Blogs

    This week, my learning partner and I continued to read the book from last semester, and we are almost done with it! Just to refresh our memory, this book is called “괭이부리말 아이들 1” and it is a story about children who grew up in this poor community. Last semester, I mentioned how the Korean language is extremely descriptive and this time, I noticed the peculiar language that is used to describe certain manners.

    One example is when the author described a pregnant woman as “hoet-moeum,” which directly translates to “not alone.” I thought that this meant that the woman is simply not alone aka with someone else, but I learned that this word is only used in the context of a pregnant woman because “not alone” means that the woman is not alone because she is pregnant. Therefore, she is never alone because of the baby that is with her, in her stomach. This was very interesting to notice this detail because in English, we would just use the word “pregnant,” but in Korean, they used a word that describes “not alone.”

    Although the book is coming to an end, the story continues to be so interesting and I am looking forward to learning about how it ends!

Like other languages, phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics can all be observed in Vietnamese. For example, Vietnamese is a tonal language and there are sounds that exists in Vietnamese, but not in English. To learn the physical facts of pronunciation, I had to memorize the sounds of the letters and the tongue positions that go along with producing them—all part of the structures of phonetics and phonology. Syntax is another example of a structure that I've had to deal with. In Vietnamese to ask "where is the library," you would say "thư viện ở đâu," which translates directly to library at where. The subject in this case is first. Likewise, words indicating time (ex. Today, now, 5 o'clock, etc.) also comes first. Similar to English, you can put words indicating time in either the beginning or end of a sentence, but it sounds more fluid and correct at the beginning.

As to Aitchison's linguistics diagram, I think that combining different disciplinary perspectives, can help in recreating a more authentic speech and aid in comprehension of my target language. For example, the combination of historical linguistics (study of the history and development of a language) and sociolinguistics (study of a language  in relation to social factors) can let me know what the most appropriate words in various situations are. After the Vietnam war when the country became communist, certain words weren't used anymore. You will still hear them used by people who immigrated to other countries after the war, but not in Vietnam itself. Additionally, the standard dialect changed from southern to northern. Resulting in a change of what is considered a standard term as well (soda vs. pop). Combining this knowledge with a knowledge of how different socioeconomic groups would speak will allow me to avoid using terms that would be considered wrong or even offensive. Furthermore, if I combine this with stylistics linguistics, I can then learn to write for a target audience, enhancing my writing skills in a more holistic way.

Personally, I think that sociolinguistics is more important for someone like me who isn't an absolute beginner in a language especially in terms of speaking. It can help me in refining both my speech and writing. Psycholinguistics on the other hand isn't as useful in my opinion as I feel like I already have a thorough understanding of what methods of learning work for me since I've already tried so many language learning approaches. Moving forward I think that I think I will try to learn more about the history and culture of Vietnam through my language partner. I will probably incorporate this into our daily "free-talk" sessions.

     Since my main goal for this semester is to finish the book that we were reading from last semester, I want to be able to learn about the culture that is associated with this book. Therefore, as I am reading this book, not only will I take notes about the vocabulary that I learn, but also I will take notes about the cultural aspects of the book. Once I learn about these topics, I can do extra research to learn even more about the cultural aspects!

     Continuing from last semester, I want to continue looking at the similarities and differences between the cultures in South Korea to that of the U.S. I have noted some of these ideas in my learning plan already, such as looking at the structures of science articles and resumes/CVs. I am excited to continue comparing and contrasting between the two countries, so that I can be more knowledgeable about both of my cultural identities :)

    According to the Levels of Competence, I would rate my speaking in the late Intermediate/mid-Advanced category.  I feel the most confident about my speaking abilities, but I am not sure if I can label myself as the last category in Advanced because I am not sure if I am up to that standard yet. I have definitely improved my speaking by taking SDLC all these years, but I always have room to improve! If I rank my speaking in the Advanced category, then I would rank my writing in the mid-Intermediate category because I have been working on this skill next. I practice my writing on a daily/weekly basis because I text my parents and family in Korean, which is a great improvement because I used to not even have the confidence to text in Korean! Lastly,  I still need to work on my reading skills but I have been doing pretty good with this skill because of the book that my learning partner and I have been reading together.

    Through SDLC 113, I will mainly focus on my reading skills by finishing the book that I mentioned above. The book that we are reading is part 1 of a 2 book series, so if time permits, we may move on to reading the second book! So far, I have been doing great with increasing my speed in reading and also my comprehension, but I just want to work on developing this skill more. Along with this main goal, I will also work on developing my speaking and writing skills in a more challenging setting.

