Blogs

• Do some research about the culture of your target language and write about the 'linguistic aspects.'

Hebrew as a language has been described as analytical, however, the formation of verbs has been influenced by inflection. Regarding syntax, a sentence must contain a subject and one predicate -- verbs and complements are usually included, but not required. Hebrew has special present-tense structures. The verb "to be" cannot be expressed in the present tense. Regarding sentences with verbs, Hebrew contains a subject-verb-object order like that of English. In general, Hebrew nouns are met with a preposition. Its sentence types could be broken down into three categories: simple sentences, compound sentences, and complex sentences. Verbs, too, is constructed differently from that of English. Hebrew verbs are fitted with buildings or constructions with roots as an infinitive.

On an empirical side, I know that Israelis love to use their bodies when they communicate. One example is the use of there hands. If one were to clench their hands such that their thumb rests on the inside of the middle finger, this means "wait." This technique is usually done within the context of frustration or extreme directness.  

• Reflect on the readings. How does this knowledge help you shape your language learning process?

In How the Brain Handles Language, author Crystal suggests that our brains are divided into two hemispheres, and is further stratified so that each compartment could specialize in mental functions. Cerebral dominance thus is studied so that we can understand where in our brain outside stimuli are processed; the processing of a function in each hemisphere is known as lateralization. Therefore, with regards to right-handed people, language processing is dominant in the left hemisphere. In neurolinguistic processing, moreover, people conceptualize the meaning of the following communication they produce. This conceptualization, it is averred, influences the semantic and syntactic structure of language. The latter process marries a phonological representation, and thus we create syllables and other features of language. Lastly, the author presents her readers with a concept: proprioceptive feedback. This states that humans are continuously monitoring their speech from the person's senses. On an individual level, I am not sure how this reading can help the common language learner. However, if I were to extrapolate this article's evidence, I bet scientists within this field could come up with a model on how best people absorb language based on these factors, and thus could synthesize them and solidify a language-learning model. 

In How We Mean, the same author argues that different languages conceptualize the same objective phenomena that is universal to mankind, and thus influences our outlook on any given nature of the same object. However, this concept is also one of reinforcement: reality could be subjective, and, therefore, humans try to convey this reality using language as a medium. The author's concept could help me to discern differences among Hebrew and English representations of reality, and thus will give me a better understanding on how the two nationals view the world. 

In How We Analyze meaning, the same author contends that from a language's structural patterns, we can discern how the human brain analyzes the world in which we live. One feature within a language's structure that we can learn from is called 'collocation.' The latter defines the way in which lexemes occur in sequences. Every lexeme has collocations, but there is a difference in the sentence's predictability. This is where this concept could help my language learning process. The more I listen and participate in Hebrew, the better I will be able to grasp the language's structure.

I have learned a lot about myself as a language learner when attempting to learn Korean. I have tried to learn languages before, such as German, Spanish, and French, but always in a structured environment. It is one thing to listen to a teacher lecture about grammar, and totally another to learn on one’s own. I think that structuring my own program had some benefits, but also some drawbacks. It was nice in that I was able to learn whatever phrases and words I thought were important. It was unusual to me to be able to learn something completely outside of a structured lesson plan, where I normally would have to learn 20 words a week as well as so many grammar rules. By being able to learn goal-focused terms and phrases, I was able to speak instantly with others without having to tick off the boxes before being able to speak. With that being said, the reason that grammar is emphasized in formal classes is because it is completely necessary in order to extend knowledge of a language. For instance, you may learn the phrase “what do you mean?”, but you will not be able to extend that to “what does he mean?” if you do not understand the grammatical rules in place. I ran into that problem when learning Korean. I would learn a phrase, but because I had no idea about the grammar rules of the language, I would have to memorize another phrase in order to say something even slightly different. By following a goal-oriented form of language learning, you get instant rewards, but you also make it harder to develop a deep understanding of the language in the long run.

Overall, I found learning Korean to be a lot of fun. It was cool being able to talk to my Korean friends, even if it meant only being able to pick out words here and there, and only being able to say fragmented phrases. I found exploring the culture of Korea particularly interesting, because Korean culture is completely unlike western culture. Not only did I get a better understanding of Confucian values and how they contributed to modern Korean culture, but I also was able to better understand the beliefs and temperaments of my own Korean friends. My friends place a huge emphasis on respect and family, and these values are directly attributional to Confucian ideology.

I struggled with learning long phrases from nothing but memory. It was one thing for me to read the alphabet and learn numbers and isolated words, but it was completely different to cold memorize phrases. I think if I were to do it again, I would have focused more on language foundations, like the alphabet and basic grammar. Because of that, I am going to continue learning Korean by focusing on grammar and thoroughly learning the alphabet. Besides that, I would also like to learn more about nonverbal communication in Korea. Koreans have a complex system of nonverbal communication to show respect and bond with others, and I would like to learn the cultural ways that Koreans act nonverbally. I would also like to expand my knowledge of the Korean language by further broadening my knowledge of conversational topics. 

