The article "Tribe Revives Language on the Verge of Extinction" and the related video we watched in class were really interesting to me. They made me think about the huge majority of languages that none of us know anything about! I also thought about how languages die. It's a really strange concept to think about, because a lot of major languages (like Latin or Ancient Egyptian) used to be very widely spoken but have now died out! I wonder what cultural shifts took place for that to happen. We lose a lot of culture and the benefits of the native knowledge a language may contain when languages die. On one hand, I think it's important to try to conserve languages, but on the other hand we can't save everything. It is a natural and cyclical process for languages to die out. English has changed so much over time--think about how different it was when Beowulf was written, or in Shakespeare's day--that it's practically been separate sets of languages. The video we watched also brought up some interesting questions for me. It made me think about some concepts we've been discussing in my Anthropology of Human Rights class (and I shared the video on the blog for that class!), like how it is a human right to self-identify however you want. This begs the question: do we have the right to designate a language that is dying out as important if we ourselves are not native speakers of it? It seems as if the speakers of a language aren't interested in conserving it then maybe we shouldn't force the issue--but this is a tricky subject to think about. However, I definitely agreed with Dr. Harrison's point that science takes too much of a Western perspective and should depend more upon the knowledge inherent in other cultures as well.
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This book has inspired my cultural project, which will likely be a more detailed and historical treatment of Bosnian history than my presentation last semester. A review is attached below.
Only knowing english fluently, I have always felt disadvantaged amongst my peers who knew two or more languages fluently and this article validates my feelings. Lol. I have also always wanted my children to know multiple languages so I have found that this article has reinforced my inclination to expose my children to another language at a very early age. Hopefully I'll be in a situation that allows for it to be maintained in the household. That either means I need to become fluent in a language other than english or find a partner who is bilingual and we can all learn together... within the next fifteen years.
This article has also connected with my biology class: Biological Basis of Neurodegenerative Diseases, as we have looked at Alzheimer's Disease briefly. This article indicates that the studies conducted have been between Spanish and English bilinguals. While this doesn't necessarily tie into the approach of the research studies discussed in the class, I'm curious to what kind of insight these finding may have in the field... it may change where scientists are looking within the brain in order to find the biological origins and mechanisms.
Despite how awesome it is that the Siletz community has been able to bring back their language, I cannot get over the irony of the revival in that it is in development to be taught in high school as "a foreign language in the place where it originated." This has begun to alter my previous conception of what a foreign language is. I guess since I am AMerican born and bred, and come from an English speaking household, the notion that "foreign language" denoted a language from another country served as the foundation of my understanding. I was not even conscious of this until reading this article and being forced to again recognize the extent to which the relocation and genocide of the American Natives has and continues to reach, even today.
It excites me, for reasons unbeknownst right now, that the article mentions people communicating via text in Siletz Dee-ni. The fact that the language has been incorporated into modern day activities, something as basic, to my generation at least, as texting shows some promise. Because of it, it even traverses geographical boundaries as Jen Johnson is, as indicated by the article, is located on the East coast, Pennsylvania to be specific. I hope that other languages suppressed due to colonization are able to use this model of revival to bring back or at least document the existence of their native tongues. Only time will tell though.
GRAY MATTER; Why Bilinguals Are Smarter
I have heard that babies are smarter by looking at pictures for a certain period of time. The babies that continue to look at the same picture are said to be a little slow, so bilingual babies are faster, or smarter.
tests seem to be easier for bilinguals
did you read Civilization and its Discontents? Freud says the superego is the parent that tells the id (children) what to do. Bilinguals have a better superego.
could it be because bilinguals use more of their brain. Have you heard most humans don't use their full brain capacity?
It is interesting that they tested the inhibition theory of bilingual superiority. Does this mean that bilinguals are better at creating. What is the opposite of inhibition? Creativity, right?
I wonder if this proves that children with a mother and father (or two mothers and two fathers, or two grandparents) are superior to one because they know how to speak two different ways, that every person has a distinct language.
The New York Times article, "Why Bilinguals are Smarter" is about why people knowing more than one language are apparently smarter. This is due to the cognitive ability for these individuals to switch back and forth between two languages. According to the article, because these people are able to do this from a young age, they are able to use the similar skills in their other aspects of life and academia. These individuals are thought to use their brains more due to this fact.
This is quiet interesting because America has been more interest in teaching languages in comparison to the past. The initial reason was due to globalization, but recently with this article there are other beneficial factors. With the growth of the nation alongside the growth of more immigrants coming to America with their culture, this might influence many educational systems to start teaching languages from a young age. I personally see this beneficial for a person’s future, in the sense of working, but there is also an apparent chance to stimulate a person’s mind to be more intellectual.
School was also once the enemy of tribal languages. Government boarding schools, where generations of Indian children were sent, aimed to stamp out native ways and tongues.
government can also not save language by neglect. Perhaps liberal arts education will preserve diversity?
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians now have about 4,900 enrolled members and a profitable casino in the nearby resort town of Lincoln City.
we learned in class today that languages are not just a way of life, they are survival in economic terms. It is important that the community is able to provide for their needs in order to prevent individuals from leaving.
Just as words go extinct when the behavior or object associated with it is no longer practiced, the language goes away if the people are not using the language. Language is most likely to survive when it is the only language that can be used, or when it is the most common language.
In Israel there are Jews from Russia, English speaking countries and Europe and because they inhabit the same space they need to speak a common language besides their mother language to participate in civilization.
In terms of economic scarcity, when people cannot afford to speak a language, they may abandon it because they have immersed themselves in another culture completely, or because language is not economically meaningful anymore.
