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Overall this was a pretty good week. We reviewed some particles and learned more conjunctions this week. This will be extremely helpful as I seek to use them in sentences in the future. I really just need to study these on my own now to internalize these linking words. Also we did some more work with pronunciation.
We did not get to our reading assignment this week because we were getting caught up with the other assignments.
Of course that seems like a silly question to ask in the Western World where people understand and remember the horrendous time of the Holocaust. There is no doubt to accept that the Holocaust is real with such concentration camps like Auschwitz, in Poland, still standing to remind people of the past in order to avoid such a horrible future. Unfortunately, despite how real the Holocaust was, certain groups of people in the Middle East refuse to believe that the Holocaust was in fact real. This false belief began in the 70’s when a German born Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, published a four page paper entitled “The West War, and Islam” and sent the paper to several heads of Middle Eastern Countries. From that time on this ridiculous belief has grown. Today, we have the Iranian President Ahmadinejad constantly denying the existence of the Holocaust. How can such a smart man that is capable, or at least believed to be capable of running a country hold such a belief? Does he not understand history or is he just being blind with hatred? I am not Jewish, but it is despicable that there are people running countries that preach such hatred, does the world not remember Hitler?
To make matters worse the Union of Arab Workers went on strike because the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East was planning on placing the Holocaust in children’s elementary books. The strikers wanted to erase this history because they wanted to teach students about the Right of Return to coincide with UNRWA’s war curriculum. The five areas that this teaching will occur in is Jordan, Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, and Syria. Political organizations such as Hamas have shown strong support in following these teachings which only makes it harder to correct these false beliefs. This problem will only get worse and is something that will not go quietly in to the night until someone educates these people.
Within the document above is a table I made to help me practice with verb conjugations. This table is based on the notes we took in class and the verb "Khondan," or "to read." I took the verb conjugation table and applied it to the verb "Khondan" in order to form simple sentences describing different people reading. The red endings of the words correspond to the part of the verb that is changed based on the conjugation rules.
Two of the presentations that I have really enjoyed so far were the presentations about Chawalas (tea stands) in Bangladesh and the presentation about Turkish baths. While most of us have to do research outside of the culture we are studying, these two presentations brought in cultural aspects that the students had acquired while in the countries themselves.
The videos that Andrew showed not only gave us a glimpse of what Chawalas really looked like, but they also brought the culture alive. It was interesting to see the things he talked about in his presentation actually occuring at the tea stand. An example of this is the tea stands serving as a kind of public forum. Although the focus of the videos was not directly on the public surrounding the tea stand, you could tell form the people standing around, and the noise in the immediate area, that the tea stand really did serve as a cultural meeting place.
I also thought it was interesting that the men who serve the tea work incredibly long hours and even though they are considered part of the lower class, they are not looked down upon by upper class members of society. In fact, Andrew said they were considered very trustworthy. I think Andrew's presentation was unique in that he was able to bring a personal/human aspect to the project that many other students have had the opportunity to do.
The presentation on the Turkish baths was very intersting. When I saw the way the baths were set up, I immediately thought of the Spanish / Moorish fortress the Alhambra. Within this fortress there are very similar baths. This is because the south of Spain was dominated by Moorish influence for a long period of time and still retains much of that heritage.
I learned that these baths were not only used for personal hygiene but also for social life. I found it very interesting that women would go to the baths to size up other women and determine whether they were fitting wives for their grandsons, sons, or brothers. So far these presentations have been really interesting and informative.
Over the past few weeks Maroof and I have been reviewing and working on new lesson specific vocabulary. I think I missed a post last week so I'll talk about what we did then. We started working on vocabulary to use in an airport including buying tickets, presenting a passport and finding a taxi after landing. Maroof has also been helping me with any grammar questions I might have. For instance, we were going back over family vocabulary and we began creating sentences out of that vocabulary to describe our family members. Over the next week or so, I plan to begin studying for the exam and ask Maroof any questions I might have.
I have been listening to the BBC farsi podcasts, but I still haven't had much time to work on Rosetta Stone because of my other school work. I have also been trying to memorize more vocabulary and make myself more familiar with normal sentence structure, especially in responding to questions.
