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- What do you need to know about the structure of your target language? How will you acquire the knowledge you need? Do you think a reference grammar can be useful? Why or why not?
The structure for Czech is quite different than English. You need to know that the Czech language is very conditional to context and there is no "one-fits-all" sentence structure. In all languages, you change the verbs to dictate the subject and the object, but in Czech, you change the verb, the adjective, and the object on top of a dynamic sentence structure. To acquire the knowledge, you need to keep an open mind and know that its ok to make mistakes. While I was abroad, I didn't want to make mistakes because I was embarassed, but I realized it made me work harder when I made an embarrassing mistake in public. I told myself that I won't do that again. A reference grammar must be useful in helping visualize to individuals who are new to languages. Because of my exposure to multiple languages, I have gotten used to uncertainty with sentence structure and not using a static grammar approach when learning a new language.
Informal versus formal language in Turkish does matter a lot, but isn't really that complicated. Other than things like informal and formal greetings and farewells (Selam meaning Hi and Merhaba meaning Hello, things that we also find in English) the difference between formal and informal language is often the change of ending in a word or phrase. For example, "Adin ne?" meaning What is your name? would be considered informal. But the addition of the suffix "iz" to the word "Adin" makes the phrase appropriate for a formal language situation. I think this is a lot easier than in Spanish where the difference between formal and informal language is in the conjugation of the verb.
The linguistic aspects of Turkish that I have found are: vowel harmony, lack of noun classes and grammatical gender, agglutination, and formal versus informal language. Vowel harmony, which we have gone over very briefly in 110, means that the vowels in a word or phrase are corresponding. So for example, in the country name of Germany, Almanya, all the vowels are "a". This also means that since "a" is a "thick sound" letter, when you tack on the ending to say that you are from Almanya you have to use an ending that is also a thick sound vowel. We haven't learned about noun classes yet, or really about grammatical order other than that it is a different order than in English. Agglutination means that you just take the basic word and tack on suffixes to make it a verb or a simple phrase. For example, to say "what is your name?" you say "Adin ne?". The "n" signifies "your", but the response is "Adim [your name]". The change of "n" to "m" signifies the change of "your" name to "my" name. And lastly, the informal and formal language is again differentiated usually by a change in ending.
I am interested in learning Turkish because it is a critical language and I know almost nothing about the language or the culture. Having already started learning the language I think it is really interesting how many of the sounds are similar to the sounds we make in English or Spanish but the words themselves are unidentifiable to me, unlike other romance languages where I can often guess what the word means. By the end of the semester I hope to be able to have an introductory conversation with someone like a shopkeeper or a server at a restaurant and understand directions/street signs and words and basic phrases related to travel. I hope to visit Turkey someday and that gives me incentive to learn the language and keep working on it!
The results of my assessment are simple to explain since I am a complete beginner in the Turkish language. The only advantage that I have is that I know Greek, which shares a few common words with Turkish but other than that the two are very different languages. As for my goals, my objective is to learn basic Turkish to the point where I can hold a basic introductory conversation and ask for directions. The directions are especially important since it is a life goals of mine to visit Constantinople and see the city part of my family originates from and the city that I share a name with.
Turkish is a very interesting language to me for various reasons. Firstly, I am fascinated by Greek- Turkish history and international relations. The two countries have a very bloody relationship but also have shown compassion to each other in the past. Secondly, part of my family is originally from Constantinople (Istanbul today). As a result, I really want to visit the city but to do this I need to be able to communicate. Therefore my goal this semester is to learn basic Turkish to the point where I can introduce myself, have small talk, and most importantly ask for directions so I can see sites such as the great Byzantine church of Agia Sophia or even perhaps the location of my family’s old house.
SDLAP%20Learning%20Plan%20Turkish.docx
Click on the hyperlink to view my learning plan for this semester.
My goals for these past two weeks were to:
- A) Finish unit 6 Human and Food characteristics, sourced from the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture
- B) Purchase an Indonesian children's book
- C) Meet with my language partner for 4 hours
Strategies to accomplish these goals:
- A) For unit 6, I did half one week and half the other. At the end of each session, I collected the new vocabulary that I learned. In addition, I worked on my speaking, writing, reading, and listening skills through the unit's activities. Now, I am able to describe someone's personality and a food's characteristics.
