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SDLAP 111: Bi-weekly Post #2

Second Bi-weekly Post

  1. 1.       Simple words
    1. Basic words without matras
    2. Learn 20 new words
    3. “Culture Talk”

                      i.      Ask questions about Indian culture and have a cultural conversation utilizing basic Hindi words

  1. 2.       Simple words
    1. Words with matras
    2. Learn 20 new words
    3. “Culture Talk”

                   i.      Ask questions about Indian culture and have a cultural conversation utilizing basic Hindi words

This week, Sanya and I started our meeting with a primary conversation in Hindi. I was surprised by how comfortable I have become with the language. We introduced each other and talked about how our days had been. Sanya and I also discussed what we had done throughout the course of the day.

After this, we jumped right in to the writing portion of our meeting. Usually, when Sanya and I met, I always wrote the Hindi vowels and consonants in order. I proceeded to do the same this meeting as well. However, Sanya stopped me and instead encouraged me to only write the alphabets that she would tell me. In doing so, we broke up the order of the alphabets. In many ways, my brain was used to receiving the new information in one particular format.

After changing the alphabets, Sanya told me that I did fairly well. I only missed 2 out of 45 Hindi alphabets.  This was a milestone for me. I finally became fully comfortable with the language I was used to hearing. There on after, Sanya provided me with basic words and I was able to spell them. I spelled the following words:

 1.            सङक - Road

2.            कमर - Back

3.            कलम - Pencil/Pen

4.            गरम - Hot

5.            पकड - Hold

6.            नमक - Salt

7.            मटर - Peas

8.            पवन - Air

9.            नरम - Soft

10.          असर - Effect

11.          समय़ - Time

12.          सरल - Easy

13.          छत - Terrace

14.          शहद - Honey

15.          दल - Group/Team

16.          बतख - Duck

17.          खतम - Finish

18.          नकल - Copy

19.          पकड - Catch

20.          शहर - City

21.          तरह - Different

22.          चढ़ - Climb

23.          भवन - Building

24.          जगत - world

25.          नल - Tap (Bathroom tap)

26.          भर - To fill

27.          ख़त - Letter

28.          कल - Tomorrow or Yesterday

29.          चल - to walk

30.          पर - on

Overall, I learned a lot from my interactions with Sanya. I practice the words listed above regularly and the repetition has helped me memorize the words!

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SDLAP 111: Bi-weekly Post #1

First Bi-weekly Post

  1. 1.       Learning Plan
    1. Work on the learning plan with my language partner
    2. 2.       Alphabet
      1. Revise the alphabet
      2. “Culture Talk”

                               i. Ask questions about Indian culture and have a cultural conversation utilizing basic Hindi words

During my first meeting with my language partner, we developed a learning plan. Last year, I learned how to communicate in Hindi and I was able to grasp the Hindi alphabet. The Hindi alphabet is divided into vowels, consonants and matras. There are a total of 33 consonants and 12 vowels. The matras are the same as the vowels, however, unlike the vowels; they can be combined with the consonants to change the pronunciation.  For example, the consonant pa added with the matra sound aa becomes paa.

After our revision of last semester, my language partner and I evaluated my performance. Overall, Sanya was pleased with my growth and level of comfort with Hindi. Here on out, we set out to build a learning plan that would fit my needs in learning Hindi.

This semester, I would like to focus my attention on learning how to write in Hindi. My goal is to start writing basic Hindi words without matras. When I master that, I would like to learn more complex words that use matras. I am hoping to read on a second grade level by the end of this semester. I will be asking my language partner to write/find online short stories for me. As far as writing is concerned, my primary focus is learning how to spell as many words as possible. By the end of the semester, I am hoping to learn how to write short sentences.

As of now, I believe that my goals are realistic and attainable. Therefore, I am excited and look forward to a great semester. 

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SDLAP 111: Artifact #3

Over the course of the semester, I have been focusing my attention on writing. Overall, I am happy with my progress. However, I was having a tough time with the ई and उ matras. Therefore, I asked my language partner to provide me with words that utilized those matras. 

In this artifact, I wrote out the words with  ई and उ matras.

Artifact%20%233.jpg

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SDLC 111 Last Post: Weeks 14

Week 14: Fifth Cultural Post

For my last cultural post, I would like to summarize what I have learned about the Korean culture. Korean people put a huge emphasis on hierarchy. When learning the language, I also learned that the degree of formality matters a lot. I should be aware of this so I do not offend anyone if I were to converse with someone in Korea in the future. My main focus this semester for the cultural aspect was the idea of beauty in South Korea as mentioned in my previous posts. The whole society is influenced by media and celebrities. The norms of the society seem to play a big role in people's everyday life. People including younger children are criticized by their own parents for not being beautiful and for not being born with double eyelids. People are considered blessed and lucky if they were born with "ssangkopul" because they are saving themselves money by not having to go under the knife to obtain double eyelids. This is just something they have to learn to live with and most of the people in this society has already gotten used to the critical comments from family members and society itself. Girls see k-pop stars on television and on ads around the city and dream about looking like them one day. Parents reward their children's academic success with presents which is agreeing to pay for a cosmetic surgery. I think it's sad that these children's motivation to succeed is to go get surgery done to look more beautiful to fit into society. Overall, this was such an interesting topic to learn about and I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself with the facts and research I found online!

