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Week 3

As we are well into our third week of learning the Turkish language, I am confident of my mastery of the Turkish alphabet. I found the alphabet to be very similar to English with a few exceptions. Also, learning how to pronounce the letters is extremely helpful with properly pronouncing different words. I believe that the most challenging part about learning Turkish at the moment is speaking. The words sound very different from English and Spanish so I find myself always second guessing how to say certain words. We also have expanded our vocabulary for greetings, so instead of just knowing how to say "mehaba" I learned how to say good morning "gunaydin," good evening "iyi aksamlar,"good days "iyi gunler" and good night "iyi geceler". Also simple fun phrases like We are Spiders "We orumcegiz" are interesting to learn and I am able to use it with my friends at school. I am looking forward to expanding my vocabulary but also learning grammatical rules so that I can start form sentences in Turkish. 

Week 2:

My second week of learning Turkish has gone quite well. I luckily have many resources at my fingertips. In class, we were given a helpful worksheet on the Turkish alphabet and we went through each letter and its pronunciation. I was able to take good notes so that I can practice the alphabet on my own time. Unfortunately I was unable to download Byki because I have a mac, but I have found the other resources such as Mango so helpful in learning how to say words like hello (mehaba) and goodbye (gule, gule). I have also bookmarked in Diigo the Turkish alphabet and how it has changed from arabic to latin. I also found an interesting youtube video on when to say formal greetings in Turkish. Apart from the alphabet and simple greetings, I have learned how to say "my name is" (adim Sydney) in the formal and informal, as well as asking "how are you" (nasilsin). We practiced these greetings, farewells and introductions in basic conversations with our classmates and I was impressed that we didn't rely on our notes rather solely on our memory to have these conversations. Overall, I would say that these first two weeks have been filled with learning the fundamental aspects of the language and I am looking forward to building on this foundation. 

      Before taking this course, I thought that learning Turkish was going to be a daunting challenge but to my surprise I have enjoyed learning the language as well as its rich culture. The more I learn the language the more I am interested in learning anything and everything about Turkey. So far, I have learned the Turkish alphabet which is very simple and similar to English. I have also learned how to say greetings such as hello (mehaba) and goodbye (gule gule). And I found the Turkish number system to be challenging at first but once I caught on it was quite intuitive. Professor Sezgi has also taught us how to ask and answer questions in Turkish like “what is that/this” and “who is this”. While it has been a breeze learning the vocabulary and basic phrases, it has been more difficult speaking the language. The pronunciations are very different from Spanish and English so when I read words out loud they usually are not the right way to say them in Turkish.

     With any language, you need to have a solid understanding of its culture. For instance, Turkish culture has great respect for the elderly and it is very important to use formal language when speaking with them. This means that you have to learn a variety of ways of just saying simple greetings in the informal and the formal so that you are respectful. Also, I found it refreshing to learn more about what the country is like from someone who is from Turkey. Learning about the religion, secular government, and aspects of the culture like its history and fight for women’s rights motivates me to want to learn the language to the best of my ability so that I one day can visit the country and feel comfortable exploring the beautiful country.

      While I do think that I am on track to reaching my goal of having a solid foundation in Turkish, there is always room for improvement. I plan on learning more vocabulary beyond just greetings and asking questions. I hope to learn how to ask for food in a restaurant or grocery, and also travel directions. I also am interested in learning vocabulary about the government since I hope to possibly one day utilize Turkish in the government sphere. In addition, I have small goals like learning how to count up to 1,000 in Turkish. In terms of improving my communicative competence, my long term goals involve developing my ability to listen to and interpret spoken Turkish, as well as working on improving my pronunciation and the fluency of my spoken Turkish. In order to achieve these goals I will continue to practice having conversations in Turkish, expanding my vocabulary, understanding grammatical rules, and listening to Turkish dialogues.

       I am a firm believer in the fact that language represents the culture, so that I am confident that if I continue learning the customs of Turkey, it will be easier for me to improve my understanding of the Turkish language.