- B) I have a free online Indonesian comic. I will begin this part of my learning plan this week.
- C) I met with my language learning partner for 4 hours over these past two weeks. During these meetings, we worked on my speaking, writing, reading, and listening skills.
What do you need to know about the structure of your target language? How will you acquire the knowledge you need? Do you think a reference grammar can be useful? Why or why not?
For my target language, the structure will be different depends on the person who I am talking to. Such as if I talk to a younger person, the structure will be a little different from that when I talk to an elder. The structure depends on the age difference between the speaker and the listener, and also depends on the intimacy level between them.
I think I will acquire the knowledge by watching Korean dramas and by getting along with Korean friends, both of which can let me know more about the Korean culture and also the use of the structure mentioned before. For the reference grammar, I think it will be very useful for me to make a sentence. However, I think grammar is not the most important thing for me to learn Korean, so I won't focus on it too much. For me, I think the most important thing of learning my target language is to know how to speak with the other person in Korean, thus I will practice more on the speaking practice instead of the grammar part.
In Korean culture, body language can vividly emphasize the sense of respect. Unfortunately, some Korean body language contradict to the usual Western body language. Thus, as a Korean language learner I have to be more aware about Korean culture and body language. According to my research, Koreans consider it as a personal violation to be touched by someone who is not a relative or close friend. A direct eye contact between junior and senior businesspeople is not appropriate. On the other hand, people in the Western culture find it disrespectful to not look at someone in the eyes when they are talking. These two cultures may clash and contradict, but it is crucial to respect both culture depending on where we are and who we are interacting with. It may be difficult for me to comply with the Korean culture because I am so used to the Western culture, but I will try my best to respect their culture when interacting with Korean people.
The Notion of Beauty
South Korea is known as the plastic surgery capital of the world. In 2014 alone, it was recorded that there were over than 980,000 operations, which translates to around 20 procedures per 1,000 people. In parallel, the K-Pop culture has been growing rapidly in Korea and other countries especially in Asia. Many famous celebrities get plastic surgery; hence many people also want to look like them through getting plastic surgery as well. Ultimately, the notion of beauty is achieved through plastic surgery. It also implies that Korea has a very competitive culture and people are pushed closely together. People in Korea are confronted with other people’s images all the time.
I don’t think this culture will become as prevalent in the US as it is in Korea because the US so much more diverse than Korea in terms of beliefs and ethnicity. The pressure is more spread out in the US, which results to a different need for beauty.
Since my learning focus is about making casual conversation with my Korean friends and occasionally my friends’ parents, I started my progress with learning greetings and introductions. I met with my language partner this week and I learned the proper way to introduce myself in Korean. Not only that I learned how to say it, I also learned the things that Korean people usually say when they introduce themselves. Hence, I learned more about their culture as well. In terms of formality, I decided to learn a formal way to introduce myself since it's more likely for me to talk to my friends’ parents in Korean. Aside from that, I’ve also looked up some videos from Youtube and some websites for greetings and introductions in Korean. Youtube videos really helped me with the pronunciation of the words.
(a) your goals and tasks for weeks 4 and 5
- Both tasks 4 and 5 are related to reading comprehension.
- While I was in Korea, I bought a lot of books, mostly poetry books to practice reading with later on. I plan to read poetry for task 4 and write up my thoughts regarding the poems (most likely 1-2) selected. I am not seeking to understand the nuances within the poem but rather just see if I can understand the main vocabulary and the narrative of the poem. I will be transcribing the poems and marking up unfamiliar vocabulary and grammar structures as well. I will also keep with my Monash book and complete units 17 & 18 during that time.
- For task 5, I plan to use the same approach but with a blog post on Naver or Daum. The blog post will be more colloquial style of speech and might contain some more useful vocabulary such as slang. This time, I will not only summarize but I will criticize the work too. Adding my thoughts on what was good or not about the post, similar to a comment written on facebook. I will complete units 19 & 20 in my Monash book too.
(b) the resources and activities you will use to achieve your goals
- For both tasks I will need source material. For one it will come from a book that I already own and for the other it will come from someone's self-publishing on the internet.
- I will also use my Monash book and Yonsei books as references for unfamiliar grammar points.
(c) how you will evaluate your success.