While I watching youtube videos to learn more about Birthright, I stumbled upon an odd trend related to Hebrew music. They love listening to music that is rather dance oriented. I looked in to popular music in Israel today and I found one particular group that I really liked listening too. Their name is Shotei Ha’nevua or “The Fools of Prophecy.” Shotei Ha’nevua is an Israeli musical group that was named as Israel’s band of the year in 2005. They described their music as a mixture of reggae with hip hop and dance music, under the direction of some eastern Mediterranian flare. One particular song I like is Ein Ani, that I will provide a youtube link on my wall so that you may enjoy it as well. The music you hear created from the group is happy and fun despite being able to understand all of the Hebrew lyrics. Although I love listening to Shotei Ha’nevua they are not the only Israeli group that plays this type of music. Other groups you might be interested in listening to is the High Windows and Eviatar Banai. Unfortunately the groups egos got to big as is the case with many musical groups and they broke up in 2007. The lead singer Avraham Tal went on to do a solo career and the other two members Gilad Vital and Roi Levi continued to play together under the name of Pshutei Ha’am or the Simple People. If you like listening to fun energetic music check out my favorite song by Shotei Ha’nevua right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr4klMWTRAM
I have always found accents and dialects very interesting and have always tried to guess where people are from based on the way they speak. I may find this so interesting because I, myself have a dreaded New Jersey accent. As I don't find it to be that prominent, when I came to college I found that there was a definite difference in the way I pronounced some words as compared to my roommate from Connecticut. I believe also that dialects can lead to a lot of pre concieved notions about someone that are ususally false.
The biggest mistake I believe that is made when talking about dialects are the assumptions that are made about someone simply determined by their accent. I will admit that before I came to Richmond the only exposure I had to people who spoke with a southern twang was on television. This was obviously not the best thing, because of the stereotypes that are portrayed that ususally go along with such an accent. Not all southern people go hunting on the weekends and have 4 teeth. Now obviously I was more intelligent than to think that this was actually the case, but in the way people are portrayed through the media one may be misled.
I think accents are important because they are part of who we are as people. The easiest way to recognize someone, after their physical appearance is by their voice. For example if you call a number hoping to talk to a friend, simply by hearing the person on the other line say hello, one can usually recognize if they have reached the right person or not. This however can lead to errors as well. It is important not to judge someone you are meeting for the first time simply by their appearance or the sound of their voice. However it is human nature to relate something unfamiliar to something familiar and therefore avoiding prejudice can sometimes be very difficult.
I know that there are a few presentations left in the class but we were told to reflect on one so I would like to reflect on/ praise Caroline Vincent's presentation. While the food was delicious, and certainly a crowd pleaser, her presentation was excellent and very informative. I really enjoyed learning about the bath houses in Turkey, and the history behind them. Learning how a woman had the right, something they are deprived of in several countries, to divorce her husband if she was denied privileges to go to a bath house was fascinating. I think as Americans we take our basic rights for granted, and when this right was granted to Turkish women so long ago, that was a step in the right direction. In addition, Caroline did a great job of incorporating Turkish into her presentation, while she was a little hesitant at first, she did a great job. She incorporated the words in a logically and consistently throughout the presentation. I have no idea if she pronounced words correctly, but she delivered them with confidence, and that is what matters in a presentation. She had great eye contact throughout the entire slideshow and spoke at a steady pace. I also enjoyed learning about how Turkish baths have remained and how they have influenced other spas and bath houses in modern day all over the world. I have not been to a Turkish bath but after Caroline's description of the treatments and cleansing, I would love to go to one!
I look forward to seeing the rest of the presentations today and learning about other languages and cultures!
The presenatations I got to see today were very interesting because they reflect all the effect put in through the semester. It was very interesting to learn about other cultures. I have to say I loved the turkish food. I also found very interesting teh presentation on the tea because its such a different concept of what we are used to, how much work they put in to sell tea around 16 hours a day and they just earn around 7 US dollars. Also the fact that people live in such conditions is very sad. What I found msot interesting about doing this presentation was that in my personal experience I learned words in persian that I would have never learned before even as I was learning the language. The terms like Parseh or the mythological figure of Jamshid including the Iranian New year word, "Nowruz". I really enjoyed the presentation about the hamam because it reminded me alo about the roman baths, being a center of social and political gatherings.
This week I worked on learning the different parts of the body. I have completed most of my other language tasks, and so as a group we decided to learn each others' personal goals as well and one students was to learn body parts.
I thought that the body parts would be a lot more difficult to learn than they actually were. In fact, I sort of felt like a little kid again, studying my cartoon figure with the names listed. One part that was especially easy was the fact that there is not a specific word for "toes", in Farsi it's just the same word that is used for fingers.
As I mention in my cultural post, I've really enjoyed watching the other students give their cultural presentation. Often in class, we'll discuss our language progress and so we hear small bits about what the other students have been studying, but these cultural projects have really allowed me to actually learn more about what the other students are doing.
This is the link to my Culture Project about Christianity in Iran.
Minority_Religions_in_Iran.pptx
Also, here is the link to my Learning Plan. Looking back on these goals, I realize that I did not do a very good job of maintaining the weekly progress that I would have liked. This is especially true with Rosetta Stone and listening to the Farsi Podcasts. The good news is that with continued practice, by the end of the semester I should be able to consider myself a "Beginner 1" on the "Levels of Competence Scale." I say this because we have gone through pretty much all of the material I need in order to verbally express myself and write at the "Beginner 1" level. I will just need to review.
Through conducting research on my Cultural Project I was able to learn about the Iranian government, Constituion, social structure and history. The Iranian government is based on Islamic law (Sharia law), but much of it is not codified in the constitution itself. This becomes an issue when judges make decisions appealing to aspects of Sharia law but that are inconsistent with the constitution.
The Iranian government took a turn toward becoming an Islamic state after the Revolution of 1979. Although Iran is an Islamic state, its constitution states that no person will be "taken to task" based on their religious beliefs. However, as recently as 2008 there was a motion to codify the death penalty as a punishment for apostacy, or leaving the Islamic faith. Also, although their religious rights are still protected under the Iranian constitution, about 70 Christians were captured around Christmas of 2010. This is because the Iranian government views Christianity as a western ideology and an attempt at destabilizing the religious foundation of the government.
During this project I also learned that technology has a lot to do with the influence of Christianity in Iran. Media sources such as satellite tv, the radio, and internet have greatly increased the number of converts to Christianity, thus causing more fear in the Iranian Government.
The people that are Christian in Iran must hide their faith. It is not socially acceptable to outwardly appear to be anything else other than Muslim. This brings in "baten" and "zaher" (inside and outside identities) that the Iranian culture contains. Essentially it means that Christians are Christians only in the privacy of their own homes or around their good friends, on the outside though, they are Muslim. I also learned that there are social stigma and repercussions attached to people who are not Muslim. An example of this is Mona, a woman in Iran who was refused a job by the Iranian state airline because she had never read the Koran.
When I was learning a list a of sayings and Israeli/Hebrew expressions I was somewhat surprised to find an overlap with American expressions (not cognates or borrowed words, but rather meaning).
For example Israelis use the word Achi (n. brother/bro) in the same way an American might use "bro" or "dude" especially when one cannot remember someone's name. Another similarity I found was "petzatza" (n. explosion) which is used to describe a pretty girl or something great, much like "bombshell" or "the bomb" in English. Additionally a hand signal that is cross-cultural is the signal used to say "wait" or "hold on" (which is "Rak Regah"): fingers together, facing upwards.
Other slang/sayings I learned were:
Achla (n. the real thing)
Ahalan (hello) ex: Ahalan, achi ma koreh? Hi brother, what's happening?
Ma Pitom (excl. no way!)
Fadeecha (n. An embarassing situation)
Balagan (n. a big mess)
Ya-lah (v. move on)
Ma koreh (excl. what's happening?)
For my final cultural post I am going to talk about Passover. I feel as if this is the perfect time to talk about Passover with it coming up in the next couple of weeks. In fact, I am slated to give my final presentation during Passover on April 18th. Passover has been around since the beginning of the Jewish religion. It commemorates the story in Exodus in which Moses instructed the Israelites were told to put lambs blood on the door posts of their homes so that the spirit of the Lord would pass over these homes and not kill the first born child. Of course the Israelites listened to Moses, but the Egyptians did not and their first child died in the middle of the night. This miracle was just one of the numerous events that God performed in order to convince the Pharaoh to let the Israelites have their freedom. Passover, along with Pentecost and Tabernacles, are the three pilgrimage festivals in which many Jews go on a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.
A particularly interesting thing I learned about Passover is how they remove all chametz from every dish. Chametz is any form of grain, so bread, most alcohol, corn syrup, essentially a lot of things. Some Jews are so strict with this Chametz that they have special dishes specifically used for just Passover. They keep these dishes separate so that it does not have any traces of chametz on it. In addition to that they boil the dishes in hot water to remove all traces of chametz. They even do a traditional search the night before Passover for all Chametz in the house. All chametz must be found and rid of or else it is unholy to celebrate Passover.
Since Judaism is still on a Hebrew calendar, the date of Passover is constantly changing. The day is celebrated on the 15th day of the month of Nisan. Nisan is sometime in the Spring but does not have a set date and is not transferable to say it is always on April 17th.
Hopefully all of my cultural posts have been informative and insightful. I learned plenty of things interesting things about the Hebrew language and the Jewish people in all of my culture posts and look forward to learning more in the last few weeks.