Angella Lee's SDLC 113 Learning Plan (Initial)

I prefer the method which first learn how to phonetically expression, in the order of  phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and fragment. Phonetics concern with actual physical sounds and language itself, but linguists put the importance on the patterns of language. As the article mentioned, the grammar is not just the word order but a structure-dependent operation. The types of language structure are quiet complicated. Not like English with rigid grammar rule, Chinese is much more “flexible” since we do not have past tense or future tense and the word orders in a sentence can be altered without changing in the meaning of the sentence. However, as linguist Chomsky pointed, all humans internalized language mechanisms are similar so that it is possible to find elements and constructions that are available to all languages. I think when I learn Korean, there must be similarities in both the sounds of language and the grammar rules between Chinese and Korean. And I will learn the sound patterns which can be based on alphabet, the word patterns and meaning patterns to compose a sentence.

In the two weeks that I’ve met with my language partner, I learned new vocabulary words and metaphors. My language partner taught me the words before I can apply them in my reading of a news article. I think reading the article that the words were taken from helped me to reinforce my knowledge of how the words are used in a sentence. The words that I learned were considerably sophisticated and not pedestrian for an everyday conversation. Therefore, I don’t think I will use all of these words for speaking. I hope, however, to use these words for writing. Currently, I am writing the words, their definitions, and sentences using the words. I think my strategies are effective because I can recall most of the words that I have learned. I think that I can use the words that I have learned in the past two weeks to learn new words.

I observe many structures such as phonology and grammar within the Korean language. I see phonology in the way people use the Korean consonants. Korean consonants, separated into different classes, contain plain and tense sounds to create meaning. Some of the words that Koreans use sound similar, but contain different meanings because words are created through these different classes. Grammar is also present in the Korean language. Like English, Korean contains several classes of substantives such as nouns and pronouns. In addition, Korean utilizes action verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, and other grammatical rules that are used in English. I observed these structures while reading news articles and Korean variety shows.

Combining different disciplinary perspectives to create a holistic approach is important for the study of Korean. Phonology creates sound patterns that are derived from phonetics and acts as a building block for us to create words using those complex patterns. Simply put, these sounds help us to create words and arrange them in a way to create meaning. I apply these concepts to differentiate words that sound similar but contain different meaning. Furthermore, I prefer understanding grammar and syntax over phonology and phonetics because the latter group is the most basic form of language. I think my knowledge of Korean is decent enough to move on from simple sounds to concrete words and sentence structures.

With my knowledge of language structures, I will learn more vocabulary words from news articles so that I can eventually write and speak in complex sentence structures.

This week we began discussing and reading about the structure of language. Looking at Jean Aitchison's diagram of the structure of language and this week's reading, helped me to analyze and break down my language of study. In my specific field of study, I see signs of phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics. I realize that the Korean language is very similar to that of American English, especially in the aspect of phonology. In the Korean language, sarcasm is a big part of the way people talk to each other, just like in the English language. Therefore, it is comforting to understand a complex idea like sarcasm in another language, because it is similar in a more familiar language. So, it is important to understand the structure of a language in order to accurately and simplify learning a different language. By breaking down the structure of a language, we are able to recognize similarities and differences in language and use that to further our understanding of the language. In my own personal experience, it is important to learn words in the target language (phonetics), then be exposed to how it's used in sentences and how it would usually be said (phonetics), and then once you are comfortable with the words and phrases to then get into the grammar (syntax). Though I do not have too much experience in language learning, by studying the structure of language, I am beginning to notice small similarities in both Korean and English I never had before, which has already begun to help me in my journey to better my Korean speaking language. With this knowledge, I am considering adding to my lesson plan to read books about the grammatical structure of the Korean language, because I never had formal teachings on grammar.

In my Korean studies, I study phonetics (the study of human speech sounds), phonology (sound patterning), syntax (the arrangement and the form of words), and semantics (meaning). I started learning Korean with a textbook that outlines what the Korean letters are, how they sound, and some words that use that letter. First, I learn how to pronounce the sounds in Korean. Syntax is another lesson, which is how the characters are arranged to form letters, and how the letters are arranged to form words. Finally, semantics is putting all of the above together and actually learning what words mean. Pragmatics, how speakers use language in ways which cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge alone, includes taking turns in conversation, text organization, and implicature. It is more advanced because it involves aspects of language that are easier to learn in a native setting than by oneself. As for the outer ring of the diagram, I do not study these structures in Korean. These perspectives are relevant for people who are proficient in the written and verbal forms of the language, and want to delve deeper into a particular field. As of now, I am not interested in studying these perspectives, as I wish to start with first learning the language.

