Blogs

The presentations on Wednesday were all very interesting. The topics ranged from talking about cuisines to the concept of beauty. My favorite three were The Concept of Beauty in India, Korea's Culture and Korea's Cuisine. 

Though the information that what was presented in the first presentation was not all new to me, it made me reflect more in the issue. When did the obsession with being lighter start? Was it pre or post-colonialism? What are the limits of trying to be beautiful? And who really is to blame here? Is it the beauty industry? The media? Or the consumers? Presenting facts and numbers is interesting, but there's always more to them. Concepts of beauty don't come out of thin air and there's nothing wrong with trying to be beautiful. But a person has to always dig deeper and really understand the implications of everything he or she does before before doing them. 

The presentation about various aspects of Korea's culture was also very interesting. What interested me most was the part about men's obsession with perfection and beauty. In all honesty, looking at the pictures made me really uncomfortable. Some would say that it's refreshing to see men caring as much about their looks as women do. But to me, the way women obsess over their looks is wrong, and I wouldn't wish it on men. Taking care of one's looks is natural, but when a person make it a priority, then I believe a line has crossed. 

The best part about the Korea's Cuisine presentation was Gargi's introduction. She mentioned that looking at a country's cuisine tells us a lot about its climate, geographical area and beliefs. Obviously, anyone who has been in an elementary geography class has heard this, but I have never really thought about it in an isolated fashion. This will definitely make me look at national dishes more closely and analyze them in a different manner. 

One Pakistan's biggest holidays is Eid Al-Fitr, which is also called Feast of Breaking the Fast. It is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of fasting, Ramadan. Eid Al-Fitr falls on the first days of the month of Shawwal. It is a day when Muslims all around the world show unity. 

Every Muslim country has its own customs and traditions for Eid Al-Fitr. In Pakistan, people make sure to wear new clothes to get ready for Eid prayer. It is obligatory to give charity to the needy and poor on behalf of each family member before Eid day or at least Eid prayer. This charity is called Zakat Al-Fitr. It allows everyone in the community to enjoy Eid and share the joy.

For Eid prayer, Pakistanis gather in large open areas to pray. After prayer, they meet and greet each other with a traditional hug of friendship. Before going back home, more charity is given to the needy and poor. This, however, is only customary and optional. On the way back, families buy sweets, balloons for kids and gifts for other family members. It is a joyous time of giving and receiving. 

At home, families enjoy a special Eid breakfast with various types of desserts and sweets including the traditional Eid dessert Sheer Khurma. This dessert is made out of vermicelli, milk, butter, dry fruits and dates.

Many traditions are focused on the enjoyment of children. One tradition is adults giving out money in cash called Eidi as a gift to young children. Children are allowed to use this money in any way they want. Games and outdoor activities are enjoyed all day by people from all ages. Pakistanis usually visit their elder relatives and then friends all day to share the joy and happiness. Some people go to parks, rivers or lake fronts to enjoy and relax.

At night, families rejoin to enjoy a special Eid dinner and plan how to celebrate the second and third day of Eid. 

My first artifact for SDLC 110 was about the Urdu alphabet. I made a chart that showed the equivalent of each Urdu letter to a letter in either Arabic or English. Since I am bilingual in those two languages, the chart makes it easier for me, and anyone who is in a similar situation, to learn the Urdu alphabet better. It is accurate in both pronunciation and linguistically.

So far, I have learned the alphabet, greetings and farewells and some personal questions and answers. I am still working on the last part but plan on "mastering" it by the end of this week. 

This week we went over some verb usage and figured out a few grammatical things that we should look up. I think the thing that helped me most this week was Molly's blog though. In one of her blogs she talks about memorizing words in threes. I am a bit behind with the vocab so I was feeling very overwhelmed but I tried that tactic and it really helped. Another goal we set for this week is when we our watching Broen is to try to read a bit less and listen a little more. It is automatic to read subtitles when you see them on the screen but we need to start practicing listening to Swedish more. I feel like it is going to be hard just because they speak so fast. I can pick out a few words but by no means understand entirely what they are saying. We are working a lot more on putting the vocabulary words we learn in context. So more emphasis on using them in sentences and trying to create more sentences. Things are for sure getting a bit harder, but I guess it only means I am learning more.

http://prezi.com/juurjviidtvj/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

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Israelis convey a lot of information via body language particularly hand movements. If a person has both of their hands in pinched formation this means that they are being very specific while if they bite their bottom lip and jut their chin out it often means that they don't feel bad for you. Israelis are very expressive with their gestures and will invade others' personal space as they talk with their hands. Personal space is generally considered smaller in Israel as people are more likely to touch your arm or shoulder during conversation. Israelis are also typically more direct in conversation and do not use as many subtleties as Americans.

I have found reading in Hebrew pretty difficult, especially when reading for understanding. When I "learned" Hebrew for my Bat Mitzvah, I learned only a specific portion of Hebrew that I practiced with the vowels. When I eventually had to read it from the Torah- though it didn't have vowels- it was still pretty easy because I didn't need to know what the words meant I just needed to memorize the portion and recognize it. When reading for understanding though it is much more challenging to remember not only the word with the vowels, but also what the word looks like and means without them. I also think it is hard to read since there are so more versions of the same word because there is both the feminine and masculine tense. One nice thing about Hebrew though is that most words are written the way they sound so even if I don't always know what the word I'm reading means, I will most likely be able to pronounce the word I read especially once I've really mastered my letters. I think that the more practice I get with speaking, writing, and listening to Hebrew the better I will become at reading it. 

