Attached is the PowerPoint from my Swedish presentation on Dating and Marriage.
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This semester I personally tried to focus on reading and writing as well. I tried to read at least an article a day in Swedish in order to get a better feel for vocabulary, grammar, etc. It is especially helpful if I'm reading an article in Swedish and it's about something I already read in English. This way I can accumulate more words because I understand in what context they're being used. In these assignments I read articles in Swedish, translated them into English, and then resummarized them in Swedish. This was a particularly helpful process because it forced me to really understand what the article was saying and then reiterate the vocabulary words I'd just learned in Swedish. All the while paying close attention to proper grammar usage.
This semester we tried to focus more on listening and speaking, rather than just accumulating new vocabulary words. This process was really helpful because it forces me to get the gist of what a speaker is saying. At the same time I tried to practice listening to youtube clips of Swedes speaking and then slowing them down/repeating them until I could understand what words they were using. It also helped with understanding grammar and how sentences should sound.
For my culture presentation I talked about Swedish dating and marriage culture. It's really different from the U.S. to say the least! For the most part Swedes don't really date the way Americans do. They certainly don't ask strangers out on dates! Swedes also aren't big into marriage. They have very committed relationships but don't necessarily value signing a document that says to the world that you're married. It is also much more common for Swedes to live together and not be married. The term "sambo" is used for a partner that you've lived with for a long time but aren't necessarily married to. There is definitely no social stigma about being an old maid, not being married, or having a baby out of wedlock in Sweden. Also, Swedes tend to be older when they settle down and get into these long, committed relationships so younger Swedes in their 20s and even late 30s are unlikely to even be on a boyfriend/girlfriend basis.
Swedes also express love in very different ways from Americans. For instance, my boyfriend's family doesn't say I love you! They say "puss och kram" which means kiss and hug. It means the same thing for them, they just don't like to say "jag älskar dig", which is their phrase for I love you. Understanding this part of their culture has been important not just so that I can understand their language, but also so that I can bridge the cultural gaps in my relationship! Sure, it's nice that I know the phrase puss och kram so I can say it to my boyfriend and his family members. But it's even more important that I understand that his family doesn't use the phrase I love you so it isn't natural for him to use it in English per se.
As the semester comes to a close I feel much more confident in my Swedish speaking and listening abilities, especially. Louise, Malory and I had dinner with Louise's brother Fredric and we practiced interview questions on him. I was happy to see how much I understood of his answers and my ability to get the gist of what a Swede is saying even if I can't identify every single word. I think it's important to not get hung up on that one word you didn't understand and just let your ears keep listening. We've also been practicing a lot more with listening and having conversations so for instance Louise will say something in Swedish and we will have to understand what she said and respond. It's helpful because now I feel confident that I could carry on somewhat of a conversation with a Swede.
However, I do feel like we are at another critical juncture where we know a lot but that also means that we realize how much we don't know. I find myself struggling to talk around what I want to say because there are words missing from my vocabulary. Even still, I think just practicing with Louise and attempting to communicate our thoughts/feelings is a great step. I feel pretty well prepared for our final just because we have learned so much this year and it will be fun to show it off.
The last half of the semester, I focused on learning numbers, learn how to order food at a restaurant, and improve my reading and writing skills.
The week we discussed numbers with my language partner, I noticed a major difference between Korean and other languages that I know. Something that is very unique to Korean is that there are two number systems: Sino-Korean and Native-Korean. The reason for the two systems is Sino-Korean is derived from the Chinese whereas Native Korean is the set of numbers which originate from Hangul. However, we only learned the Sino-Korean numbers. The was Sun taught us is through repetition. She would say a number and then tell us to repeat after her. After doing this for several times, she told each one of us to say the numbers by ourselves. At first, it was quite difficult to remember all the numbers correctly and she would correct me every time I made a mistake. But after repeating several times, I could finally tell the numbers by myself. We also talked about the different uses of the numbers. For instance, Sino-Korean numbers are used for dates, money, minutes, seconds and counting beyond 99. Native Korean numbers are used for all other purposes. After the session with Sun, in order retain the numbers, I would try to count things in daily life using the numbers.
Next week we talked about ordering food at a restaurant. We learned how to ask for something, ask for the bill, and say how many people we are. We learned this in the form of a dialogue with Sun. She wrote the sentences in Hangul and at first asked to read them, in order to practice our reading skills. If we made a mistake she would correct us immediately. Then we would say the sentences in form of a dialogue, where Sun would be the waitress and we would be the customer. After that we would reverse the roles. After the meeting with Sun, Gargi and I would practice the dialogues on our own ti make sure that we remember it, sometimes we would also record our dialogues to make sure that we sound ok.