Overall, my main focus is on the semantics of Korean. While phonetics, phonology, and syntax are important, it is impossible to have a conversation without meaning. Knowing what words mean in Korean will allow me to have simple conversations in Korean.

SharonShin_learningplan2019.docx

This semester, I made fewer goals for my learning journal. 

I did this because I realized that, in a class setting, it's often difficult too many concepts when there are other students who also want to learn different concepts. Therefore, I have brought these topics up with my language partner, and we will be integrating my goals as well as other students' goals into the semester course. 

I like this idea because I am also open to learning about topics that I did not think of to include in my learning plan. I am happy to learn about any topic in Korean as long as I feel that it moves me towards becoming more knowledgeable about the language or culture. 

I think I do not have strict goals, for the most part, when learning Korean. I would like to keep improving at a steadfast pace, but I do not mind the topics I learn to get there. Overall, I like learning about topics that will help me conduct myself in speaking situations, as those are the situations I am most often in to speak Korean. Therefore, I put multiple goals in presentation speaking to learn more topics associated with speaking.

According to the Levels of Competence, I am, for the most part, all within the Intermediate 1 category. I think that I have learned a lot of new topics over the course of the past semester that have strengthened my standing in many aspects of Korean. I have also become more confident about my speaking, reading, and writing skills, and this encourages me to be more open about using the language instead of resorting to English. 

I have contacted my language partner, and we will be meeting every Tuesday for two hours. It is fun because, with other students in the class with me, I can practice with them. 

Discussion%20Post%20%233.docx

Later this week I focused on combining all of the skills I have learned for the past week and a half. I practiced writing questions and answering them, as well as reading passages from the Turkish workbook and answering the questions. I learned new vocabulary for objects around the house (furniture in the bedroom, kitchen, etc.), colors, and some numbers to expand my ability to describe places. 

I also started one of the Turkish dramas my friend recommended on Netflix (Winter Sun) using the Chrome Netflix Multi-Subtitle extension so that I can read in Turkish and English. I've watched a Turkish movie with English subtitles before knowing any Turkish, but now that I know some of the language, it's exciting when I recognize a familiar word, phrase, or even suffix.

This weekend I hope to get around to rewriting some of my Turkish notes/compiling all of the vocabulary I've learned into a notebook. In the past, rewriting my notes has helped me a lot in retaining information.

Phonetically, Turkish is not dissimilar from English. The Turkish alphabet is nearly identical to the English one, and only includes a few extra letters, most of which represent sounds already used in the English language. However, the letter ğ is unique when comparing Turkish and English, as it can serve to both lengthen and combine vowel sounds depending upon its position in a word. English has no such mechanism for this. This phonetic similarity with English and Turkish (due to Turkey switching to a Latin-type alphabet in 1928) may indicate a potential ease for learning Turkish, but this is far from the truth. Even just a single level up (to phonology), Turkish and English differ quite distinctly. For example, Turkish words all exhibit a type of vowel harmony, in which all the vowels in a word originate either from the front or the back of the throat. English has no such requirements. As the levels progress higher, the differences only seem to accumulate (Because Turkish is an agglutinative language, meaning endings can be piled up behind the root of a word to produce different meaning, it is syntactically very different from English).

It seems like the basic levels of language demonstrated in Aitchison's diagram (phonetics up to semantics) can all be learned by book (or at least separate from the culture or country of origin for the language). However, the levels including and above pragmatism seem to require one to be in the presence of the native culture, as pragmatics deals with language in ways "which cannot be predicted from linguistic knowledge alone" ( Aitchison 11). Thus, in order to gain a holistic knowledge of a language, it may be necessary to travel and study in the country of that language. This is why I believe many language-learning programs focus on phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics without going any further. I hope to also focus on these four levels of language as I pursue Turkish; I believe if I can perfect these skills (or at least achieve a reasonable level in them), gaining a more holistic view of the language can be achieved through studying abroad. 