My first step towards learning Korean was memorizing the alphabet. The Korean alphabet consists of 24 characters and is straightforward to read. At this point, my reading is quite slow, but it is mostly because of my unfamiliarity with the script. I can pronounce words in my head when I read, but due to a limited vocabulary, I do not understand much of what I try to read. I am a big fan of Korean music, and therefore I try to read some of my favorite songs' lyrics in Korean. Before doing so I read the English translation of the lyrics so that when I finally read them in Korean, I am able to get an idea of some vocabulary. Reading has enabled me to develop my pronunciation too, and it feels good to finally be able to belt out (however out of tune it might be) the chorus of your favorite Korean song knowing for sure you're saying it right!

According to the work division between the two hemispheres of the brain described in 'How the Brain Handles Language' reading, I feel that in language learning the left hemisphere would be dominantly involved in understanding sentence structure, grammar, and vocabulary. The right hemisphere would be involved in the creative and emotional usage of the language, for example, using the words in a non-traditional way like in song lyrics, poetry, etcetera. I believe that the right hemisphere would have a role to play in the vocal delivery of the language too (since "the right is said to be dominant for... emotional expression"), for example, a happy person might say a sentence quite differently from an angry person. I understand it is not entirely correct to divide language understanding into two halves of the brain, but also believe that one half may be dominant in handling a specific part of language comprehension, but in the end a collaboration and connection of processed information is required for complete understanding. For example, both hemispheres work together to connect memory, visual information, and sound perception, and thus associate the meaning of a word to an object.

Different information coming together to make complete sense was analyzed under a different context in the 'How to investigate language structure' reading. While learning a language, there are always multiple perceptions in, let's say, a statement that a learner might not understand without advanced training as well as cultural immersion. A learner begins with learning the components separately and then with experience, they come together to form a sentence with complete meaning and consisting of several layers, each a result of cultural and social aspects of the language.

From the reading 'How We Mean', I realized that there were so many day to day things that describe the nuances of languages but I never paid direct attention to them. I thought about my own experiences, and remembered how my Mother dislikes when I conversationally and playfully say, "I'm going to die!!". Also, in my first language, Hindi, we have different words for uncles and aunts from mother's and father's side of the family. So far in Korean, I have noticed that uncles are addressed by the same term irrespective of which side they are from, but this is not the case for aunts.

Also, the description of how the word 'chair' came about and could only mean 'chair', went down to the very detail of the brain processing a visual image and connecting it to the sounds in memory, and made me realize the complexity of language and even though I knew this all along, actually sitting and thinking about the fact that languages evolved when a group of people decided to associate and remember that some sound represented a thing is just mind-blowing.

In the 'How We Analyze Meaning' reading, it was interesting to note the sentence structure and difference in word usage in different languages, and how they would mean the same thing in the context of that language. The association of other sensory information other than sound, such as colors, in languages was also very intriguing.

I believe these readings will aid me in my self-direction in Korean, because understanding the roots of a language, not only in a cultural context, but also in the processing of a language in our brains should be helpful in developing accuracy and multi-layered comprehension in the language.

I can already tell round two is going to be a lot harder than first semester. I think its because first semester the concept of learning Swedish was so foreign and new, and now I am at the point where the novelty has warn off a bit and I realize how hard it can be. This week Molly and I met up and discussed grammatical things which was a big help. We also have been watching this show called Bron. Although I would not understand the show without subtitles it is good practice to start listening to people speaking Swedish. It really allows you to start looking at the smaller things like the inflection of certain words. I think the main trouble I am going to have this semester though is studying my vocab as much as I did last semester. Last semester all I had was time but this semester I am a lot busier. So I need to schedule in more vocabulary time.  

This is a sample of some vocabulary about the Israeli Defense Force. In order: army, Israeli Defense Force, entrance exam, soldiers, base, and unit. 

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This is a writing sample of some emotion vocabulary. 

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Since I gave back my book I only have my notes to read from. I read some of my family vocabulary, in order: family, mother, father, sister, brother, grandmother, grandfather, uncle, aunt, cousin (daughter of aunt), cousin (daughter of uncle), cousin (son of aunt), cousin (son of uncle), step (for step sibling, uncle, cousin, etc.). 

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This is a brief introduction of myself in Hebrew. It says:

Shalom (hello.

Ani Sarah (I am Sarah). 

Ani mi New Jersey, leyad New York (I am from New Jersey, near New York). 

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My goal for the next two weeks is to ask and answer questions about identity (Where are you from?  What do you do?  What are your studying? etc.). I plan to learn these phrases from LiveMocha.com, Youtube videos and my language partner. I will test myself by trying to have a simple conversation with a native Urdu speaker here on campus to evaluate my success. 

My Learning Plan

Where are you now?  What can you do?  What do you know?

Use the Levels of Competence document and the LinguaFolio® checklists to assess your current abilities in your language.  For more information, see the SDLAP Wiki.

Interpersonal Communication

Interpretive Listening

Interpretive Reading

Presentational Speaking

Presentational Writing

What is your ultimate goal?  What is your goal for this semester?
What do you want to be able to do with this language at the end of this semester and in the future?

My goal for the semester is to be able to read in Urdu and have good conversational skills. I would like to be able to talk to a Pakistani seller in a store or a friend here in UR about basic everyday things.

What tasks will you complete and what activities will you do this semester to meet your goals?  How will you document and evaluate your progress?

Novice learners should consult the ‘Language Tasks’ page of the SDLAP Wiki and incorporate the required tasks in their learning.  Be as specific as possible when planning activities, e.g., “I will watch YouTube videos to learn how to talk about the family.” or “I will consult a grammar text to learn about possessives.”  Make sure you include some tasks that are relevant to your interests, e.g., “I will learn to understand soccer commentary.” or “I will learn to talk about the stock market.”  Culture and language are, of course, inseparable.  It is expected that all your language will be culturally appropriate and that every task will contribute to your cultural competence.