Final reflection:

This semester has gone much better than the preceding semester since it was structured better and we had a good set of materials to guide us along with the learning process. I am glad that I chose Korean as my target language although learning Bosnian would have also been interesting as well as challenging. I truly enjoyed learning more about the culture of Korea and how it connects to the language. I want to keep practicing what I have learned for the past two semesters so I won't forget anything. It's really fun to show off what little skill I have to my Korean friends. Often they are amazed at my pronunciation and applaud me for doing a great job. I am happy to have had this opportunity to take this class and self direct myself to learn Korean with the help of my partner. 

Cultural Project:

Cultural Presentation: Beauty in Korea

This presentation is on the idea or image of beauty perceived by the people in South Korea. It provides statistics and general information on what counts as beautiful and why it is necessary to become beautiful. 

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Today, the word "개뿔" came up in Episode 4 of Protect the Boss. My language partner couldn't really explain the meaning to me so I went online for some answers. No wonder it was difficult for him - it's the slang version of the  N 무슨 construction. (Which, in my rough translation, means "Noun + what is.")

 

What does "개뿔" is formed from two words: 개 (dog) + 뿔 (horn) 

It means 'something unimportant or not very valuable.'

 

This is best illustrated and learned with examples.

Example 1

N + 는 무슨 construction:

A: 공부하고있니?
B: 공부무슨, TV 보고있어.

A: Are you studying? 
B: Forget studying, I'm watching TV.

For the slang version of the pattern, you use 개뿔 instead of 무슨

A: 공부하고있니?
B: 공부개뿔, TV 보고있어.

A: Are you studying? 
B: Forget studying, I'm watching TV.

However, it's incorrect to assume that 무슨 or 개뿔 mean "forget" based on example 1. 

 

Example 2

N + 는 무슨 construction:

A: 그 여자랑 잘되니?
B: 잘되기무슨, 전화도 안해.

A: Did it go well with that girl? 
B: Yeah right, she won't even call.

Slang version:

A: 그 여자랑 잘되니?
B: 잘되기는 개뿔, 전화도 안해.

A: Did it go well with that girl? 
B: Yeah right, she won't even call.

Example 2 shows that rather than having a specific translation, 무슨 and 개뿔 serve to kind of contradict the previous statement. 

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Cultural Project: Immigration in Israel

Cultural Project: Immigration in Israel

I became interested in this topic because immigration is the basis of Israel. The culture of Israel is based on the cultures of the immigrants. Regardless of what topic you may research about Israel, you will find articles discussing the influence of the Arab immigrants, Russian Immigrants, European immigrants, etc. I decided to look at the ability of immigrants to integrate in the Israeli culture.

First, I looked at the services the government offers to those immigrants and how they are utilized. I compared the poverty levels of new immigrants and Israeli citizens and the possible effect of Hebrew proficiency on poverty. My next goal was to look at the Arab Israeli minority and their status in the State of Israel. 

I found that there is a possible correlation between language and economic status in immigrants. I also found that Arabs are offered the same rights as their peer Jewish Israeli citizens. However, Arab citizens of Israel remain of a lower economic status due to different factors including discrimination and lower levels of education.

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sdlc 110 home work

.docx

write the five words in three tenses each in sentences

=15 sentences

write page 85 sentences twice replace words

= 24 sentences

vocab words relating to food: carrots, squash, lamb, cake, donuts, omelet, three minute egg, ice cream etc. 

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SDLAP 111 Bi-Weekly Report 5

The highlight of our meetings this week was learning about Milica's hometown, Bijeljina. She told me about some of the places she thought were interesting-- in Bosnian. She was so kind as to make a power point presentation about it! I've attached a copy of that below. There was a Bosnian Q&A afterwards.

BIJELJINA%20justin.pptx

I also read a book. The review is posted below too.