With the year winding down JT and I are approaching our final goals in the Hebrew language. This week we met with Maya and finalized the topic as to what I want to do my cultural project. As mentioned last week we brainstormed ideas and then over the past week I let those thoughts marinate as to figure out what would be my best cultural topic. I have chosen that I will do an in depth analysis of Birth Rite. I have written a brief cultural topic on it before but this time I will gather the full information. From here on out when we meet Maya will be helping me put together the project to make sure I touch on all of the important topics of interest and to make sure I apply the necessary amount of Hebrew spelled words in my presentation and paper.
In addition to finalizing the cultural topic we learned about how to describe a house from the bathroom to the garage and everything in between. Hopefully I can add these words in to my repertoire of Hebrew words.
This week Maya and I met to start thinking about the Final cultural project I have generated a list of things I can possibly work on and now I will think about it over the next week. My final three topics of interest are birth rite, the army, and the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Hopefully by next week I will have a better idea of what I want to focus on.
In addition to the cultural topic discussion I was able to record another Voki with Maya’s help this time about a weekends weather forecast. This will put me over the required amount of Voki’s hopefully exceeding class expectations. So hopefully the freshest beat off my Hebrew Meow Mixtape is pleasing to the listeners ear. Warning rain might be coming.
This week's culture post is inspired by a conversation I had with Maroof. During our individual session he brought up the movie and the book "The Kite Runner" because another one of the Farsi students (Eric) is studying the author of the book. One of the scenes in the preview is about kite flying competitions. I read the book years ago and really enjoyed it. Now I want to see what kite flying in Afghanishtan is really about.
The information used in this culture post comes from this site:
www.afghanistan-culture.com
Kite flying competitions in Afghanistan are a combination of art and sport. The competators make their own kites and the goal as to direct thier kite toward another and using its string, cut the opponent's kite loose. In doing so, you become the victor. If you find the opponent's kite after it floats down to the ground then you are considered even more victorious. An interesting fact that this article pointed out was that many people are actually hurt while chasing kites from falling off roofs. Any kites that are found around the neighborhood are considered fair game for children to use and play with. People also use the kites the find for decoration in their homes.
Prime kite flying season is in the spring, summer and fall, but fall is preferred because of the winds that move through Afghanistan. During the week, most kite flying takes place on Fridays when people are off from work.
Unfortunately, kite flying was banned while the taliban ruled Afghanistan. The sport picked back up though after the end of the Taliban's regime.
This past week Maroof and I worked on conjugating verbs in the past tense. It's actually very similar to the present tense except the words use different root forms and the ending of the third person singular form of the verb is different. We also reviewed conjugating verbs in the present tense. Now, my ability to speak in simple phrases has greatly increased and is only limited by the vocabulary I know (or rather, don't know).
At this point in the semester I have learned vocabulary for parts of the body, basic introductions and conversations, every-day items, food, basic verbs, numbers, time and family relations. Maroof has also taught me how to conjugate verbs in the simple present and simple past tenses. From here on out, Maroof and I decided to learn vocabulary and basic phrases for checking into a hotel, catching a flight at an airport, getting a taxi and ordering food at a restaurant. If we have time I might also ask him if we can work on train station vocabulary.
I have decided to do my Culture Project presentation on minority religions in Iran, especially Christianity. My interest in this arose because of the raids on Christian churches in Iran at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. I wanted to study the dynamic of Christians in an Islamic state from a legal, historical, cultural and personal point of view. While this may seem lofty, all of these categories are easily intertwined because in Iran, most things lead back to religion. In fact, studying these categories is not difficult in and of itself, but trying to separate my findings into these categories has proven to be very difficult because of the religious influence in Iran.
One language activity that I would use to teach a student Farsi would be one that included listening, speaking, writing and some form of visual aspect. The best way I have been able to learn new words this semester is through using them in Rosetta Stone so my lesson might look a lot like what Rosetta Stone does. First off, my goal would be to teach them how to describe a situation... for example "The apple is green." In order for the learner to describe this situation I would us a picture of an apple with the Farsi word "seeb" under it. I would say the word and have the learner repeat the word and then copy it down in written form. I would do the same thing with a picture ofthe color green. The focus this time would be on the color "sabz." The third word would be the verb "to be." The actual verb is "budan" but the conjugated third person singular form used for objects is "ast." I would then put the three pictures together in the form of the sentence which would look like this: Apple (Seeb) + Green (Sabz) + Is (ast). I would then have the learner read the simple sentence and using the Persian Script under the original pictures, have them write it out. I think I might try to create this as an artifact to use as a visual example of how I think it might be best to teach someone a simple phrase in Farsi.
