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To my mind, the University of Richmond is quite elective. I say this refering to the application process. Besides getting all the paper work done, there were lots of other things to worry about. Since the US is very conscious about foreigners bringing in sicknesses, I faced serious issues meeting the Tuberculosis requirements. I had to spend a big amount of time investigating which institution offers the Tuberculosis Quantiferon test, yeah, I still now its name, required by the University's health department. Finally, I found out that the department of national health security only does this testing and that this test is requested once in a blue moon.

The students in the video talked about their experiences with Americans, f.i. it is not usual to say 'no' in the US. This may lead to a misunderstanding unless people are aware of it. In addition, this might be a reason why international students tend to stick together most of the time. Since they all have to deal with culture shock, they feel that they get along better having something in common. 

I found the culture shock video very interesting and even amusing some times. Being an international student, I can confirm that we internationals tend to stick together a lot. I would say this is because we know each other for longer and most of us are studying the same, business. For instance, in the spring 2014 term approximately 90% of the internationals are business majors. This is not surprising to me as I spent much time on selecting the university I want to go to in the US and I think my fellow colleagues did the same.

For myself, I put great effort in getting to know Americans better and it has been worth it. Also, this is because I am interested in lot of different activities. From what I have been told and from what I have experienced so far, the key to an American is doing something together. Activities in all kind of varieties, whether it is going to Salsa or Tango night, joining the Quidditch team or Archery club or simply attending professional events like a talk with an UR alumni CFO or Barclays manager, will certainly help making friends.

http://www.siirfm.com/anlatamiyorum-orhan-veli-kanik/ 

I think the University of Richmond is challenging as a native English speaker and so it is three times as challenging when you have to speak, write, and listen in a foreign language. One of the challenges they mentioned was having to write essays here at the university. Most Americans are accustomed to writing analytical or argumentative papers while in other countries it is more typical to summarize the authors point. I think it would be really difficult to attempt to write an analytical paper if you've never written one before.

The video also talked about how international students often clump together because they are able to sympathize with one another. They understand how each other are feeling and the little cultural American customs that are strange or annoying they can complain about together.

The Culture Shock video made me feel a little bit bad because I feel like I haven't always taken opportunities to get to know the international students or to help them out. After watching the video I feel I can't even imagine all of the changes and challenges they are facing as they are miles away from their families. I was able to relate somewhat because of the experiences I had studying abroad in Spain and the culture shock I had there. While Spain and the US are not that different and it was only four months, there were a couple of cultural things like when people ate meals, how people showed affection for one another, and how people addressed time that stood out while I was there.

The past week, my classmates shared cultural facts about their language. A few people were absent that day, but the two presentations that stood out for me were the ones discussing Israeli same-sex marriage as well as Indian weddings.

Israeli same-sex marriage laws were interesting because even though same-sex marriage is illegal and will not be recognized in Israel, if the same-sex couple is married abroad, the Immigration Office will recognize that marriage. This is done for statistical purposes. If a same-sex marriage is performed without approval within Israel, it will not be recognized. These laws are set in place to demonstrate a separation of the Church and State as well as to avoid conflicts within Israel.

The Indian wedding presentation was also interesting to me because it was eye-opening. I learned about just how expensive Indian weddings were. Indian holds the greatest amount of billionaires in the world and their weddings often reach price ranges in the millions. The size of dowries are also a controversial topic. I learned about deaths of wives over dowries; if the husband is not satisfied with the size of the dowry that his wife's family offers, he will sometimes kill his wife, claim the dowry, and find a wealthier family to marry. Even though there is about 100,000 of these occurrences per year, it is also important to consider the population size of India. The numbers are not to be ignored, but it is also a small number ratio when compared to the Indian population. 

This has been quite a week! Last week Louise and I both discussed that we were hitting sort of a plateau in our learning because we have gone through so many different "categories" of words to learn and there is only so much grammar that comes up naturally in our sessions that we can look up/learn for reference. So we were really starting to struggle and I could even feel a slight lag in my motivation to study/practice just because we had hit a wall.

But!!! This week. Much better haha. We took a quiz on everything we have been doing this semester (occupations, prepositions, country names/nationalities, etc.) and it was the most helpful thing we have done all semester. Louise had us translate very practical question sentences into Swedish and it made me realize that there was still a lot of practical grammar issues that I had not mastered. It's one thing to know vocabulary but a whole nother thing to understand how to use verbs in the proper order and tenses in order to make one complete/perfect question/sentence. So I'm looking forward to getting that quiz back and making note of what I need to improve on.

Something else that we worked on for our next section was translating some Swedish articles into English. I know that straight translation is typically not the best way to learn a new language because you need to engage with it, reproduce it, use it in contexts, hear it, etc. But at the same time I think that because we have been taking a very varied/interdisciplinary strategy to learn Swedish up to this point that it was helpful to do some straight up translation. I was happy to see that I could understand most of an article that I read about Facebook buying WhatsApp. I made note that it was helpful in this case that I already knew this news story and therefore it took the guess work out of deciphering the article. Instead I was able to just fill in the blanks where I needed to and learned some new vocabulary and syntax rules along the way!

P.S., it's really hard to memorize prepositions and I need to look into a better way of doing it. I tried making word associations between English and Swedish to no avail. Perhaps I need to focus more on using these prepositions in their proper contexts in order to remember them in Swedish? :)

This week I attempted to learn colors, body parts, and practice greetings. As one might guess, I have not come close to mastering this new vocab lists. I think this week I learned that cramming vocabulary is not the best method or process to learn a language. Because I have failed my learning task this week (to learn these words), over the next week or two I plan on implementing some strategies we talked about in class to help me learn these words. This week I tried just learning the lists by going over them with my Hindi partner and studying flashcards. I am going to continue to go over the cards, but I am also going to implement the following strategies: 1) use either myself or my roommate and point to her arm, leg, etc. and then make a sentence with the body part like "She has two hands", and 2) I have plenty of food in my apartment, so I will practice my colors and food by identifying the name of the food and then saying what color it is. I think that implementing kinesthetic learning will aid me greatly in studying these terms.
This week I did try to find a children's song that I could learn, but I was largely unsuccessful. I knew less than 20% of the vocabulary for all the popular children's songs I found, so I decided not to learn a song this week. Hopefully, in the future I can work with my Hindi partner and learn the necessary vocabulary for a particular song, and then implement the song into my learning plan. While this week was slightly discouraging, I am excited to practice and try some new strategies.

The Class Presentations were a very fun and educating experience. I had never consciously thought about it, but the presentations made me realize how intricately connected culture and language are. Fatima's presentation demonstrated likeness among cultures with languages that are derived from similar roots (Urdu and Hindi). Nirshiee's presentation made me think hard about a deeply rooted issue in India- obsession with fairness of skin- and how us Indians do not realize what a grave problem this is developing into. Azmain's presentation gave a new perspective to my interest in the Korean pop culture, and also showed a dark side to the industry hidden behind the flashing lights and extravagant outfits. Fionna complemented Azmain and Nirshiee's presentations by talking about the popularity of plastic surgery in South Korea, especially among celebrities. Oliver's presentation made me dearly miss my country's food, and I also became aware of facts I never knew about Mumbai's 'dabba waalas'.

Social hierarchy is an important part of Korean culture. Therefore, titles and everyday words have variations that are used according to the level of formality required. In this journal, I will use three basic words as examples. Starting with 'hello'- Annyeong hasimnikka is the most formal way of saying hello, followed by Annyeong haseyo. The most informal way to say hello is Annyeong. In case of 'thank you', the most formal way is either Kamasamnida or Gomapsamnida. Gomawoyo and Kamsahaeyo are semi-informal, while Gomawo and Kamsahae are informal. The word 'sorry' differs by formality as well. In formal settings, Jeusonghamnida is the preferred term. Mihanehamnida is less formal, and Mihane is the most informal among the three.

After finally mastering learning the Hebrew alphabet, its sounds, and the sounds of the vowels I would say that I have learned between 40-50 words. This number is much smaller than I originally would have guessed, but again I am at the Kindergarten level of learning. We are reading a book about a Queen who is looking for her villagers to build her a higher chair. It has been fun to learn the vocabulary from this book, but I can’t help but feel like it is not the most useful vocabulary. Because of this, I have tried to learn more vocabulary on my own that I find to be useful. My realistic goal by the end of the semester would be to learn 80-100 words. I think that I have had to lower my expectations of how much vocabulary I can learn in one semester. My vocabulary goals include things like: being able to converse in small talk while I’m in Israel this summer or be able to understand Hebrew while I am there. I think that with these goals in mind, my vocabulary will be more focused on conversations rather than random sentences. 

I have been laying emphasis on expanding my vocabulary and get a feeling for the construction of sentences.