So far I feel my learning of the Portuguese has progressed in certain areas and has not in others. In terms of learning to speak the language I don’t feel as though I have had much progression. I have had a lot of time learning the vocabulary as duo lingo has helped me quite a bit with that, however, in terms of formulating sentences I feel like I have no progressed at all. I can only create pre-made sentences such as Hello, my name is Oliver. I have no idea as far grammar and the structure of the language. Something that has helped me though is my Capoeira class. Since I am taking my Capoeira class this semester as well, I have found that by singing the songs we learn in class I am learning and improving my Portuguese. On the other hand, once again songs are pre-made sentences, so I still do not have any idea as far as the grammar of the language of sentence formulation. Capoeira has also helped me learn a lot about Portuguese and the roots of the Portuguese language in Brazil. In terms of my learning goal of learning to speak Portuguese and speak about soccer, I have learned a lot of soccer vocabulary. Such as bola, passe, futbol. These words mean ball, pass, and soccer. However, although I know these words I do not feel as though I would be able to hold a conversation about the game as I cannot formulate sentences. I also have no idea how to conjugate verbs. I know infinitive versions of verbs as they are part of the vocabulary such as passer, which means to pass, but I do not know how to say “pass it to me”, or use the verbs I have learned in context. I can however, listen to commentary and conversations about soccer as I can recognize standard vocabulary about soccer. I feel as though this has come about from me watching and listening to soccer commentary in Portuguese. As of right now I feel that videos about soccer in Portuguese has been the most useful tool when learning Portuguese, as by watching the videos, and hearing the commentators repeat similar words repeatedly, has allowed me to decipher which words mean what in terms of soccer. It has also taught me a few slang words that are used in soccer. This is something I feel I would not be able to learn in a class or out of a book. In terms of tools to improve my learning experience I feel as though it would be nice to have a book to explain the standard format of sentence to me. Also, it would be nice if that book could explain how to conjugate verbs in different tenses, and any irregular conjugations.  Another cool learning tool would be to speak or even actually play soccer with someone who spoke Portuguese. 

For the past ten years or so I have had the enriching experience of learning the Spanish language. Studying everything from the alphabet to the culture and even learning neat ways to ask for food and casual conversation have been incredibly useful in my social interactions abroad and even home. What I enjoyed the most about learning this new language was how it opened my eyes to new customs and challenged me to study foreign concepts. While learning new languages can be an exciting experience, I did struggle with juggling the different grammatical rules and verbal sayings that are so different from my native language. Thus, I have always struggled with pronunciations, but as the saying goes- practice does make perfect. When it comes to my learning style, I believe I learn best visually. I find that learning new words using pictures or watching films has always helped me fully grasp the concepts. In this course I hope to challenge myself and expand my learning activities relying on memorization and conversational exercises.

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One of my goals this semester is to strengthen my vocabulary to allow me to have a more diverse conversation with others. I would especially like to learn how to talk about politics in Turkish because I am hoping to go towards this field. Another goal is to have basic Turkish writing skills. In order to achieve these goals, I will set smaller goals along the way, which I mention in my cultural post #1. I believe that I am at the novice developing 1 stage, according to the Levels of Competence and Can-Do Statements.

These past few months, I have been able to challenge myself to learn a variety of new words from simple greetings like how to say hello, to classroom objects and clothing. Overall, I would estimate that I have learned around 150 new words. I learned most of these words via classroom exercises stemming from classroom games, memorization, using them in conversation and visually seeing the objects and connecting the Turkish word to them. For instance, I was able to learn how to say Turkish numbers like (bir, iki, uc, dort, bes, alti, yedi, sekiz, dokuz, and on) from memorizing them and then filling in the blank when playing a classroom game. Other terms like mehaba, which means hello, and gule gule! which is goodbye in Turkish have been learned by constantly applying these words in everyday interactions with people. Overall, I do think that my goals are on the right track. I know that I will not learn 1,000 words in a semester, but I do know that this course will give me a foundation of basic vocabulary that I can continue to expand on throughout my travels and studies.

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

When you know a language’s history you will be able to understand where some of the words roots come from and how they have stemmed from other languages. Each language carries with it all of the history and culture of the area that it arises from. The political, social and economic history of the country influence its vocabulary and the meaning of its words. By knowing the history of words, I can understand how they are put together, and therefore better understand what they mean.

