Reflect on how knowing a language's history can help you learn the language. To what family does your language belong? What sounds, words, or structures exemplify periods of contact with other cultures?

Catalan is in the Indo-European family, more specifically in the Romance languages family – So it is right there with Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Latin, etc…

Many words in Catalan are similar to words Spanish and/or French, and then not…

For example:

Most of the time, I perceive Catalan as a hybridization of Spanish and French + a “sprinkle of unknown” which makes it what it is.

While knowing Catalan’s “common denominators” with other languages is definitely helpful, I have to be careful to keep myself on check, so I remember which language I am dealing with!

• Summarize your goals for this semester and evaluate your first artifact

This semester I would like to work on developing my practical Korean knowledge and vocabulary, focusing on my listening and speaking skills while also working on my reading. I would like to be able to have a simple conversation with my girlfriends parents in Korean, discuss and order food at a restaurant, and talk about locations/use transportation. 

In my first artifact I read the Korean alphabet out loud and then counted from 1 to 10 in the sino-korean number system. I had trouble pronouncing the numbers accurately, and often was closer to the chinese numbers that I am familiar with and which sound very similar. 

Artifact 1. 

AO_Artifact_1.mp3

I recorded myself reading the Korean alphabet from just the characters, and then counted from 1 to 10  from memory in Korean using the sino-korean number system. 

My first 3 weeks of spring semester were extremely productive in terms of my language learning tasks. I planned to generally revise the content of the past semester during the first week, introduce myself to the future tense as well as learn/revise different grammar cases of the Turkish language. I was planning to achieve these goals with the help of my language partner as well as online resources. 

I managed to revise almost everything that we did las semester, including greetings, numbers, colors, days of the week, months, common verbs, family, times, etc. I used quizlet and classroom time to accomplish this goal. I engaged in conversations with my language partner and classmate. I also learnt the future tense this week and practiced conjugation of different verbs (positive and negative conjugations). My language partner corrected my mistakes and we learnt some new words while creating sentences and talking about the next day's plans. We then progressed to learning cases in Turkish language. We briefly went over this topic during the past semester, so I was familiar with some of the cases. We learnt accusative, dative, ablative, locative cases and a few other small grammar rules, and practiced those by creating sentences and expressions and by using cases with different nouns. 

1. What first prompted your interest in the target language? 

I love how Richmond promotes international education and think it is amazing how so many students get the change to study abroad. But I honestly did not want to spend a semester (or year) anywhere else. Then I heard of CienciaUR. It is a program that allows students to do research abroad, and that made more sense to me than a study abroad program, since I am already studying abroad. 

2. Why did you decide to start your self-directed learning endeavors?

English is my second language and while I do not want to minimize the importance more “formal” language classes, I think I only ever became comfortable speaking and communicating in English when I came to UR. I first heard of SDLC when I was contacted to be someone’s Portuguese language partner. It raised my curiosity about languages/self-directed learning and later seemed like the perfect fit when I decided to study Catalan.

3. Also, how will your studies allow you investigate your target language and culture more deeply, and what topic is most interesting to you?

Barcelona and Catalunya are surrounded by controversy due to the Autonomous Movement. What I find intriguing is that there were/are separatist movements in Brazil, but none ever reach the “momentum” we see in Spain. I know that there are economic and political reasons for this observation, but I am interested in the culture’s and particularly the language’s roles.

I also enjoy hearing my language partner’s, as well as other Spaniards’, perspectives to take a more subjective approach into something – which I do not get to do often studying STEM.

Shopping

I decided to write a post about shopping culture in Turkey, since it is extremely different from that os US. Firstly, except for large international chains such as Starbucks, prices can be largely negotiable. Many stores, especially clothing, will not specify the prices of the items and will tell someone a price based on whether they are natives or tourists or based on whether they look well off or poor. Especially when someone sells rugs, souvenirs or fruit in the streets, prices can be extremely negotiable. It's important to tell the seller that you have already seen the same item somewhere else with a lower price in order for them to decrease the prices. It is also easier to bargain if one is buying several units of the same item. For instance, if something costs 15 Turkish liras and one ways 5 of those, the price can be negotiated to 60 liras. This being said, tourists can often be deceived with more expensive prices compared to what locals usually give, however the prices in Turkey are generally lower compared to the US, related to lower wages and salaries. Therefore, the tourist might not even realize that they are paying twice the actual price of the souvenir or the rug. Nevertheless, why pay more if you can pay less?

