The reading that I found most interesting was "How we mean". The reason for this is because of the explanations for languages "perceiving", so as to say, the world differently. By perceiving, I mean identifying the same concepts, objects, and so on, in ways that are different from another language. The comparison with the English language to other languages for referring to family members was a great example.

This knowledge can help make learning a new language more definite as it helps them understand language differences. As helpful as it can be, it can also be frustrating because it demands switching from one language structure to another. For instance in Bengali there are specific words for every single family member; from the eldest cousin to the youngest cousin's cousin. Learning this from an English language mindset is frustrating because you cannot simply say "cousin" since a general word does not exist. 

I learned that when a word or a name refers to something very specific without having a synonym, it is monosemic and when a word can have more than one meaning it is polysemic. Furthermore, the complications that arise from relating words to one another is an interesting topic. It seems that there are clauses to everything when it comes to semantics. Knowing these clauses is more related to the culture of a language than it is to the grammatical structures of it. I know that this is a difficulty for me in honing my Bengali because I have limited cultural knowledge of the language. It is difficult for me to understand Bengali jokes or news and shows for that reason. That is why one of my goals is to watch Bengali news and shows in order to familiarize myself with idioms and Bengali speech patterns so that my comprehension in Bengali semantics improves. 

During last Friday's meeting with my language partner, he showed me a news article on naver, a popular Korean search portal, about some guy's altercation with the police (I don't have the exact link to the story). I read the article aloud so that he can gauge my reading level. I mainly had trouble pronouncing words that I hardly ever come across since my mouth is unaccustomed to shaping them. Reading an article like this on The Korea Times, about a Japanese scholar's criticism of Japan's claim to S. Korea's islets, is difficult because I may understand the barebones gist of a sentence but lack many important details. (That Korea Times article has a side-by-side translation so I see what I'm missing.) Written Korean is also much more formal than daily speech, which is something I'm more used to, having grown up trying to speak to my grandmother. 

In terms of new words that I've learned, I've been using the Korean widget on my ning page. It gives a word of the day along with an example sentence and I would write it in my notebook. I have to review it daily because the vocab is learned in isolation; in other words, I'm not encountering these words through shows or music and I have to work harder to put them into my long-term memory. I've also been watching an episode or two of a Korean drama a week as part of my meeting with my language partner and listening to K-Pop on my iPod as a supplement for some 'ear-training.' I have lowered my expectations since the beginning of the semester, though. As long as I feel more comfortable speaking it by the semester's end, I will consider this a success. 

Reflect on how knowing a language’s history can help you learn the language.

I think to be aware of the history of the language is very helpful and interesting to study a second language. Koreans initially write in Chinese. Long time ago, the way how they write is the same as the Chinese. In another word, Koreans write Chinese! After that, Koreans change the way how they write things, and transfer in their unique style. Before 1st century, it was proto-Korean, it was not well-formed. 1st-10th century, it was old Korean, and it was the time they use arrangements of Chinese character to represent phonetically. Then, it came the middle korean, it becomes easily read and write. Later was modern korean, which have developed including variances in pronunciation, vocabulary. 

It helps me to learn Korean because there are two levels in Korean, first is formal way and then is the informal way. People speak informal way to the people who are same age as you, and use formal way when speak to elders or people who you first meet. This attribute to its history because Korea has history of dynasty, so it includes some moral standard in the history. I would more like to learn to speak the informal way because it is more casual and widely used nowadays. 

What artifacts will you use to document your learning? And why?

I just focus on speaking and listening Korean, and I made a tape recorder to repeat some of the Korean phrases after I learning some useful daily sentences. I think this is a good way to learn because I am not just learning the sentences, but also listening how I pronounce the sentence. How much differences between my pronunciation and the native speakers. In the future, I will watch more Korean Movies or dramas in order to improve and keep recording my voice in Korean. 

Reflect on “cultural competence”:

I enjoyed reading this chapter and I think communication is a natural event, communication link provide information to each other and in this case we exchange individuals through symbols, signs, or behaviors. When we communicate we exchange information so that we can better understand each other. Humans do not exchange data, but sharing meanings, which refer the management of messages in order to create meanings. At the same time, we link other people's thoughts and feelings. 