Discussion%20Post.docx

In the past two weeks I had hoped to learn the Vietnamese alphabet and get a gist of how to use the tonal marks. I think that I have achieved both goals. With my language partner we’ve gone over the alphabet, practicing the sounds associated with the letters. We’ve also practice reading the sounds associated with two and three letter syllables that are commonly seen (ex. ăm and ươn). For tonal marks, my language partner showed me a few graphs for how your tone goes up or down depending on the mark. The visual aid was particularly helpful for me especially with the period tone (ex. Ấn Độ meaning India).

Now, we are working on expanding my vocabulary, becoming comfortable speaking in Vietnamese, and practicing my reading. My language partner has been giving me new vocabulary relating to country names (ex. Campuchia for Cambodia) and I am quizzed on them the next class. Additionally, we are reading news articles to practice my reading. I think this is useful for me as it reinforces my knowledge of the alphabet and tones. It also helps add to my vocabulary. For example, we spent half an hour reading an article on emerging markets in Vietnam (https://startup.vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/xu-huong/nhung-tai-nang-cong-nghe-dua-viet-nam-len-ban-do-khoi-nghiep-the-gioi-3874887.html). The article was just the right level of challenge where there were words I didn’t know, but it wasn’t so challenging I had no idea what I was reading. Some of the vocabulary on that article was added to my vocabulary list to learn as well. Another activity we’ve been doing is free-talk where we spend 15 minutes talking about anything in Vietnamese. This helps me to be comfortable speaking and I think is useful in pointing out where the gaps in my vocabulary are to my language partner. For example, when we talked about food my language partner realized I don’t need as much vocabulary related to food vs. vocabulary related to school subjects. However, I think a more guided free talk will be more useful to avoid using the same vocabulary over and over.

For the next two weeks my language partner and I will continue practicing reading and expanding my vocab. Knowing that I am weak in the name of school subjects, I think the next few rounds of vocabulary will be relating to that. Furthermore, knowing that the article reading is good reading practice I think we will continue with this activity. As for the free talk, I think we should build on that by having a specific topic each class (ex. family, vacation, career, etc.).

Overall, I’ve enjoyed the past two weeks of language learning. My language partner has made the lessons really fun and relaxing. She’s also been extremely encouraging and friendly and through our conversations I feel like I am learning more about Vietnamese culture.

This semester I have taken a couple of really important steps in enhancing the strength of my language learning. I am working closely with my language partner (Karen) to improve my pronunciation and speaking abilities in Maltese because I identified these elements as potential areas of improvement last semester. Additionally, my language partner was able to give me recommendations for three very helpful resources in self-studying: a textbook from the University of Malta, beginner audio disks, and an overview book for the Maltese language. 

During the first two practice sessions, Karen and I focused heavily on pronunciation. She provided me with an overview of different dialects that exist on mainland Malta versus the other smaller islands. Karen's family is from Gozo- the same region that I believe my ancestors were from- so I am choosing to learn her dialect. An important feature of the Maltese dialects, though, is that the dialects are similar enough across islands for all people to understand. In comparison to a language like Spanish, the linguistic differences are very subtle. For example, in Maltese, the letter q is not pronounced on Gozo or the Mainland, but certain villages on the other islands sound q as a -k sound. Most of the lesson was actual pronunciation practice, but this cultural element is very important to my learning because Maltese resources are so scarce. When I listen to various clips online, I noticed these differences and have trouble identifying the correct way to say things. Listening to Karen speak is helping me to keep a consistent dialogue. 

To begin working together, we worked through pronouncing the sample phrases and words from my new Maltese textbook. I read a word, then Karen would repeat the word in the correct accent. I could not move on to the next word until I correctly pronounced the letters in each word. This exercise helped me to learn that the Maltese b is pronounced very soft, like an English p. Additionally, I learned that the letter u is pronounced very long, as in Kung Fu. Another mistake I identified was how I pronounce the letter i. I was previously saying "-ee" like in Italian, but the letter functions more like the English letter i - typically it is soft, but can occasionally take on the "-ee" sound. Another important element of pronunciation is knowing where to put the inflection on words. I marked these inflection points in my notes as we went along. 

In regard to practicing this week, Karen and I agreed it would be helpful to independently review the pronunciation of the word sets we went over. In addition, I suggested that I could memorize the definitions and quiz myself on the meanings of the vocabulary. 