I also learnt a few vocabulary words related to shopping stores. 

• First Cultural Post:  What are your cultural learning goals for this semester?
  • Which one or two topics will you explore during the course of the semester?
  • How do you expect to explore these topics?
  • What do you hope to learn through your exploration of these topics?

I would like to know more about Korean family and dining cultures and customs as I would like to know how to be respectful of my girlfriends parents and how to act at meals with them and at restaurants in general. One fun way to explore these topics could be going out to eat at a Korean restaurant with my girlfriend or my language partner and having a practice meal where we go over customs. 

Another aspect of Korean culture that I find really interesting is their work life. The difference between western self-centric life with a clear divide between work and personal life is very different from Korean work environments where coworkers tend to socialize together after hours. I think that this is a very interesting difference that is very telling of larger differences between the cultures. 

Cultural learning goals for the semester.

Since I spent significant amount of time last semester in exploring everyday life of Turkish people, traditions, cultural expressions and traditional words, this semester I am planning to spend more time in exploring geographical aspects of the country, along with history and modern politics. In order to enhance my cultural understanding of the country, I will take a look at western and eastern parts of Turkey-they are significantly different ethnically, culturally and politically. I will look at different cities, geographic locations, ethic groups in those cities, political developments in the area, historical sites etc. I will also try to explore some economic aspects of the country and what each region is specialized in. 

Turkey has an extremely rich cultural history and a vast number of historical sites worth reading about and exploring. I will try to familiarize myself with the most ancient and popular cultural and historical sites, mosques, churches etc. If my cultural exploration goes as planned, I will design my end of year cultural presentation around Turkish archaeology and history, how the country started to be modernized after the first republic was established in 1923, how the dressing code and even alphabet changed and how well this transition worked in the country as a whole. 

For my exploration, I will rely on online resources and my language partner's help. I will try to ask questions to him to get a full primary source information and will combine that with the online resources(news articles, pictures, encyclopedia articles etc.) to get the full picture. These goals will provide me with the full understanding of the country, starting from old times and progressing through modern days. I believe every country is shaped by its history, and getting to know some of the Turkish history will make me understand the country and traditions in a much better way. 

• Summarize your assessment and goals in a blog post in your learning journal.

From the levels of competence chart I have assessed myself as a beginning 0 for all 5 skills. In terms of reading I am able to recognize most letters and sound out most words, although I needed a refresher at first and some characters were a little trickier than others like the complex vowels ㅕㅑㅐㅔ ㅠㅛ, and I don’t fully understand the difference between ㅐ and ㅔ. I can sound out many simple words and recognize words that I have heard or used frequently. 

In terms of writing I can write simple words that are sounded out to me with some degree of accuracy, but as I mentioned above I have trouble with complex vowels and am unfamiliar with the advanced forms of character creation like double consonants. I don't think I could write out the full Korean alphabet but I can recognize most of them to some degree. 

In terms of listening I can recognize most of the letters of the alphabet when spoken and can recognize frequently heard or used words like hellos, goodbyes, and some very basic vocabulary like yes and no. 

In terms of speaking I am vaguely familiar with a few basic grammatical structures and could get through a few simple sentences such as introductions, saying thank you, and goodbyes.  

First Cultural Post:  What is your interest in 'your' language and what do you hope to accomplish this semester?

I have a personal interest in my language (Sanskrit). I have a strong interest in Hinduism and South Asian culture, and Sanskrit is central to understanding these beliefs. Sanskrit contains so many words from a religious origin that have almost no direct translation into English. For example, the Sanskrit word 'maya' means something like the chaos or illusion of the world. This translation is really not enough though, since it's a really complex religious concept. I was inspired to learn Sanskrit after being frustrated with English translations of Sanskrit concepts that I found incomplete, inaccurate, or too hard to understand. By the end of the semester, I hope to have a firmer grasp of Hinduism overall by understanding the langauge itself 

I used a couple of different resources to identify my language skills as of January 2018. I will use can do statements below to describe my abilities as of beginning of the semester, and I'll later progress to the list of my language goals for Spring. 

As of now, I believe I am in between Novice Mid and Novice high trying to progress to full Novice high and even intermediate low level. 

My current abilities are: