Blogs

• Post your fourth bi-weekly report on your language-learning activities.
  Create a learning activity to teach someone else something you have learned in your language; outline this activity in your learning journal.

This week we have been focusing on watching Portuguese Youtube videos, and trying to explain to each other what they said in English. We have also looked at a Portuguese Fashion magazine and looked at a video about living in Brazil. First we watched a Youtube vlog and then an interview a famous Brazilian blogger posted on Youtube. We quickly learned that we needed to put on subtitles so that I could translate what was being said, otherwise the way the vlogger spoke was way too fast for me to understand. Once we put on subtitles, I was able to understand 30% of what was being said. It was actually really good for me to be able to hear the natural conversations one has in Portuguese. I was able to hear that the vlogger said a lot of sounds that sounded like “che” or “dje” but that didn’t have those letters at all. Being able to hear these sounds helped me work on my pronunciation better. We then looked at a Portuguese fashion magazine, Cosmo Brazil, we read the headlines together and I tried to discern what the articles were about. We then read the horoscopes section together, and talked about what was being said. Finally, we looked at a video about daily life in Sao Paulo. It was really cool seeing my partner’s hometown and seeing how different life was in Brazil.

Learning activity to teach someone:

I want to teach someone the differences between Spanish and Portuguese words. Coming up with a list of commonly mistaken words really helped me understand why I was so confused between the two, and I think I could help someone with a Spanish background discern the differences as well. I will ask someone what they think are the differences in a list of words between Spanish and Portuguese. Then I will show them the list of differences I have, and teach them how to be aware of the two by looking at the patterns between Spanish v. Portuguese words.

• In your learning journal, reflect upon your progress to date, consider the effectiveness of your learning plan and activities, and discuss what changes--if any--you will make to finish the semester.

I think I have been making great progress overall. In individualized courses like this, it is often difficult to evaluate yourself and realize whether you are doing well on progress or not, especially when there is no metric to compare yourself to. However, when analyzing what I have learned since the start of the semester, I see how this course has changed my cultural views and enhanced my speaking abilities. Before starting this course I was really focused on going to Portugal and learning more about Portugal, not really Brazil. I wasn’t really interested in Brazil because I believed that I couldn’t go there due to safety issues and transportation difficulties. I was more interested in Portuguese because I knew it was safe, and I knew I would be able to travel there more easily. However, throughout this course, Barbara has been teaching me more and more about Brazilian culture, music, holidays, and the lifestyle. I began to realize how beautiful Brazilian culture is, and how diverse and interesting the people are. I really want to go there now, and because of that, we have been setting aside time during our learning session to work on Brazilian culture, customs, food, etc.

Furthermore, as this language is similar to Spanish, I have been able to realize patterns between the two, and even the patterns between Portuguese and English. It makes me realize how grammar and sentences structures work in latin based languages, and I have become more comfortable with saying a sentence I think makes sense based on the patterns I have learned so far.

I am not sure I will make any changes on my plan. So far we have been using my plan as a basis of what to learn, but if there is something we realize we want to do too, we do that as well, so my plan is really flexible and I don’t think there is any need to change it.

• Post your third bi-weekly report on your language-learning activities.  

These past weeks we have been focused on talking about the days of the week, months, and numbers. It hasn’t been stressful learning these words, as they are fun to say and not very difficult to remember. They are also pretty similar to Spanish, with the exception of pronunciation and the days of the week, as the day of the week is written as a number out of 7. I have written an example of what I mean by this below. I find the best way to memorize a big quantity of information that I have learned during these past two weeks, is to “chant” words to myself so I am used to saying them, and to record myself saying the words and listen to them so I remember the way I was taught to say those words. This activity really helps me remember went we learned in class and hone in my language skills. I think I have been doing well so far, and I am excited where the next few weeks take me!

Sunday → Domingo

Monday → Segunda-feira (2)

Tuesday → Terça-feiraca (3)

Wednesday → Quarta-feira (4)

Thursday → Quinta-feira (5)

Friday → Sexta-feira (6)

Saturday → Sábado (7)

• Second Artifact:  Document a learning task that you have completed.

This week we are working on common food items and what are the correct pronunciations of breakfast related words. First, Barbara and I worked on listing common food items that we ate and then I guessed how I thought it would be said based on my knowledge of Portuguese and Spanish. I actually got a lot correct! The words that I had trouble with we wrote notes on, and then Barbara told me she would be occasionally asking me about these words in the next few weeks to ensure that I knew what they were and how to pronounce them. I have written some of the words from the list we worked on today below for reference. We also worked on common responses to questions that I have written down below as well.

