more women with higher education recently started to work, families can more easily afford to live together. Almost all the families are based around a patriarchal system where the father is in charge of the family and will transmit his role to the older of his son once passed away. Finally, if Koreans have very close bonds within the family, it will be very challenging for strangers and foreigners to be part of the family.

Seventh Cultural Post:  Attitudes about Family in the Target Culture

Family is probably the only thing that comes in front of work in Korea. The country is still based around a very hierarchical system where members have a great respect for elders. For a very long time, families, over two generations lived together, it was not uncommon to see grandparents living in the same house as grand children. 
Recent trends, the stress of work and the pressure of being successful have impacted Koreans a lot and because more and more women with higher education recently started to work, families can more easily afford to live together. Almost all the families are based around a patriarchal system where the father is in charge of the family and will transmit his role to the older of his son once passed away. Finally, if Koreans have very close bonds within the family, it will be very challenging for strangers and foreigners to be part of the family.

Seventh Cultural Post:  Attitudes about Family in the Target Culture

Family is probably the only thing that comes in front of work in Korea. The country is still based around a very hierarchical system where members have a great respect for elders. For a very long time, families, over two generations lived together, it was not uncommon to see grandparents living in the same house as grand children. 
Recent trends, the stress of work and the pressure of being successful have impacted Koreans a lot and because more and more women with higher education recently started to work, families can more easily afford to live together. Almost all the families are based around a patriarchal system where the father is in charge of the family and will transmit his role to the older of his son once passed away. Finally, if Koreans have very close bonds within the family, it will be very challenging for strangers and foreigners to be part of the family.

While reading this article, there was a question in the back of my head that was consistently nagging me and I kept pushing it away. I was almost upset that I kept asking it because for some reason it is an innate emotion to want to keep this tribal dialect alive but my question was still legitimate. The question was: why? Why is keeping this language alive so important? Does it matter if it becomes extinct? My first reaction is, "of course it matters! How could you ever think it wouldn't?!" It seemed as if letting this language go extinct was letting something die - and in a way it is. But why does it matter? Will the world really change without this language that barely anyone speaks anymore? Probably not.

But what if we let it happen to many languages...what if we let more and more languages become extinct and then what will we have? Mandarin probably...so is that what we want? Obviously we are not at this point yet but it is something that is possible. Preserving all languages is important to keep our world diverse and unique and exciting!

In a way it reminds me of art. There are so many different types of art from the past, present, and heading towards the future. Art in all forms is valuable in our society because it is interesting and mind opening. Preserving historical art is crucial to our global society; we have created thousands of things related to historical art including museums, careers, special exhibits, books, and so on. Imagine if we stopped making oil paintings...and then clay statues...until there weren't many types of art left at all. This is how I think of preserving languages. Languages are art and it is essential for us to preserve every single one of them.