Earlier this week I was working on how to say where things were after finishing up the first unit in my Turkish workbook. I learned about using locative cases and their vowel harmonies and how to modify the locative case suffix depending on the preceding consonant. I also learned how to say things that are there and things that aren't (in Turkish, there are no words to say that something "has" or "doesn't have" something like in English... Instead, the Turkish words roughly translate to something that "exists" or is "absent"). Surprisingly, refraining from directly translating Turkish sentences word for word to English is not as difficult as I expected. I think the hardest part about this for me is knowing all of the contexts for which a word can be used (for example, "at," "on," and "in" have slightly different meanings in English, but only one word describes all of these in Turkish) and sometimes I am unsure about word placement within a sentence.

While waiting for my practice session with Merve to start in the Global Learning Studio, I browsed some of the Turkish books on the shelf. There, I found an illustrated Turkish-English dictionary that I thought was a really appealing resource; because I am a visual learner, seeing the illustration and its corresponding Turkish word helped me a lot (I even learned some words that I later used when I was describing things in Turkish with Merve). Besides that dictionary, there weren't very many other Turkish books available, however, I just looked in that one section of the studio. I hope to search for videos/audio resources in the Global Learning Center in the future.

Why Turkish?
Turkey is located at the intersection of Europe and Asia, so it has both European and Asian influences, which I think is really interesting. This semester I want to learn about Turkish culture so that in the future I can travel there and find my way around. If I go to Turkey, I want to be able to communicate with the people there when ordering food, asking for directions, etc. I also enjoy the process of learning a language, so to further this, I want to learn about the resources that I have at my disposal so that I can learn Turkish independently in the future. This semester, my goal is to cover basic topics (introducing and describing myself, asking questions, ordering food, etc.) and expose myself to Turkish culture.

My%20Learning%20Plan.docx

What I've Learned: 
The past couple of weeks, I’ve learned how to say basic greetings, the alphabet, some common vocabulary words, and some words about family members. I’ve also learned how to ask some questions like “Where are you from?”, “What’s your name?”, etc. Grammar-wise, my language partner and I have touched a little bit about vowel harmony and agglutination.

In my learning plan, I want to go over the following:

• Greetings/introduction
• Describing myself and other people/talking about family
• Activities/school
• Telling time, saying the date, learning numbers
• Buying things
• Ordering food, learning about Turkish food
• Asking for directions/places

So each week I will go through this list and cover one of these topics. As I go through these, I want to refer to my tasks that I stated in my learning plan (the doc attached) and try to assess my progress in these tasks each week.

Resources:
Workbooks (provided by Merve), Turkish grammar book (bought from Amazon), YouTube, Netflix (for Turkish dramas), Spotify (for Turkish music), Tureng (Turkish/English dictionary), and website with audio, reading, units on everything I want to cover, etc. (https://utos.yasar.edu.tr/). Merve also created a Box folder filled with other resources.

I really liked Matthew's idea of learning new words in a topic every week to expand my vocabulary, so I want to make sure to dedicate some time to that (and make quilt flashcards to document the words I've learned).

   In Figuring Foreigners Out and the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture, they both talked about 6 dimensions of culture. First of all, individualism measures the degree that a society enforces individual or collective achievements and relationships. Secondly, power distance measures the degree of acceptance of equality or inequality between people. Third, masculinity measures the dominant values of a society driven either by competition and success or caring for others and quality of life. And then, uncertainty avoidance measures the degree of tolerance for uncertainty in society. Long term orientation and indulgence are not that important but are also parts of the dimensions of culture.

   At the same time, the author of Figuring Foreigners Out  talked about how the the two extremes ends of each spectrums, such as individualist vs. collectivist, nonverbal communication, monochromic vs. polychromic, internal vs. external, direct vs. indirect, affect countries to be different from one another.  Based on the article, I can tell how countries such as the United States places an emphasis on individualist more, compared with China and Korea.

     I agree with both Figuring Foreigners Out and the Hofstede Dimensions of Culture because in my opinion, the differences among countries based on these ideas are really evident.

Currently, I am learning how to say basic Korean greetings and common phrases, as well as how to write and read Korean Hangul. As far as the semester goes, I have accomplished my goals and can already see a slight understanding of Korean. My tutor, Seonghye Kim, has been very good at promoting language learning, explaining how to understand, speak, write and read it, and promoting lots of repetitions to improve the retention. In addition to this, I am watching YouTube videos to get more in touch with the language and to practice it more than twice a week. I am very excited about learning a language with a different writing system from German or English since I have been wanting to do this for a long time. I am also proud of my process, because Seonghye confirmed my quick improvement.

I will continue to work on my language learning skills through the help on my tutor sessions, videos, a book, and my friend Minki. I am excited to follow my learning plan and to check off my goals as time goes on.