Cereal com leite

Banana

Manteiga de amendoim → peanut butter

Linhaça → flax seeds

Ovos → eggs

Pão  (poah) →  bread

Abacate → avocado

Tudo bem? How are you/All good?

Tudo. All good

Na verdade, não. Not good.  

E você? And you?

Não == no and Sim == yes.

• Post your second bi-weekly report on your language-learning activities.

These past few weeks we have been focusing on common food items, answering basic questions like “How are you?” “Where are you from?”, differences between Spanish and Portuguese, and finally pronunciations. I really feel as though I am getting a hold of Portuguese, and I am finally getting more comfortable with the language. As they say, practice makes perfect, and I think that looking at youtube videos of how Americans learned Portuguese, and hearing their tips on how to learn faster has helped me a lot as well. I am starting to see literal patterns in the language -- for example, no words end in n in Portuguese, instead the end in m. Pra. is short for para, but only in Brazil, not Portugal.

I am also learning an interesting side of Portuguese because I am learning Brazilian Portuguese. I have been spending more time looking at how Portuguese is different in the two countries, and I find it interesting reading about the cultural differences I never knew existed. I feel as though it is actually more interesting learning Brazilian Portuguese because it has more slang and casualness to it. I hope to explore Brazilian Culture and slang this semester because I believe it would truly be eye-opening. The next few weeks we are going to work on reading magazines, listening to more Portuguese music, common phrases, pronunciations, and casual conversations. I can’t wait for what’s in store!

I learned that Bangladesh also has a different calendar than the one we use in the US, like Ethiopia does. I learned a lot about Korean culture and how stressful both school and work life seem to be. Also respect for elders is a big deal and overall it seems that Korean culture puts a lot of pressure on students and employees because they are more collectivist than the US. The Korean wedding process seemed extremely detailed and meticulous which is interesting. What was really interesting to learn about was the contract weddings that occur in the LGTBQ community. I also thought it was interesting how Hebrew has similar gender distinctions in most words like Amharic does. Learning about the importance of the market and being able to bargain was interesting because it is similar in Ethiopia since most people do not buy things from stores like we do.

I’ve learned that being a self-directed language learner is much harder than being in a traditional class setting and being told what to learn and when to learn. As for a cultural explorer, I’ve always been someone that has been interested in other cultures so learning more about Ethiopia and Eritrean culture was definitely something that I enjoyed doing. In some ways, I liked this better because I got to learn exactly what I wanted to learn. However, sometimes staying on top of my own learning was difficult. I also found keeping my notes organized difficult. I try to learn words and phrases that are related at the same time, but if I forget one then I have to go back and add to notes if I have space. I have enjoyed learning the language that my dad speaks and it is exciting to be able to understand some of what he says when talks to his family. I also enjoyed the satisfaction of improving in the language. Since the only language I’ve ever learned is Spanish, and I always took that in school for a requirement,it was much more rewarding to improve in a language that I chose to learn myself. I plan to continue learning for a long time until I am as close to fluent as I can get. I was lucky enough to have my dad as my language partner, so I will still have someone to practice with once the semester is over. I am also going to be living at home next year so I can pick up a lot more conversational Amharic speaking with my dad and other family members. It will be more intensive than my studies now when I am living in the same house as a native speak. I will also probably go back to Eritrea and maybe Ethiopia at some point so I will be immersed in the language and see how much I have learned. On top of that, my family in America always speaks Amharic when they visit each other so I can work on trying to understand and join in the conversation.  

The readings that were most useful for me personally were the ones from the beginning of the semester that talked about tips for language learning. I have never embarked on the journey of language learning on my own, so reading those helped me figure out what I wanted to put on my learning plan and how I wanted to go about my studies. One of the activities that helped me the most was looking at the phonetic sounds because when I first began learning, I was overwhelmed by all the sounds that don’t exist in English but it was comforting in a way to see those sounds in the phonetic alphabet. I would also like to learn more about the similarities between Amharic and other languages. I know it is similar to Tigrinya, which I would like to learn as well in the future, but I want to know if there are any major similarities to languages like Arabic.  