I have been learning how to say some key phrases in Hindi that will help me learn while using my Hindi skills. Some of these phrases include:

• I do/don't understand 

  मैं समझता हूं OR 
  मैं समझ में नहीं आता

• Can you repeat that?

  क्या आप दोहरा सकते हैं

• Can you say that louder?
  क्या आप ज़ोर से बात कर सकते हैं
• Can you say that more slowly?

            क्या आप धीरे धीरे बात कर सकते हैं

• How do you say this/that in Hindi?

          कि कैसे आप कहते हैं कि हिन्दी में

I've been practicing these phrases with Bishan and I am trying to use them instead of asking questions in English.

This week I have been focusing on possessive pronouns and how they change depending on the gender and number of the possession. In Hindi there are pronouns for me, we, he/she and they (however as stated there are two different versions depending on whether he/she is close in proximity to you or far away), and three different forms of you (a formal one, a friendly one, and a rarely used intimate one). These pronouns usually take the ending -raa or -kaa when in basic possessive cases. For example मैं -->मेरा (main-->meraa)    आप-->आपका  (aap-->apkaa ) . However, as stated these change depending on gender of the object being possessed. Meraa becomes meree in cases of singular feminine words, mere in plural masculine, and stays meree in plural feminine. Overall this is very similar to things I've learned in French. The pronouns change in the same way that Hindi ones do. However what I did find interesting is that the gender of nouns in Hindi rarely matches the gender of nouns in French. I am curious as to how gender of nouns developed and why it is different in these Indo European languages that are thought to have a common ancestor.    

      During the study of Korean, I had the experience to learn more about Korean language and Korean culture. In summary, I've learnt the general greetings, self-introduction, introduction to family members, ordering food in the restaurant and describing weather in Korean. I focus on speaking and listening instead of reading and writing. The major method for my study was to watch teaching lectures from Youtube. There was teacher teaching Korean language for some specific topics. Sometimes if I had questions about sentence structures or pronunciation, then I asked my Korean friends for corrections. Time flies and I hope the semester could be longer so that I had more time to study Korean. So far, I mastered some useful conversations that could communicate with other people for ask and answering questions.

     In the progress, I encountered some difficulties such as pronunciation, vocabularies and grammar. At the beginning, it was hard to pronounce those Korean alphabets and the words.  I tried to memorize those pronunciations but sometimes it was just hard to memorize all of them. Also, there are too many new vocabularies to learn. So I think vocabularies are always the hardest part for studying a new language. 

What I have been working on: I mostly been working on remembering what I did earlier in the semester: weather, seasons, religious vocab, basic vocab, and idioms. I have been incorporating all of these into complete and complex sentences.

Statement: I want to continue to use complete sentences and work more on signing multiple sentences in a row.

Strategies: Practicing the vocabulary I have already learned and trying to work them into the conversation, when it makes sense.

Effectiveness: That is the best way for me to learn. I also like to see other people sign, so I know what the sign looks like from the opposite side.

Building on what I have learned: All of this is the culmination of what I have learned this semester. I am trying to be able to at least have a minimal basic conversation and have a conversation about religion and the weather. 

I think my work throughout this semester has been reasonable. Although I wasn’t able to follow my learning plan completely, I’ve gotten through about two-thirds of it and then started the Eggbun app because I wanted to work outside of my textbook and try something new. The Eggbun app is basically a Korean language learning application that covers the following topics: Hangeul, names of the Korean letters in Hangeul, borrowed words from other languages, the different number systems, pronunciation, classroom expressions, greeting expressions, self-introduction expressions, and topic and subject markers. As I mentioned in a previous post, Vivian had recommended Eggbun in her presentation, and I downloaded it as soon as it was available for iPhones. So far, I like it because it’s interactive whereas learning from the textbook can get a little dreary sometimes.

In addition to the Eggbun lessons, this semester I’ve studied the following topics: saying hello and farewell, using like/dislike and want (to)/don’t want (to) in sentences, creating simple sentences, verbs, telling time, and relationships. If I have time during finals week, I hope I can also learn the last bits of my lesson plans, which includes negative sentences, the past tense, and informal Korean.