In order to improve my reading skills, the strategy I have been using is that I would try to read the lyrics of the Korean songs I am very familiar with. Since I already knew what the words should sound like, it was easy for me to identify my own mistakes. Also, as I read the words, I would pay attention to the writing styles. As a result, it also helped me in writing as I would know where to place the consonants and vowels.
On one of the weekly sessions with Sun, we did a dialogue on how ask a guy out in Korean. It was a very fun activity and although I would hardly actually use, as I have intention of asking any Korean guy out, in the course of the dialogue, we learned several useful phrases such as "I am busy" (Jo babbayo), Excuse me (chogiyo), what to say when confused (chogi, keugae). These are the things that I could easily incorporate in my daily conversations with people. As a result, they were very easy for me to retain.
In order to remember the vocabulary that I learned every week, I would practice a little every week, usually by associating pictures to their corresponding words, for not only the new words but also for the vocabulary from previous weeks.
Overall, I felt that although I was not learning as much as I had initially planned on learning, I was still satisfied because I felt that whatever I learned, I learned very thoroughly.
In my third artifact, I made a learning activity. This was a quick quiz game that Emily set up. It was really hard but a very useful learning tool. Basically, she wrote down some words in Hebrew that I needed to define in english, and some words in english that I needed to translate to Hebrew.
This was a good activity because it used my reading skills, my translation skills, and much more. It made me think it both Hebrew and English which is hard but good.
Emily and I did a lot of activities like this, similar to my quizzes but where I was responsible for translating between Hebrew and English. These proved very valuable as they increased my ability to switch between the two languages.
My first learning artifact was a quiz that Emily and I did. It proved to be a very effective tool throughout the semester in documenting my learning. Last semester, I didn't really do quizzes, as I didn't feel I was ready for them. Now, however, it was a great way to document my vocabulary and my learning of words and phrases. Emily and I made a deal that if I got above 80% on all of them, I would get a prize at the end of the semester, and I did! Still waiting to find out what my prize is :)
Quizzes are good because they just hold you accountable for what you have learned. They are a good way to mark progress and to make sure you are studying. During the second semester, when I had less frequent quizzes, I definitely did not study as carefully.
I learned a lot from the cultural presentations. My favorites were the one on sexuality in Korea and the one on Korean food. I have never found myself particularly fascinated with Korean culture, but it seemed really interesting from the presentations!
The sexuality presentation was interesting because it shows how far behind the United States other countries are in their acceptance of LGBTQ rights and general awareness. Some say that the US has a long way to go - and it does - but compared to a lot of the world, we are doing pretty well. I thought the gender-bending movies were fascinating and I like the concept of a gender-bending main character, I just wish it didn't have to demean homosexuality in the process.
I also liked the presentation on Korean food. I like how she tied together the cultural and anthropological reasons for the different foods that are consumed. Plus, I love Korean food - we have a great Korean restaurant in my town and so I found myself familiar with the dishes she was talking about which was really cool!
I want to talk more about food in Israel, some of the things that I didn't detail in my cultural project. I want to talk about the specific types of food they have in Israel.
First of all, I want to talk about the coffee chain Aroma. It is the most incredible thing in the world. It is like starbucks here, it is everywhere and very popular. They also serve lunch too. They have pastries, amazing frozen coffee drinks, great sandwiches.. it is incredible! "Iced Coffee" in Israel is different than it is here, it doesn't have pieces of ice in it, it is frozen and blended. So amazingly good. They also (in fitting with the keeping kosher feel) have a lot of vegetarian options for lunch. I had a cucumber and tomato and cream cheese sandwich that was so good. My mouth is watering remembering it!
Another very popular thing in Israel is salad. They serve salad allllllll the time. Whether it is for breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc, it is always at the meal. Salad in Israel is different - there is usually no lettuce, it is just julienned vegetables in some kind of vinegrette. It actually is kind of gross in the mornings.
Finally, in Israel they eat a lot of meat. Meat is served everywhere - on the streets, in fancy restaurants, etc. One of the best kinds of meats is schwarma. Schwarma is a giant spit of meat that is constantly cooking on the street and then when you order it, they shave off a portion for you and put it in pita with other accompaniments. Schwarma is delicious and speaks, I think, to the overall nature of Israeli food. It is not bland, it is all culturally influenced, and it is so good!
In Israel, the military plays a much more important part of culture than it does in the United States. In the US, we talk about how proud we are of our soldiers, how common it is to display patriotism, etc. However, I believe that we just talk the talk. In Israel, they really walk the walk. They are a beautiful example of a country that has been totally defined by their military, almost as much as they are defined by their Judaism. The military in Israel is life for so many.