For class presentations, our assignment was to share some aspect of the language and culture that we are learning about. While I presented on the rich history of traditional Turkish coffee, my classmates focused on the Korean culture. They discussed Kimchi, which is found in most meals in Korea, as well as restaurant etiquette. Before these presentations I had never heard of Kimchi so I found it very interesting to learn about this new foreign food. From what I learned, Kimchi is a traditional fermented Korean side dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings. There are hundreds of varieties of kimchi, (190 to be exact), made with napa cabbage, spicy, white radish, raddish, scallion, garlic, ginger or cucumber as the main ingredients. According to the presentation, 95% of Koreans eat Kimchi once every day and it is regarded as one of the top five most healthy foods in the world. Kimchi is so popular and valued in Korea that they even have a cultural festival just for Kimchi. Kimchi has been a long standing tradition in Korea, therefore it is incredibly important to the elderly and their culture. Apart from Kimchi, I also enjoyed learning about proper etiquette for paying for a meal in Korea. Based on my classmate’s presentation, the elderly always pay for the meal because they are seen as more established and are highly respected in South Korea. There is also apparently a double standard for gender where men are expected to pay for the meal when on a date. However, in modern times South Korea is now experiencing a social change where there is more gender equality and it is becoming more acceptable to split the bill at restaurants. Overall, it was so fascinating learning about the different traditions and proper etiquette that Koreans value and I hope to learn more as the semester continues.

I am very happy with the progress that I have made up to this point in the semester. The material's level of difficulty from one unit to the next (sourced from the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture) is decidedly increasing. That is, each successive unit (I am currently on the third unit out of four in total) not only builds upon the last but introduces a range of new material that sometimes makes me feel uneasy and frustrated. Nevertheless, the utility of the material is what drives me forward in the endeavor. I use what I have learned every day outside the SDLAP context with my language partner. It is rewarding to be able to apply what I have learned from this course to daily-life activities and scenarios.

In short, my learning plan is effective, and I intend to follow the learning plan's goals and objectives throughout the latter part of the semester.

So far, I have completed in full Unit 6: Describing Humans and Animals and Unit 7: Locations and Directions. Currently, I am on Unit 8: Daily Activities / Hobbies, and I plan to finish this during week 9 of the academic calendar. Once that is accomplished, I will begin Unit 9: Physical Characteristics of Objects and Body Parts.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to fulfill my goal of completing one unit per two weeks. However, this does not impact my learning plan as I have plenty of time to finish the remaining two units. Indeed, I made a conscious decision halfway through Unit 7, which proved to be dense and lengthy, that I would follow the mantra "quality over quantity." I would rather absorb and learn the material to the best of my abilities than to race through the units and learn half as much.

In addition, I worked on my speaking, writing, reading, and listening skills through the units' activities. My favorite exercise is before reading the comic strips, I temporarily ignore the sentences and instead insert my own dialogue according to the pictures at hand. I find this exercise to be challenging and edifying because it forces me to stretch my imagination as well as to tap the depths of my vocabulary reservoir.

In sum, I am staying the course, and will not make any major changes to my learning plan.

Finally, my learning language partner has been indispensable throughout this endeavor. Her presence is a testing ground on which my Bahasa Indonesia has flourished.

My goals for these past two weeks were to:

• A) Finish unit 7 Directions/Instructions, sourced from the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, and begin Unit 8: Daily Activities
• B) Continue reading Indonesian comic books, sourced from the internet
• C) Meet with my partner for four hours

Strategies to accomplish these goals:

• A) I completed unit 7, which proved to be quite lengthy. Moreover, I began unit 8 (daily activities / hobbies). 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 units' activities. Now, I can describe a building's location vis-a-vis its surroundings. In addition to describing the location of people, things, and animals, I have amassed a large vocabulary pertaining to the topics that will prove useful in daily conversations. For example, I can ask where objects are in a given room and describe its location. Moreover, I learned how to make a noun into a verb by way of attaching prefixes and suffixes to nouns. For example, "perjalanan" means "journey." The root word here is "jalan," which means "walk." the per and an in "perjalanan" are the prefix and suffix, respectively. For unit 8, I began amassing vocabulary pertaining to hobbies / daily activities, although I am in the early stages of the unit. 
• B) I continued to read comics whose genres range from comedy to drama to fairytale. Here, this exercise allows me to get a better grasp on the "street" language as these comics use informal speech. It is important for me to not only learn the vocabulary but gain an understanding of the informal sentence structure patterns as well as the culture behind the conversations.
• 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.

My learning goal for this week was to be able to listen so portuguese at the speed of a native speaker, and some what understand the main idea of the sentence. This is something I am still working on as people speak Portuguese quite quickly. I practiced this by listening to the analysis of soccer players. I was able to pick up that they were speaking about soccer, but not much more. 

This week my goal is to improve my listening skills or to at least test my listening comprehension. I will be going about that by watching a TV show or podcast in Korean, writing down my thoughts about the show, and then watching/listening to it again with English subtitles and then comparing the differences. 