When I try to learn a new language, I think I have three main stages and goals:

1. I can self present myself, let other people perceive what I try to say

2. To develop a relationship, such as friendship

3. To manage interpersonal conflict and influence.

In conclusion, communication is even a strategy to achieve goals, which is to maximize their achievement by using knowledge, cultural context in order to adapt communication.

Reading Figuring Foreigners Out was a reiteration of different cultural concepts to me because I grew up in the midst of two cultures and experienced two opposite sides. It was comical, almost, to read about the various classifications of time, individualism versus collectivism, and different forms of communications for that reason. My Bengali ethnicity familiarized me to polychronic time, collectivism, and indirect communication, among other things, while growing up in America taught me individualism, direct communication, and monochronic time. I'm glad that I got the best of both worlds...sort of.

In learning new languages, one may learn the speech, but when it comes to practical usage it is imperative to pick up on cultural cues. In Bengali, a person does not always necessarily mean what they say (indirect communication) and their perception of time is way off charts in western standards. While westerners value word of mouth, like promises and favors, Bengalis tend to not follow through with such things. For example, in Bangladesh, if one asks another for a favor and the person agrees, unless the person constantly reminds the person about the favor, it would not be likely that the person would do the favor. It is a social norm to remind the person about it and if not overdone, it is not considered pestering as it would be in the western world. This is where the concept of trust in the culture is skewed; it does not have the same characteristics as in America. While simply learning words, grammar, and being able to directly speak to someone in a new language may be great, it may not be helpful if the typical speakers of that language are not "direct" speakers as in Bengali.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/science/indo-european-languages-originated-in-anatolia-analysis-suggests.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0    

Family Tree of Languages Has Roots in Anatolia, Biologists Say

reflect on how knowing a language's history can help you learn the language:\

I know there are more consonants and different pronunciation in dari than in farsi; I know why the letters are arabic; why there are cognates? because of history

if it is an old word like mother I can look to a cognate

if it is a really new word like malaria I can look to a cognate

if its in between I have to know indo iranian

is this accessible?  During the Sassanian era, a very advanced form of alphabet was used, what is today known as the "Din Dabereh". It has 48 alphabets consisting of 14 vowels and 34 consonants. This alphabet is capable of recording all types of sound and therefore every language. 

for fear of persecution from the muslims, dari was a secret language:

The Zarathushties of Kerman born after 1940's do not speak Dari, because their parents, who thought that by speaking Dari their children would develop a Farsi accent unique to Dari speakers and thus be recognized as Zarathushti in school and thus be harassed by the Muslims, did not teach them Dari. Fortunately the Zarathushties of Yazd have maintained a strong link with this language and every child learns and speaks this language. (iran chamber society)

 Indo-Iranian

cognates:  Since the 10^th century AD, with the entry of Mongolian, Turkish, and most recently, French and English words into New Persian

I posted two artifacts so far to the Ning. One was a picture of the alphabet with words I wrote in Hebrew that start with the corresponding letter. The second artifact I posted was a video I made. Using iMovies, I dubbed my voice over a video I downloaded from Youtube. I had to cut the video and move scenes in order to match the voice with the images. The video was about greetings, introduction, and farwell.

For my future learning tasks, I will be making videos to document my progress. I don't think that pictures will necessarily show my progress because speaking is an important part of learning a language. That is the reason why I will use videos to show my competency in speaking Hebrew. I am currently working on making a montage about my family that I will dub my voice over using iMovies to present them and talk about their careers and ages. Other artifacts I will make will be about the weather or soccer. I always show my artifacts to my language partner after they are done to assess the grammar, accent, and overall accuracy.

My favorite artifact will be the one about having a short daily dialogue with a native speaker. I will record a Skype conversation that I will have with one of my Israeli friends from high school. It will be exciting to talk to them in Hebrew.

One of the interesting aspect about Korean is its level of being polite. Korean has different expressions for the same word, but depending on the person you are speaking with can change the appropriate word. For example, when speaking with a friend you can use the Korean words “Na-Yi (age)” and “Bab (meal)” with your friend. But would use the words “Yeon-Sae (age)” and “Jin-ji (meal)” with someone older such as your grandparent. There is also a range of politeness from simple polite to extreme polite.