Now, I can somewhat confidently do the following in Korean:

• read Hangeul

NOTE: the following tasks are all spoken

• do greetings and farewells
• introduce myself
• introduce my family
• answer questions about identity
• talk about what I like/dislike and want/don’t want
• order food at a Korean restaurant
• use numbers for phone numbers, money, counting, ordinal counting, age, dates, time
• tell time
• talk about the weather
• use classroom expressions from both teacher and student perspectives

Since my goals were relatively reasonable, I don’t think I encountered too much difficultly as I studied Korean this past semester. Maybe time management was a bit tricky, but when I’m studying I usually catch on pretty quickly. But now that I think about it, Korean pronunciation can be a bit hard sometimes. It’s hard for me to distinguish between the pronunciation of hard consonants and double consonants. I also still have to work on memorizing the sound changes in Hangeul. I think the best thing I can do to improve my pronunciation is just to look up tutorials specialized in Hangeul teaching and practice saying those types of words a lot or maybe ask a Korean friend about the differences, which brings up another point. I didn’t really consult any of my Korean friends about my work this semester and I wasn't assigned a language partner, so I ended up working independently on pretty much everything. Part of the reason was because I didn’t run into problems that I couldn’t solve myself, but even when I do run into them, I like to try to solve them myself first before consulting someone else because it helps me learn. But, in the future, I’d like to be more open with my language study and regularly consult native speakers, because I think the immediate feedback would be an efficient way to practice conversational skills and pronunciation since being able to speak Korean fluently is one of my long-term goals.

Ordering food at a Korean restaurant:

BeckyChen_4thArtifact.mp3

Transcript: 

A: 안녕하세요. 주문하시겠습니까?

B: 뭐가 맛있어요?

A: 불고기나 갈비가 바베큐로 좋습니다.

B: 채식메뉴 있어요? 전 채식주의자에요.

A: 그리고 순두부찌개도 추천드립니다.

B: 순두부찌개 주세요. 안맵게 해주세요.

A: 네.

A: 어떠신가요?

B: 맛있어요. 물 더 주세요.

A: 네, 여기 있습니다. 디저트로 무엇을 드시겠습니까?

B: 어떤 게 있나요?

A: 아이스크림과 차가 있습니다.

B: 아이스크림 주세요. 어떤 맛이 있나요?

A: 녹차와 바닐라가 있습니다.

B: 녹차 아이스크림 주세요.

A: 여기 있습니다.

B: 감사합니다.

B: 여기요! 계산해 주세요.

A: 여기 있습니다.  감사합니다.

B: 네, 안녕히 계세요.

Rough translation: 

A: Good evening. What would you like to order?

B: What's delicious?

A: Bulgogi (beef) and galbi (ribs) is good for barbecue.

B: Are there vegetarian dishes? I'm vegetarian. 

A: I also recommend the soondubu (soft tofu stew).

B: Please give me soondubu. Please don't make it spicy.

A: Yes.

A: How is everything?

B: It's delicious. Please give me more water.

A: Yes, here it is. Would you like some dessert?

B: What do you have?

A: Ice cream and tea. 

B: I'll have ice cream. What flavors do you have?

A: Green tea and vanilla. 

B: Please give me green tea ice cream. 

A: Here it is. 

B: Thank you.

A: Waiter! Check, please.

B: Here it is. Thank you.

A: Yes, goodbye.

   My goal in this week is to prepare for the culture project presentation and to study the weather in Korean. For preparing the culture project presentation, I'm going to do some research online for my presentation topic and talk to Korean native speaker for learning some conversational blessings in a wedding. Then, for studying weather in Korean, I will keep watching the teaching lectures on Youtube and do some research online, as a result, I learnt how to ask and describe weather in Korean as followed:

1. How's the weather these days? 요즘 날씨 어때요?

2. It is good. 좋아요.

3. It is cold. 추워요.

4. It is warm. 따뜻해요.

5. It is hot. 더워요.

6. It is humid. 습해요.

7. The weather is good. 날씨 좋아요. 

8. It is raining. 비 와요.

      For this week, I'm going to study the Korean conversations in the restaurant which is one of my learning goals. I will learn how to order food and how to request in a restaurant such as following: 

1. Please give it to me. 주세요.
2. Please give me/us the bill. 계산서 주세요.
3. Please give me/us more side dishes. 반찬 더 주세요.
   
4. Please don’t make it spicy. 안맵게 해주세요.
5. What’s delicious? 뭐가 맛있어요?
6. It's delicious. 맛있어요.

7. Where’s the restroom? 화장실 어디 있어요?

8. Goodbye. 안녕히 계세요. (formal)
   *Use if you’re the one leaving and receiver is staying.

     There is a teaching lecture on Youtube that teaches you how to pronounce these sentences which is very useful to correct my pronunciations. 