I'm just now starting on this goal. So far, I have selected the TV show that I plan to watch. I'll be listening to a 15 minute segment of it so that I can make the assignment more manageable. I chose a variety show since it's in a talk show format and people will use natural expressions, unlike dramas or cartoons where the expressions tend to be abstract and written specifically for that purpose. The show comes with English subtitles so I'll be referring to those during my second portion. I will be keeping a list of vocabulary as I go about the exercise.

For my learning activity I decided to teach a friend how to make their family tree in Korean. Korean offers a wider variety of familial terms than English. For example, there are terms to differentiate the age or "ranking" of uncles within your family, different terms for mother's side of the family than father's and so on.

To teach this activity I first showed my friend my family tree and went through the different terminology and then I had them make their own family tree, first in English. Once the tree was set up, we worked on translating the different titles so they could better connect the concepts. After, they were done making the family tree, I used it to quiz them and see how many terms they retained. For example, "what would you call your uncle bob?" and so on. 

Within the moment, it seemed like my friend was grasping the activity well and could piece together answers while I was quizzing them. However, I'm not sure I could say they retained the knowledge. If you don't have much interest in a language or you won't ever use it, it really becomes an "in one ear, out the other" type of situation. If anything, the activity was most useful for me because I had to be able to answer my friends questions and compile the information beforehand.

My learning goal for this week was originally to write Korean entries in my diary, however, since I completed that during the first week, I decided to change my goal. I recently joined the app "hellotalk" in which native speakers and learners communicate together to strengthen each other's language skills. My goal for this past week was to post daily on the app in a diary style and also chat daily in Korean. I felt that putting the language in use would be a more effective goal. So far, I have done well on keeping my goal. I only missed my daily posting once and I've been chatting with 3-4 people daily. It has been helpful to see their messages and see how they create call and response patterns. Furthermore, it's been very exciting to see people use grammar points that I've been studying lately. It feels somewhat rewarding to be able to notice the grammar points and understand the intentions behind the messages.

I think knowing the history of a language can be helpful during the language learning process. For example, the Korean language heavily relies on "loanwords" which are words from other languages, typically from former ruling powers of Korea such as China and Japan. Chinese has such a large influence on the Korean language that Chinese words are called "Sino-Korean" rather than being categorized as loanwords. According to the book "The Korean Language" by Ho-Min Sohn, Sino-Korean words make up 60% of the total Korean vocabulary while native words make up 30% and loanwords make up 5%. Written Korean utilizes actual Chinese characters, called Hanja, and Korean children are taught how to read and utilize these characters throughout their schooling. Chinese numbers are also used for counting most things in Korean ranging from time to prices to the number of classes you have in a day. Native Korean numbers are not used as often as the Chinese number set is. Understanding the history of Chinese and Korean is truly vital for learning Korean. I would think the same can be said of many languages. Languages can be impacted by religion, ruling powers, and social structures.

Learning Journal 5:  Post (a) an evaluation of your First Artifact conversation, and (b) an assessment of how well you met your learning goals for weeks 4 and 5

• (Artifacts are evaluated for accent, cultural appropriateness, and linguistic accuracy.)

(a) I think I could improve answering "I am Chinese" by connecting Cin and lim. I need to review speaking nationalities. But in general accent was not bad and the speed was not too slow. 

(b) I completed my goal of Week 4 and 5 that was studying words and sentences that I need for traveling in Turkey. I used Mango Languages Ch 2 and learned "I can speak Turkish/English (little bit)", how to give a negative answer politely, "I don't know (Turkish)", and grabbing someone's attention. 

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Here is my second reflection paper.

Understanding the history behind a language is important and helpful to better learn the language. Knowing the history is related to one of the aspects of communicative competence, sociolinguistic, because this element describes understanding the context of the language, which can be related to the history. The history is essential to the language because it shapes how the language is used now. It is important to acknowledge and apply the history of the language to understand the rules and norms of the target language.

For example, it is important to understand the history of how Korean language was developed through the influence of different countries, such as China. This is why Korean individuals of older generations are able to recognize and understand Chinese language, such as the Hanja alphabet. Another important idea to know about the history of Korean culture is how dialects have been shaped for different regions of North and South Korea. This is especially important because the dialects can change based on where you live, near city-life or countryside, and it can be hard to distinguish the dialect, if you are unaware of which regions correspond to which dialects. Some Koreans who live in Seoul and have a “Seoul dialect,” because they live near cities, are unable to recognize vocabulary from those who live in Busan because this is a more rural area. As a result, it is important to realize how history has shaped the development of the Korean language to better understand what certain aspects of this culture mean.