Korean body language is also different from American lifestyle. In America to signify one has come up with a good idea, many snap their fingers. Koreans apparently slap their knees for the same accomplishment. Another interesting fact, although  when arguing Koreans will not point their index finger towards a person. Regardless of the fact they are arguing, and probably angered with the person they are upset with, they will point to the sky rather than at the other point. Pointing one’s finger at someone is considered extremely rude. This also incorporates the idea of politeness of being important, because regardless of the fact situation might be a heated argument, a Korean in general still will not point their index finger. Incorporating the collectivist mind state found in Korea, Koreans consider it a personal violation if someone who is not a relative or close friend touches them. Here is a short view of some differences between American and Korean body language. 

 Language is the gathering of thinking, such as philosophy, culture and lifestyle of the respected speakers. Learning a language you can learn many things about a country’s belief and way of life.

Currently I am studying Korean with my language partner. As mentioned before, Korean is not the first foreign language I have studied. Regardless how many languages I have studied until this point, there are certain things I make myself aware of when learning a new language. One of these things is the cultural aspect of it. For one reason why the cultural dimension is an important concept to study is because there is always associated vocabulary with the language. One of the cultural aspects Korea is the idea of collectivism. While in America, we refer to things as ‘my’ when describing their possessions. While in Korea people refer to things and people as ‘our. In the same way, Koreans share their food together in a collectively manner. 

Korean Dinner

In Korean culture, everyone individually have their own bowl of rice but that is only personal aspect of the meal. Throughout the meal everyone share the food from the table and share the food equally. While in western culture is normal to have a personal plate while we gather our food from the table and proceed to eat from our own personal eating space. There is less concept of a personal space in Korea. Korea has less of an individualist approach to everyday situations and more collectivist. 

American Dinner

Culture is very important to understand when studying a language because both are directly correlated. For example, I have already described the differences between a typical Korean meal setting versus an American dinner but what if a Korean immigrated to America? It can be assumed regardless of the foreign surroundings, the Korean would try their best to preserve their culture. Another understanding between language and culture is culture supports and defines the language. 

I wanna do videos for my artifacts but I think photos are easier.  I thought about going to the grocery store with my phone and recording fruits.  It is good to do for colors too.  photos are easier.  I donno what resources are available since I forgot the talking robot program voki?  

My reading skills have been progressing slowly in Hebrew. I do most of my reading from Facebook, reading posts that my Israeli friends posted. While I do not have a problem with recognizing letters, I have a problem with pronunciation. Vowel sounds are usually added as dots below the letters. However, these vowel sounds are not used by experienced Hebrew speakers because they know the words already. Therefore, I have a problem knowing whether the letter mem "m" is pronounced as "ma", "me", "mi", "mo", or "moo" in a word. In addition, some letters have more than one way to pronounce. For example, both letters khet and khaf can be pronounced as "k" or "kh"; bet can be pronounced as "b" or "v"; shin can be pronounced as "s" or "sh". The only way to learn how to recognize these vowels and different letter sounds is through experience and reading.

I have been working with my language partner on reading verbs in the different tenses and knowing what vowels are associated with them without writing the dots down. In addition, I will borrow a book from the Global Studio to read in my own time and then read to my language partner. These methods should help me reach my goal to be able to read and understand simple Hebrew writing. Maybe I will try to find children books with images to help me understand the big picture in what I am reading.

Overall I learned many words. I cannot remember the exact number, but I know it is a lot because I have been formulating sentences without looking up the words in a dictionary. It might be helpful that many words are shared in Arabic, Syriac, and Hebrew. 

I was very happy with my artifacts for last week. The first one is a conversation video I made in the Global Studio using iMovies. The second one was several words I wrote as part of my homework from my language partner. The video was creativ and I worked hard to find the correct sentences to use. I showed the video to my language partner and she also thought that it was good and the pronunciation was good too.

I started working on my next goals. However, I still have more to do. I started working on how to recognize past, present, and future. I think this will help with my conversation goal. I started gathering words for my other goals about describing family members and telling time. However, i still need another week to feel confident about it. Although I did not completely meet my goals, I am sure I will meet them by the end of week 5.