I learned so much during everyone's cultural presentations! I was very interested in learning a little bit about the gendered aspects of Hebrew, as well as the differences between formal and informal speech in Korean. Furthermore, I was intrigued and impressed by Diego's presentation on traditional Korean weddings. I am studying Korean as well and that is an aspect of the culture that I have not focused on yet, but the differences between Korean and Western weddings was really fascinating. I also had a fun time "walking through the market" while learning some phrases in Wolof. Lastly, Jessica's presentation on Korean school culture was super interesting. I already had some background on what high school culture is like in Korea, but Jessica took it to the next level and really dove into the specifics and I appreciate how elaborate and detailed her presentation was. Overall everyone spoke very well and seemed excited about what they were talking about. 

SDLC_FinalReflectionPaper.docx

English:

Thank you for an awesome semester!

I hope you had a great experience at UR...

Wishing you all the best :)

We should meet up if/when I go to Barcelona

Catalan:

Gràcies per un increïble semestre!

Espero que tinguis una gran experiència a UR ...

Desitjant-vos tot el millor :)

Hem de trobar-nos si / quan vaig a Barcelona

I struggle quite a bit with the double Ls in Catalan...

SDLC105_Artifact.mp3Here's an audio to try to explain the difference

For reference:

English:

a) I hate the rain and b) Moon

Spanish:

a) Odio la lluvia and b) Luna

Catalan

a) Odi la pluja and b) Lluna

I watched an interview from FC Barcelona's coach on how he feels about his country and its language. 

He is very proud and loving of Catalunya. Calling his country a marvelous place and saying he would like nothing more than playing for a Catalan national team...

Some of his most striking phrases are:

"es la nuestra llengua" --> "it is our language"

"som un país i tenim una llengua propria" --> we are a country and we have our own language

The video actually has English subtitles, so if you're interested here is the link

When I started studying Catalan, my family was hyped because I could watch Merlí -- a TV series in Catalan that is available on Netflix -- with them. 

Sweet innocence, to think I would be able to watch a whole Netflix series during the semester... But I did watch the first episode in Catalan! ... with subtitles in Spanish, because that was the closest that I could get to Catalan and farthest from "my" languages (PT and EN)

Short summary: Merlí, the main character, is a middle aged man. The episode opens with him and his ex-wife discussing living arrangements for their son while she takes a job away in Rome. Merlí is living with his mother, because he was out of a job -- he is a philosophy high school teacher. But then luck strikes and he is offered a position... At his son's school!  Merlí is peculiar and treats his students differently from the other professors in the school.. I don't know what will come of that... 

I understood what happened throughout the episode, but I definitely did not understand *everything* that was going on. But I worked hard to listen to the Catalan and compare it to the Castellano on the screen, and I felt like I did a fine job differentiating each...

Overall, I think that my learning process has been a success. My goal was to strengthen my reading, writing, and speaking skills, and learn more about of history of my parent’s home country, South Korea. I was able to go more in depth about the language and culture while having a general interests in the topics that I have chosen. I was able choose the content of what I generally wanted to learn about, making the exercises more enjoyable. This allowed me to want to learn more and continue with the self-teaching.

I really enjoyed reading various articles, which I found from Naver, and reading the book, Please Look After Mom. Though I generally do not read for fun, I was compelled to read because topics were very interesting. My favorite part was reading the book because it was a very emotional and eye-opening. I never thought that I would read an actual book in Korean that was not a children’s book because I do not like reading in Korean due to my frustration of not being able to read fast. However, because I was reading so many texts in Korean, starting from textbooks to articles, I started to see the change in my reading pace. Seeing results really made me proud and motivated me to continue learning.

In addition, I liked applying to what I learned in real-life settings. I never speak Korean to anyone except for my parents, but talking to my language partner in Korean and having her critique me was a great way for me to fix my pronunciation. Even though I had another partner last semester, I was still feeling awkward about speaking to others in Korean so the practice made me become even more comfortable. When I went to Grand Mart to get rice cakes, I could not find them and so I had to talk to an employee in Korean to ask where it was. I did not feel as uncomfortable. I did the same thing last semester but I was anxious about the whole process.    

Even though I will be graduating this semester, I will continue to learn the language and culture on my own. I will be going to Korea this fall and cannot wait to use the skills that I have accumulated over the past year. Although I am not perfect with the language, I feel as though I became better and relaxed with Korean. I think that I really took advantage of my time to progress and hope to utilize what I learned this whole year when I am out in the real world.