The%2520Muslims%2520of%2520Bosnia%5B1%5D.docx

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SDLC 111 Post #6 Weeks 12-13

Week 12: Fourth Cultural Post

This post will be dedicated to talking more about my cultural project on Korean beauty. People in South Korea have a different view of beauty. Some say that they all should seek a more "western" look by having bigger eyes. Koreans have become obsessed with altering their natural look through cosmetic surgery in order to achieve this so called western image. Seoul has a street dedicated just for plastic surgery clinics knows as the "beauty belt". The double eyelid surgery has become so common as it only takes about 20 mins for the whole procedure that to them, it does not even count as surgery anymore. One person has compared it to "putting make up on" to look pretty. I don't quite agree with that statement that going under the knife and having your eyelid cut is the same as putting make up on to enhance their natural looks. They say that beauty is also related to success. The more beautiful you are seen as, the more successful you will become. Beautiful people with big eyes, narrow nose, pale skin, and v shaped face will be more likely to find a better looking, high achieving husband and also get a better job. If ever a female was in competition with someone else for a job, the company's final decision would be based on who looks better. It's not even females anymore. The males have finally fallen to the pressure of being beautiful and are now also seeking plastic surgery to enhance their looks. So, to conclude... South Korea is the country who performs the highest number of cosmetic surgery on females, males, and not to mention the ever so perfect celebrities. 

Week 13: Sixth bi-weekly post

For these last two weeks, as the semester comes to an end, I learned the colors, how to ask how much something is, and express what I want to buy. In addition, we worked on sentence endings and different forms of when to use them. I tried to focus my attention on the more difficult part of the lesson which was the sentence endings. In order to learn this, I just had to memorize the rules of which form follows which word endings. Learning some useful colors were a plus to this lesson. I thought it might be useful to know how to ask how much something and also to express what I want to buy. If I ever visited Korea, I would most likely go shopping so this task would be of great use if I mastered it. Of course, a lot more grammar regarding shopping would have to be memorized but the general idea of this task is helpful. I listen to dialogues and read the other dialogues on the website in order to understand and utilize the lessons. Our techniques have been effective and I hope that I am able to put everything I've learned together to show off my novice skills.

Fourth Artifact:

Artifact 4: Lesson Quiz with Correct Answers

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The NY Times article, 'Why bilinguals are smarter,' would be better titled 'why bilinguals are more efficient than their monolingual peers at multitasking.' The difficulties of defining and assessing Intelligence is already well-known (see Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences) but the article seems to skim over this fact and deems it sufficient to cite reasons, such as bilingualism improves multi-tasking abilities, brain-usage efficiency, resistance to dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, as irrefutable markers of intelligence. These are all enticing reasons to become bilingual but to conclude that it makes one smarter is misleading. Furthermore, I wonder what conclusions can/could be/are/were drawn from studies testing polyglots versus biglots and monoglots, and whether multilingualism offers more benefits than bilingualism and monolingualism.

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The NY Times article, "Tribe revives language on verge of extinction," details the efforts of the Siletz tribe to preserve their threatened language, and by extension, their culture and way of life. I found it interesting how the article concentrated on the importance of "stabilizing" a language by creating a larger pool of speakers through the use of technology. The online dictionary that one tribe member has been working on is just one important way to document their language. Instead of limiting the availability to Siletz language families, this also allows for people all around the world to have access to it, as the web hits from such places as Italy, Switzerland and Poland indicate. 

The "digital divide" is not the only bridge an endangered language must cross. There is also the generational gap to consider: "what can also bridge an ancient language's roots to younger tribe members...is that it sounds pretty cool." Certain sounds unique to the Siletz language, such as a sound one makes as if they were going to spit, prove enticing to newcomers of the language. 

The article seems to skim over its admission that a language's unique properties help its chances for survival by attracting interest. The conclusion to be drawn from the connection between a language's chance of survival and the qualities that make it attractive in the first place is that if an endangered language is not 'unique,' 'fun,' or 'interesting' enough to attract new speakers, then it may only survive through recordings, dictionaries, grammar books and history books, becoming a recorded dead language rather than a living spoken language. Though 'unique,' 'fun,' and 'interesting' are subjective categorizations that linguists tend to not use, the truth is that certain languages appeal to some people more than others. It is a cautiously optimistic portrait the article depicts for the Siletz language, but I can't help but think of those other languages that are marginalized and probably doomed to extinction, those languages not deemed as "cool" as Siletz. 

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SDLC 105 Journal #10

     "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter" made a lot of sense to me. When I've read before about how in the past people tried to get bilingual kids to stop speaking their second language, it always seemed illogical. Because the brain is using its executive function to multitask between languages, it is improving cognitive skills and opening up new pathways of thought. I know some other languages, but I really wish I had been fluently bilingual in something from childhood! In addition to the cognitive benefits of bilingualism for people, exposing children to a second language opens them up to a whole other culture. With this appreciation for differences and greater understanding of the world, children become more culturally intelligent as well. I remember my first experience learning a language other than English--when I was really little I was playing with plastic food items and my mom taught me their names in French (she had taken it in school). Even though I was very young I still remember some of those names and how interested I was in discovering something new. It was definitely easier to learn a second language as a child. When I lived in Italy in elementary school I picked up the language much more rapidly than I did when I went back to study abroad. Nevertheless, I thought it was really interesting in the article when it said that learning a second language has cognitive and health benefits for adults and even for the elderly. It gives me hope to keep striving to become bilingual!

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