- I will evaluate my success on both tasks by asking my language partner for feedback.
What do you need to know about the structure of your target language? How will you acquire the knowledge you need? Do you think a reference grammar can be useful? Why or why not?
For my target language, I need to understand that the Korean language is structured differently based on who I am talking to. For example, the structure I speak to my peer with is not the same structure I speak to an elder with. I need to learn to distinguish when to use each, and what components are a part of each structure. I will acquire the knowledge I need through the goals I set in my learning plan. I also plan to acquire this knowledge by practicing with my language teacher and my parents. I think a reference grammar would be useful, but not something that I would heavily depend on. It would be useful in that I would be able to look up questions I had in it. However, I think that I am better at learning through practice rather than resorting to a reference grammar.
SDLC 110:
Learning Journal 4: Document (a) your goals and tasks for weeks 4 and 5, (b) the resources and activities you will use to achieve your goals, and (c) how you will evaluate your success.
A/B
My goals and tasks for weeks 4 and 5 are:
Watch a news story from SCOLA once a week and then write about/respond to it in my journal.
Listen to one Korean song a week and try to comprehend what they are saying
Find a Korean edition of an American book and order it. When it arrives, I plan to read it within a month, and then respond to it in my journal.
I also plan to skype my parents twice a week to practice lessons I learned from my Korean teacher
C
I will evaluate my success when watching news stories by looking over past entries and compare my current vocabulary/ability to explain my thoughts
I will evaluate my success in listening to Korean songs by how well I am able to understand what they are saying
I will evaluate my success in my reading a Korean edition of a book by looking back at my journal entries and seeing whether I am improving in my comprehension skills
I will evaluate my success in speaking in Korean with my parents by asking them to take note of whether I am improving
The reading detailed how language is one of the factors that are involved in cerebral dominance, in relation to handedness. They noted that for right-handed people, language is dominant in the left hemisphere of the brain. Along with language, some logical and analytical tasks were also associated with this side of the brain, for right-handed people. Although they support a cerebral localization theory, I appreciate that they acknowledge that there may be other connections between both hemispheres. This means that even though language can be dominant in my left hemisphere, there is possibility that is linked to my right hemisphere with emotional expression. As a result, I should not only be focusing on just using my left hemisphere of the brain because both hemispheres probably contribute to my ability to learn languages. Even though the left hemisphere may have dominant control, this does not mean that the right hemisphere is not useful for learning languages, which is why I will attempt to use both sides of my brain to learn Korean.
Semantics is a way of studying the meaning of words. The reading notes that it is more beneficial to learn a new word, when you learn the sense of the word, rather than using reference. I can apply these tips to my language learning process when I learn new vocabulary. The reading details that in order to learn new vocabulary successfully, you must link vocabulary with appropriate sentence structure. I can use this tip by trying to make a relevant sentence with my new vocab words, rather than just trying to memorize the words itself. I can also use synonymy relationship to try and create short sentences in similar structure with two new vocab words that may be synonyms. This will help me make the connection between the two new words by putting them in a similar context.
Korean grammar is very different from English grammar. The largest difference is the basic structure, Korean is SOV (subject, object, verb) while English is SVO structure. On top of that, Korean is a particle based language where particles are used to denote things from titles to locations. Furthermore, Korean is seen as a language isolate which means there is no language directly similar to Korean (even though it borrows vocabulary from Chinese, Japanese, and English). Therefore, direct translation between Korean and English (let alone other languages) can be extremely challenging. Korea's isolation and periods of occupation have greatly effected the language and led to high saturation of idioms arms cultural references that foreigners find challenging to understand. Even some Koreans struggle with the proper usage of particles and connectives in Korean.
However, knowing German has (surprisingly) been useful during my language learning process because some German particles mirror Korean particles in terms of nuance and variety. Regardless, I wouldn't recommend reliance on a reference grammar when learning a new language (unless the languages are in the same family), because direct translation is not possible and leads to great confusion. One great example is the use of soft endings in Korean. The concept simply makes no sense in English so it's easier if you don't bother with translation but just focus on memorizing sentences and context.
As in the previous example, I would recommend learning through memorizing a few sentences or scenarios and then observing and soaking in context. Of course use textbooks and whatever materials available when you first learn grammar points since some will overlap with your native grammar system.