For my cultural project, I decided to look in Japanese imperialism in Korea and an important figure, Yu-GwanSun. The pdf attached is my powerpoint which also consists of my sources in the end. My presentation is also on Panopto.

Basically, I focus on the brief history of the colonialism period and talk about how Yu-GwanSun was a prominent activist that fought for the country. She dedicated her life to fight for not her freedom, but the general people’s freedom. She watched so many of her loved ones die in front of her eyes, but she never stopped rallying because of the love she had for Korea. In the end, she died of extreme torture and yet in her last breathe, she said, “Japan should fall”.

I chose to talk about her because I really respect what she did for the country despite being a high school student. She was an amazing person and should be known to others for who she was and how she lived.

CulturalProject.pdf

<Confucianism Ideals>

Despite the implementation of Westernized ideals in Korean society, confucius teachings are still prominent today. Confucius was a Chinese philosopher whose teachings were spread throughout all of East Asia, including Korea. His emphasis on familial structures and respect for elders is greatly instilled.   

With people who are older, higher up in position, and higher up in education status, the honorific form has to be used. It is extremely rude if the form is not used. If one does not know whether or not use the honorific form, it should be used as default. Also, bowing is a habitual greeting that should be done upon people who are older, etc.

Furthermore, Koreans tend to look upon family as a strong support group. Even if one is far away from the family, there should still be some form of contact. In addition, children are pushed to take care of their parents when the parents are older. Nursing homes are not as popular as Westernized places. Because the parents spent their time and money on the children, the children are expected to reciprocate the gestures.

Despite being a Korean person who grew up in America, my parents have taught me the same ideals of respect and familial support. Thus, when I was in middle school, I would accidently bow to my American teachers once in a while!

Source: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20120213001231

Because I wanted to practice my writing, I asked my language partner to give me prompts to answer. I would write as much as I could about the prompts and my partner would fix the mistakes that I had in my spelling.
This helped me convey what I was thinking on paper. I never write in Korean because I never have to, so my spelling is my weakest point. Attached are pictures of some of the writing that I had done.

Artifact4.pdf

The past two weeks, I decided to watch a drama to further my learning process of listening and comprehension skills. Usually, when I watch a drama, I tend to read the English subtitles because I can not check up with what is going on. I looked up on Google for a popular drama, and found that Descendants of the Sun was the top drama on many people’s list (it was on Netflix). Thus, I began watching the drama and only turning on subtitles, when I did not understand what was being said. This allowed me to immerse myself in the language without having subtitles as a default.

The only downside to is that the subtitles can be wrong sometimes so I did not just focus on the subtitles for translation but I also utilized Naver to translate the words/phrases I had trouble on.    

I think that this is a good way to strengthen one’s listening and comprehension skills because when learning a language, consistently listening to it is a strong way to understanding it.

My parents sometimes bring up the past about Japanese colonialism and how horrible it was for the people in Korea. They would talk about this matter when they watch the news and conflicts between Japan and Korea come about. At first, I did not know much about what happened in Korea because we are not taught of this matter in the US. Thus, I decided to look into the history of Korea, to understand what my parents were always talking about.

<Japanese Imperialism in Korea (1910-1945)>

The annexation of Korea happened on 1910 when a Treaty of Annexation was signed. This was the start of extreme oppression of the people. Many people were killed and tortured, and the culture was taken away from the people. Speaking Korean was not allowed, using Korean currency was not allowed, and going to school was not allowed. Basically, people’s freedom was taken away. The most saddest parts were when people’s bodies were being used as weapon testers and women were being sexually violated (they were called “comfort women” by the Japanese). Even today, the Koreans mourn for the deaths of so many people and have strong emotions about the past because the Japanese government never officially apologized for the tragic event. Today, the national holiday, March 1st Independence Day, is one of the most important day because it signifies the time where people were finally free from the horrid persecution.  

Sources: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-worldhistory/chapter/the-koreas/

http://international.ucla.edu/institute/article/18447

Artifact3.2.PNG Artifact3.1.PNG

Because I wanted to practice my texting and spelling skills in Korean, I made a group chat on Kakaotalk with my family and individually texted my mom for practice. Because it was her birthday, I wanted to buy her a gift so I texted her a lot to ask her what she exactly wanted. Also I texted her because I thought that she did not receive her gift, I was anxious.

The screenshot of the conversation with my family was due to my sister sending a picture of what she cooked.

Attached are two pictures that are screenshots of the conversations. I did not screenshot more because some of the messages were private.