In Hindi the verb is placed right at the end of every phrase. In addition, there are more grammatical rules which differ from German. However, since I am quite good at Latin, I can refer to this ancient language. This helps me to memorize certain phrases better.

Ultimately, my goal is to be able to have short and basic, allday conversations. Basically, I want to be independent while travelling through India. Thus, I need to enwiden my word treasury of words and listen to allday conversation.

As for now, I know approximately 80 words and about five phrases. This allows me to talk about my family, my studies and my daily life back home, in Vienna.

The fact that stroke me the most is that some words commonly used in Hindi are very similar to the Roman languages, French, Spanish and of course Latin, f.i. kamiz for camisa, Spanish, shirt. Also vice versa many words in English or even German are from Indian origin, f.ex. shampoo for capna, Hindi, to massage or Punsch, German meaning hot punch, for panj, Hindi.

I greatly enjoyed the presentations about different cultures. Especially as a Bangladeshi, it was particularly interesting to see the presentations of Fatima and Nirshiee, who talked about Pakistani and Indian culture. Bangladesh has a history which is intertwined with Pakistan and India and has been a sovereign country for 43 years. As a result, we generally take pride in its sovereignty and like to think of it as being very culturally different from Pakistan and India. However, looking at the presentations made me realize that there are large similarities in culture.

Firstly, the way guests are treated in Pakistan and Bangladesh are almost the same. We also show the guests around the house and take them to each and every room. As a result, a lot of effort is put in the preparation and cleaning of the house before the guests come. Although I have always resented the amount of work we had to do whenever we invited someone to our house, I never thought that it was strange to take guests to bedrooms. However, after Fatima’s presentation, there were some questions about why people would want to take guests to somewhere as personal as the bedroom. This led me to look at my own culture from a different perspective. It made want to find out the reason that we do that and it led me to ask myself several questions. For instance, does it show that people want to appear more open and approachable to their guests? Is it a sign of respect to their guests?

On the other hand, Nirshiee’s presentation demonstrated how people in India have a preference for fair complexion even though it is common for people in India to have darker complexions. In fact the case is not very different in Bangladesh. For instance, when looking for brides one of the first requirements is fair complexion. It is very interesting because frequently a double standard exists in society regarding skin color. Parents almost always look for fair complexioned brides for their sons even though their own daughters have a dark complexion. The preference of lighter complexion is present but not equally prevalent when looking for grooms. This fact has always baffled me as I have seen my own family do it. It made me think if there are any historic implications of this problem.      

I did some research on the concept of time in Korea. Time is valued in Korea in the same way as it is done in the US. Organizations and institutions like schools and companies have time schedules for everyone to follow to facilitate smooth operation. One possible explanation for this is that most of the institutions are adopted from the Western example which follow strict time schedule. In fact, punctuality is considered to be a basic condition to be accepted as a respected member in certain communities.

However, in traditional Korean society where there were no such modern institutions, the concept of punctuality did not exist. In fact, in such society, diligence was considered a virtue mainly for women or servants who were in charge of manual household chores. Women were expected to work hard in the kitchen. This attitude is also reflected on the Korea language. The Korean adjective ‘bujireonhata’, which means ‘to be diligent’, applies mostly to women rather than men. Korean also has a variation of bujireonhata, which is only used in case of women: bajireonhata. This refers to the rapid hand movements required for certain work like preparing food, sewing or washing.

There are also certain gestures and body language which are practiced in Korean culture. In Korea, pointing with index finger is considered to be rude. Instead, the whole hand is used to indicate an object. Furthermore, it is thought to be insulting to face the palm upward when encouraging someone to come near since this gesture is used to call animals. In order to call someone, the palm should be facing the ground and a scooping motion should be made with the fingers.

When giving or receiving things, either the object is supported with both hands or the left hand is used to support the right arm extending the object. Although public places such as the subway may be crowded and pushing and bumping may be common, Koreans value personal space in private settings. Therefore, standing too close at the first meeting, shoulder-patting or back-slapping are not acceptable.

Traditionally, Koreans each other greet by bowing which may be followed by handshake. The bow is usually initiated by the person of lower social/economic standing while the reverse is true for handshakes. At social gatherings, it is polite to wait to be introduced and when leaving people say good bye to each individual at the gathering. 