Learning plan: Yi%20Shen_SDLAP_learningplan213.docx

Using the levels of competence document and the checklists to assess my current abilities in Korean, I define myself as level of Novice low in listening, reading, speaking and writing. Therefore, I set my goals more specific 

1. Be able to greet people such as hello, sorry, goodbye and how are you 
2. Be able to describe family members and describe them to people 
3. Learn how to order food and ask questions in Korean restaurant 
4. Know more about Korean cultures 
5. Understand Korean alphabet system and sentence structures 
6. Learn the normal way of answering general questions 

Reading and especially writing has always been a challenge for me since those were skills I failed to continue to practice as I got older. However, I believe my reading and writing skills have improved by a little mainly from reading and writing messages to friends on the app HelloTalk. Though text messaging included lots of jargon and shortening of words and sentences, it really helped me practice my comprehension skills as well, since I had to practice translating Korean from reading messages in Korean into English. My writing skills were also utilized since I had to practice constructing my own words which was extremely challenging for me since I still find it difficult when to use certain grammatical structures or even how to properly structure a sentence so that I can clearly convey what I want to say. Though I do not think I improved a significant amount in reading and writing, I can see I have improved because I am now able to communicate with my parents better since I am more capable of texting to them in just Korean which I now do more often.

I highly agree with both readings in the fact that there are many advantages and benefits from being bilingual, even though it may be difficult at first since an individual needs to create two distinct sets of vocabulary, grammatical structure, and etc. Though I am only partially fluent in Korean, I think it was tremendously beneficial for me to have grown up hearing and using English and Korean since it made me learn the unique process of understanding the different sounds and structures between the two languages as well as learn how to differentiate and interpret them. I think learning languages is an extremely unique skill for the brain to learn since it is really unlike any other type of learning. Learning a language requires not just memorization but also the ability to pronounce sounds correctly, understand and interpret what you hear, and the most challenging part: creating your own sentences. Because of all the functions the brain must adapt and use, I strongly believe that there are major mental health benefits in the long term for knowing more than one language.

I think the cultural presentations showed me a link among the different cultures from the languages we are all learning. Particularly for Korean, I saw connections from other topics such as education fever, weddings, school violence to my own presentation topic on plastic surgery. With that, the one topic that I think really stood out to me was the education fever. To put it in blunt terms, I think Korea has a huge obsession with being perfect. This obsession is exemplified by the high beauty standards where people have become obsessed with being skinny, yet still maintaining some curves, have a thin oval face, double eyelids and bigger eyes, and white skin. These qualities are even thought to be unwritten qualifications for getting jobs. But being the best does not mean looks are the only priority. Education is something one must conquer in order to get ahead. Students in Korea are waking up at 6am, leaving school at 4pm, going to cram schools till midnight. Basically their whole lives are spent just on school and nothing else. As a result, the stress is enormous and some students end up committing suicide or have other mental issues. Mental issues are also a problem with the beauty standards. Now before the presentation on North Korean refugees, I always thought that North Korean's would live their lives a lot better in South Korea, with freedom to be their own persons. But it seems like South Korea may not actually be the best place for them. Coming from North to South Korea cultural differences are a big shock and with a society that is so fast-paced and striving to get ahead, if someone who is not programmed for succeeding their own path, it is hard. For students from North Korea who have language difficulties and are behind academically, it is difficult to get on the path that South Korean students are on. Reflecting on Korean culture makes me appreciate American culture. It does not feel like everyone is trying to out compete each other and education is more go at your own pace and define your own success. I understand that in Korea human capital is really the only resource they have, so being the best is important for the country to thrive economically. But I do not think I could live there and live up to their education and beauty standards. I admire Korea and its language from a far. 

I have learned quite a few new vocabulary words that range from common and traditional words, jargon, and even words used exclusively in North Korea. I have learned many new vocabulary words from the research I needed to do for my two presentations. For my first presentation which was on Korean New Year’s, even though I already knew some very basic words and phrases, I learned a lot of advanced vocabulary from looking at more of the traditional aspects of the New Year’s celebration. As for my second presentation which was on North Korean defectors and refugees in South Korea, I learned a lot of military related vocabulary such as concentration camp, famine, border, and more. I also got to know some vocabulary that is exclusively used by North Koreans, since some things are known to be called differently in North and South Korea. As for jargon, I learned many phrases and terms I have never known thanks to talking with friends I made on the app HelloTalk. Thanks to these friends, I feel like I have become more knowledgeable about the way the younger Korean generation interacts and communicates through language, since a lot of the jargon is recently formed and used mainly by the youth. Overall, I believe I have been introduced to perhaps around 50 new vocabulary words and phrases.

Answering questions about identity:

BeckyChen_3rdArtifact.mp3

**NOTE: I accidentally switched the tasks between Artifacts 2 and 3. See 'My Second Artifact' if you want to hear me introducing myself and my family.

Rough translation: (polite form)

A: Hello.

B: Hello. 

A: I'm Chul-Soo Lee. What is your name?

B: I'm Becky Chen. 

A: I'm French. What nationality are you?

B: I'm American.

A: Where are you from?

B: I'm from China.

A: I'm 34 years old. How old are you?

B: I'm 21 years old. 

A: I'm a designer. What do you do?

B: I'm a student.

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