Because every student has to go into the military before they go into college, the general public perception of the military as an institution is really high. One of my friends said to me that there is no point in hating something that you have to do, and I think this is a common attitude there. People are placed in different branches of the military after a test, and different branches demand higher scores. Some branches demand 3 years of service or more, while others are less. The military is set up to have something that appeals to everyone. And goodness knows they need the help.
In Israel, they are constantly under threat from some neighboring nation. I believe that this affects the country's culture at a very basic level. They constantly live in fear of an attack, which makes them more ready to pick up and bear arms themselves. This makes sense, because they understand how real the necessity of having an army is. In the United States, we are never really under threat. We get to fight because we want to, because we think there is an ideal worth defending somewhere else. Israel doesn't have that privilege. And this has so changed the country.
Food (what I am doing my cultural project on) in Israel is very important for several reasons, but what I want to talk about today is the way it divides the orthodox from the secular. In Orthodox Judaism, there are very strict codes about what can be eaten. No milk and meat together, no shellfish, no pork, etc. In Israel, much of the country adheres to these standards: some because they want to (the Orthodox) and some because they have to (the secular). What I mean by that is that it is difficult to find food that isn't Kosher. Because the small minority of Orthodox Jews have so much control and power in the country, one of the things they have managed to influence is the food available.
During my time in Israel, I don't think I ever saw "traif" (pork or shellfish) available to eat. At McDonald's, the recipe for chicken nuggets is different than in the US because the coating for the nuggets has to be made without dairy. Fast food restaurants have two entrances - one that goes for a kitchen that cooks meat, and one that goes with a kitchen that cooks dairy. It is so fascinating to me that this small percentage of the population that is Orthodox has managed to control the entire food culture of Israel. It's impressive really!
The secular portion of the population says that it is possible to find traif foods, just difficult. I never saw it when I was there but I'm sure it exists! Israel has some very delicious foods. But it is just fascinating to me that the religious culture of a country can so dramatically impact other important aspects of culture such as food. In Israel, there is often political tension between the ultra-Orthodox and the secular majority of the country. I think that a lot of this has to do with issues such as food, where the small orthodox minority has managed to make changes that affect everyone.
We did the same conversation but with the roles reversed. I am the boy and Gargi is the girl.
After reading the article, "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter," there are some things that I agree on, but there are other things that I am skeptical about.
I do not believe that being a bilingual directly makes someone smarter. Intelligence, in my opinion, is too difficult to measure. A carpenter, in educational terms, may seem unintelligent when compared to a scholar. However, when asked to build something in real-life, the carpenter may be able to build something better through experience. The scholar may know all the rules and physics to build to "perfect" system, but sometimes math does not consider all the variables (e.g. physics students are often given a questions that tell you to consider the problem in a frictionless environment to make the problem easier to solve). I know personally multiple people that are monolingual that are able to tackle situations better than I, a bilingual, can, and I know multiple people that are bilingual that are "smarter" than I am. From my experience learning in a math and chemistry statistics class, I know that statistics should be taken seriously, and all sources should be examined closely in the case that numbers, graphs, or charts are skewed to fit one's argument. Even though several studies are cited to support how bilinguals are smart, I do not believe that it necessarily makes them smarter than monolinguals.
I do, however, support that being bilingual may help battle Alzheimer's disease. Being bilingual may help keep more parts of the brain active in order to prevent the disease. Being bilingual may help one learn information more efficiently, such as a new language. For example, Japanese and Korean share some of the same words as Chinese words; however, the example where the 2009 study with Agnes Kovacs talking about how the bilingual baby was able to adapt better than the monolingual may raise skepticism. Everyone learns differently. One baby may be a more visual learner, where another requires repetition and audio aid.
The article raises interesting thoughts, but should be taken with a grain of salt.
This is a conversation between Gargi and I in which a girl (me) is asking a boy out (Gargi)
This article gave me a new viewpoint on how languages can be maintained. In the case of the survival of Siletz Dee-ni, I found it fascinating and impressive that these people, who total to only five speakers left, have managed to create an online library to preserve the language. This reminds me of how Chinese has changed so much in the recent years. The article talks about how English, Spanish, and Mandarin are the "sweepstakes winners," but does not mention what happened to Chinese when Mandarin came into the mainstream. Simplified Chinese was created recently, and all Chinese-speaking countries were encouraged to abandon Traditional Chinese for the simplified version. China has fully adapted the Chinese language now and is pressuring others such as Taiwan to adapt the language. If Taiwan were to make the move, Traditional Chinese would be lost. This is a scary thought, as the majority of Chinese-speaking friends my age cannot read Traditional Chinese anymore and can only read Simplified. Even myself, I can crudely read traditional Chinese and can barely speak the language. I can understand the language, but I have difficulty speaking it.