Over the past few weeks, I have learned a plethora of vocabulary ranging from body parts to family members to days of the week and so on. However, retaining all the words has been a challenge. Because this is a brand new language for me, memorizing these words is not so simple. After discussing learning strategies in class, I think I will start making flashcards to help me study. Also, trying to relate each word to something that is already familiar to me will help. In class we talked about how adding meaning to a word is what will help when recalling the word in the future. My goals for the weeks to come is to learn new vocab every week, but more importantly review words from previous weeks. I have also started putting together sentences, so I want to keep working on that because I know that will be the most useful when speaking.

Throughout the semester, I have been focusing more on learning about phrases than just plain vocabulary. I want to learn Urdu to be able to have a simple conversation and a waiter or a shopkeeper. To be completely realistic, I know anything more than that would be a waste of time for me. 

If I count all of the words in the phrases that I've learned so far, they would be close to 70 words. It might not seem a lot, but I can now ask a person how they are and understand them. I can count from one to ten and talk about what I like to do in my free time. 

One interesting thing that I've been noticing is that Pakistanis substitute a lot of English words for Urdu ones. When I asked what the word for soccer is, my language partner told me that they just use 'soccer'. It's the same with any number above 10. 

I have always been interested in women's issues. Since coming to college, I've been introduced to the term social entrepreneurship. This term has helped me a lot with deciding with what I want to do with my life. More specifically, I've been learning a lot about microfinance and its empowering effect on women in developing countries. 

My cultural topic for SDLC 110 will be about microfinance and entrepreneurial women in Pakistan. My goals for the topic is to learn more about: 

• Microfinance in general
• Microfinance in Pakistan: history, success rate, etc.
• Entrepreneurship endeavors that were started with micro loans by women
• The cultural aspects of the issue:
  • Is it culturally acceptable for a woman to start her own business?
  • What are some of the challenges that women face? 
  • Is it easier for a female or male to get a loan? 
  • What types of businesses are most popular? 

As I have been studying Hebrew and going over the alphabet and familiar phrases I've been remembering a lot of words that I learned as a child. Overall I think I've learned approximately 40 words- between the words I recognize and new words I've learned. I've impressed myself with how many words I actually remember. I hope to learn approximately 80 words by the end of the semester since we are now towards the midpoint of the spring. I will have to alter my goals slightly based on the types of words that come up in the reading.

The book we are reading is about a queen and her chair, so while the text is the appropriate level, I'm not sure how applicable the vocabulary is. I don't know how often I'm going to need to use the word "queen" in regular conversation.

So I really need to get over this fear of speaking in Swedish. It's kind of bad. During one of or sessions this week Louise told us to have a conversation using the vocab we had just learned. It was not too hard to a task but I froze up. And then I forget words because I get so nervous. I think it is mainly because I know my pronunciation is awful, compared to Spanish where I always had real good pronunciation. I think what I need to start doing is making myself have a little conversation (with myself) every week and record it. That way I can practice more speaking and then get used to hearing myself speak Swedish and be able to critique it. We also took a quiz this week. As much as I hate quizzes it really does hold you accountable for what we learned. I am decent with the vocab its again just the sentence structure and grammar aspects I need to work on. Also word choice. A lot of times I will choose one word like ska but in reality it would be better or more correct to choose kommer. I am not quite sure how to figure out how to improve on that, but I guess I will have to look into it.

Current abilities:

• Pronounce and identify the consonants and the vowels
• Read and write simple words
• Greet people (formally and informally), say goodbye, thank people and say sorry
• Say some commonly used words and phrases used in korean dramas
• How to address family members

Goals:

1. Interpretive:

      a. Listening: 

• Understand phrases and commonly-used vocabulary related to personal and family information, shopping, ordering food and directions. 
• Catch the main point in short, simple messages, discussions and conversations. 

      b. Reading: 

• Read very short and simple texts.
• Understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences.

2. Interpersonal:

      a. Speaking: 

• Can communicate in simple and routine tasks such as asking for information, shopping, asking for and able to understand directions. 
• Capable of handling short social exchanges and talk about me interests although I will not be able to keep up a conversation on my own.

3. Presentational:

      a. Speaking: 

• Able to use a series of phrases and sentences to describe my family and about myself. 
• Able to describe things using simple adjectives and talk about other people. 

      b. Writing: 

• Able to write the letters of the alphabet.
• Write basic words and phrases related to myself.

4. Grammar: 

• Conjugation of the most commonly used verbs in the present. 
• Basic sentence structure
• Asking and answering questions