I only learn Korean in listening and speaking. I do not do any reading, so I will reflect what I have learnt from the listening part. I think it is more helpful to listen to what the sentences are and read the translation/subtitle in Chinese. In this way, I can know how they form grammar, and how they speak their language and when to apply them in different situations. At the beginning it is important to follow their conversation by reading the subtitles, but later I can gradually catch up their sentences and use it as my own knowledge. Again, practicing is the most important thing. When you stop saying that language, you are very easy to forget it. 

My mom taught me Bengali for a year or so, when we first moved to Florida, in an attempt to wholly retain our Bengali heritage. She was successful in all, but making me and my siblings literate in the language; we spoke it, but cannot read or write in it. Being an avid language learner, I find it sad that I'm not literate in my native tongue, so I'm very excited to (as well as my mom) learn Bengali! It should be challenging, from the looks of it, but I'm confident that I can pick it up easily with a consistent plan seeing as I am already familiar with the language linguistically. 

My learning plan involves using the interactive textbook from this website: http://depts.washington.edu/llc/olr/bengali/index.php. The textbook is Epar Opar Bangla and it is extensive, as well as neatly organized when it comes to the script. The textbook divides consonants, vowels, and special signs in different categories making it simpler for me to focus on specific groups of script to learn. 

I also have a language partner who will be testing me on my learning progress and helping me piece my former knowledge, along with my new knowledge, together. I will rely on her and the Epar Opar Bangla textbook to learn how to read and write and once I can do that, I will pick up children's books from my mom to read. My goal is to really delve deep into the scripture of Bengali and focus on properly reading and writing it. I will test myself with small texts and then slowly work my way up to harder texts to see if the amount I learned is enough to cover most levels of intensity, if not all. 

Once I have that completed, I will buy an intermediate Bengali dictionary in order to refine my vocabulary and attempt to use that in my daily vocab when speaking with my language partner or family members. 

I'm fairly certain this method will work because it's sectioned off according to the way I learn the best; which is by doing rather than simply studying.

My review of Italian has been progressing slowly but surely. I've been using several different sources. Over the weekend I watched the Woody Allen movie To Rome With Love, which came out over the summer. (Fun fact: much of the movie was filmed in the neighborhood where I worked in Rome, and it was filming while I studied there!) A lot of the movie is in Italian, so I came up with an exercise for myself in which I tried to see how much I could understand without looking at the subtitles. It worked pretty well--I was able to follow most of the dialogue, although it was spoken very rapidly. I even noticed some inconsistencies in the subtitles because the English translation was cutting short. I find that watching movies in Italian is very helpful. Listening to the dialogue allows me to get into the Italian frame of mind, and I'm usually able to follow along. I've also been working my way through a chapter book that I had from living in Italy as a child. It's actually an Italian version of one of the Babysitter's Club books, which is pretty funny. Though I can follow along easily enough, it's been taking a while because I've been making myself go through and translate everything accurately instead of just getting the gist of the story. It's also a source of some less common vocabulary. After that book I plan to start Harry Potter in Italian. My friend suggested I buy a copy while studying abroad, and I'm glad I did. It's great because it's a familiar story, so I can really concentrate on vocabulary and the differences!

This is a conversation I had with my Korean friend (she attends a different university). I thought it would be nice to utilize  text messaging as a way to practice some writing. It's only a basic conversation, which I've translated below. 

Me: How is the weather today?
Her: It's cold. How is it over there?

Me: The weather isn't good. The sky is cloudy. Let's talk later!

Her: Okay / Got it!

UpdatedLearningPlanDrer.docx

I met with my learning partner: Mirwais

He asked me about my family

I asked him about his family

I learned how to ask about last night

we went over conjugating verbs that we learned yesterday

that is we learned how to conjugate verbs but we conjugated different verbs he tested me

he also tested me on the alphabet

we watched a video from Afghanistan (or was it 2?) at least one over and over.

we practiced the nasal letters of the alphabet

ق       غ

pronounced ghain and  qaaf not to be confused with kaafک   

and gaaf     گ

khayخ

Week 1: alphabet, writing and reading

Week 2:  introductions: how are you, my name is, I am American (nationalities)

Week 3: family

Week 4:2:1:1transportation city, market, map, sign, north, south, east, west, number, floor, shoud (become), room,  

Week 5: numbers, time, days of week

Week 6: food; to eat; to drink

Week 7: telephone conversation

Week 8: weather

Week 9:  animals (BYKI)

Week 10:  classroom