Languages are not only lost from shifts in power, but from the immigration of families to other countries, for example Asian-Americans. Most Asian-Americans can only speak their mother language, and cannot write any of it. Imagine what would happen to their next generation of children, where the parents grew up speaking Chinese to their parents, but in general spoke English 90% of the time with friends and co-workers. Languages can be lost through the Westernization of cultures and I believe that all speakers of different languages should follow the example of the Siletz Dee-ni to preserve the language. If I had a database for learning Taiwanese online, it would be a great benefit to me in preserving my ancestry and culture.
Korean right now, is still popular enough to maintain itself as a language, but other languages should look to creating an online database.
Being bilingual myself (in Hindi and English), it was interesting to read this article. I had always felt like being bilingual provided me with more opportunities and experiences but had never thought that bilingual people can actually have better brain development. But the reasons given in the article to support their statement did make sense. For example, when I hang up after talking to my parents on the phone in Hindi, I have to suddenly switch back to English. It was harder in the beginning, but now with practice it comes naturally. English and Hindi are very different from each other, whether in terms of grammar rules or speaking styles. Therefore, I agree with their argument that bilingualism exercises the brain and its cognitive functions. Korean will be the third language I am learning, and even though I am far from having a trilingual status, I can understand the article's points about the improvement of the brain's executive function and the heightened observation of environment. Since Azmain is older than me, I have been calling her Unnie (Korean term for a female to address an older female) for quite a while now. It is getting more and more difficult day by day to not call her that while sitting with our non-Korean speaking friends. Also, it is difficult to get my brain to stop thinking in English while studying Korean. In the beginning I would write down romanized versions of Korean in order to better my pronunciation and remember sentences and words, but now I have started to use only Hangul to prevent the mix up of the two languages. Also, especially during my vocabulary development period, I am extra aware of my surroundings in case I find something I can say in Korean, and practicing that in real life helps in retention of knowledge.
I was having difficulty learning how to tell time in Korean, so I created a learning activity to teach another peer how to tell time.
The outline in the activity involves first establishing the structure of telling time. You must have morning/afternoon, the hour, and then the minute. The hour is counted with the native Korean numbers and the minute is counted by Sino-Korean numbers.
I explained this activity to a non-Korean language learner as well as a peer in the same language (Christy). I believe that this activity helped everyone. It was difficult to remember all of the numbers, especially the native Korean words, which seemed to not follow a specific trend like Sino-Korean did, but if there was anything to take away from the activity, everyone learned the structure of telling time. If we were given a chart of the native- and Sino- Korean numbers, we would be able to tell time with proper structure.
Because telling time was also a difficulty for me, this can also be treated as an artifact (#5).
- The task I was working on was learning how to tell time better. I was having difficulty remembering the structure as well as all of the numbers. Knowing all of the Hangeul/native Korean numbers was difficult and frustrating because I could not find a specific trend or pattern to remember those numbers.
- I strategy I used to better learn was to use this opportunity to combine an artifact with a learning activity. I figured that if I could explain the structure to another person, it would help me to learn better.
- Overall, I believe that it was much better than simply reading off of a textbook. The first attempt using that strategy was ineffective. With this new strategy of creating a learning activity to teach someone else, I found it much more effective.
- In the short term, I want to be able to tell time with the aid of a chart with all of the numbers. In the long-term, I want to be able to tell time without the aid of a number chart. For now, I need to use the chart because there are two separate numbers systems used just to tell time.
Note: I thought I had posted this previously, but could not find it in my blog posts, so I am posting it again.
From my preliminary research on possible resources the library can offer, I found several:
1: Mango Languages
I believe that this resource will be useful for me to learn Korean. It is a language learning application for the phone that offers one several phrases with audio to help with pronunciation. I like how it offers multiple lessons to the student to be able to learn phrases, sentences, and grammar for several topics. However, it is missing some foundational things such as the Korean alphabet and basic numbers. Because of this I am suggesting...
2. Hangeul101, a phone application that offers Korean alphabet and basic numbers.
3. I found a Korean textbook online that is free and offers just as much as a full textbook for any other language.
I am new to Korean, and our school does not have many resources, so I am suggesting this as another learning source. It has hundreds of pages that I will use to create self-guided lessons.