Even though the film was made seven years ago, the issues discussed in Culture Shock are still incredibly relevant. Some of them I’m very familiar with, while others introduced different matters that I had not heard put in words before, yet had experienced it. Issues such as how to respond to American greetings like “What’s Up?” or the role of silence in different cultures.
The matter of how to respond to greetings like, “What’s Up “or “How are you?” in America is one with which I am quite familiar. Since I am American, I have the luxury of the cultural knowledge behind the various contexts in which the greeting does come up and how to respond appropriately. I sympathize with international students that find themselves in awkward situations when they realize that the person that asked them the question doesn’t actually want the real answer. One student from the film recounted his experience in that situation. Aside from being frustrating trying to figure out when to actually answer and when to fake it with a thoughtless, “I’m fine,” people are faced with the feeling that people don’t actually care about how they are. That can be even more isolating when someone is in a new place different from their home.
Although I am an American, I too have problems with the greeting customs. I found myself nodding with the comments from those interviewed, how insensitive Americans are, why ask if they don’t really want to know. These are all statements that I’ve made in conversations with fellow American friends. While I don’t find myself feeling isolated, I do share the same frustrations even though I was actively perpetuating the issue. For years I’ve been trying to avoid adding the “How are you” after the initial “Hey” when I know that I’m not interested in chatting or don’t have the time to really listen and engage with the person. It has taken me years to be able to do this and I still mess up from time to time.
Another issue brought up was the role of silence in different cultures. This is something that I’ve never confronted in this context, but makes a great deal of sense. Going back to the matter of greetings, those can be answered via silence. Personally it drives me absolutely mad. Prior to the segment in the video, I had never really thought about the role of silence across and within cultures. I’m looking forward to asking my tutor about how silence is interpreted in his culture. I wonder if there are any gender-dependent differences even though Persian is a genderless language.
Something that did bother me about the film were the comments from one of the deans of the school at that time. She spoke on how valuable international students were to the American students in that they can teach them about their culture. She was calling for international students to reach out and take the first steps to engage with domestic students. While I understand the good intentions behind the comments, I couldn’t help be put off slightly, given my “minority” status in this country. I don’t think it is the responsibility of an international student to teach the “ignorant” American students of their culture; especially if they are the ones who have to initiate the conversation. While there is definitely something to be said about owning one’s experience and taking the first step, I think reciprocity should be considered as well. I find it to be asking quite a lot of people to come to a new country and then start putting yourself out there. Where is the compassion for human vulnerability? At one point in the film American students seemed to be defended for being shy or withdrawn around international students. Where is the defense for the international students? I think both sides should be encouraged to engender intentional engagement with each other. It shouldn’t be the responsibility of the minority group.
Overall I came to really enjoy the film. I appreciate everyone who shared their stories and experiences, even if they didn’t really want to. While I have had the opportunity to experience my own form of culture shock when I studied abroad in New Zealand, I found that this video reinforced and added to my experience. I would propose that this be screened to all incoming students, domestic or international, in an effort to spread awareness and encourage people, especially those familiar with American culture to lend an open ear or helping ear to others who may be struggling with the adjustment.
Annalee Yin
Reflection paper#2:
Culture is way of life. I found this quote in the chapter. I think it really binds a group of different people together. I am glad that I have the chance to self-study Korean as a second language. At the same time, I have learnt so many cultures about Korean. Now, sometimes I feel like I am half-Korean! Based on the chapter, I decide to write a analysis on Korean cultures and how it helps me learning the language.
Koreans are highly in-group collectivism. People value family life, and each family member has her/his own role and duty. Korea is a very high power distance society. Women usually stay at home doing cooking and cleaning, children study in the school and men has the most pressure and burden to go out and work in order to feed the whole family. From the research, it says that Korea has big families, so even after marriage, wife and husband still live the with the husband’s parents. Husband’s mother is always very crucial to the wife in order to teach her to serve the whole family better. Men always have higher social status than women. Old people just rest at home and take care of the next young generation. However, I learnt that Korea is different than what we thought from a friend comes from Korea. It is not as that high on power distance as it was before, and actually try to maintain equality between genders. Women still go out and work after marriage and pregnancy, and lots of women refuse to live with their husbands’ parents and move outside and build their own family. Another unique aspect is that Koreans value friendship as one of the most important culture. As some Koreans said: “we always hang out together and play at weekends, and friends are always the ones who can help you when you are in big dangers outside”. However, there are negative side about their friendship, there are lots of on campus violence happened in South Korea due to its high power distance. Youth graders should always show their full respect and even bow down to people who are older than them.
In Korean language, there are specific honorific languages for elders when they communicate. Once someone who fails to do so, the people who are younger can be in great trouble. And whenever, there is a flight between people in the same age, friends will get together and help, so a group-fight is normal and very easy to happen in Korea.
Korea has its own traditional clothes; on special days, women wear a traditional dress called a hanbok, a short jacket called a jeogori and a long skirt called a chima. Men also wear a jeogori. Koreans like spicy food, rice is eaten with almost every meal, and another traditional food is called kimchee, which is a spicy food made of vegetable and garlic sauce. Kimchee is stored and fermented in large jars outside of the home. Meals are served and look differently in Korean than do in the United States, everyone gets their own rice or soup dish, and everyone share many different side dishes, the side dishes are spread over the whole table. Bibimbap is traditional food in Korean with plenty of vegetables including bean sprouts, spinach, mushrooms, cucumbers, onions, carrots, and one fried egg, people eat it with garlic spicy sauce as well. In Korea, friends always get together and eat noodle and kimchee in one big boiler. And we “fight against” each other to get the pot cover, because it is an old stereotype that eating noodle on a pot cover is more delicious than do in a normal bowl”.
In Korean, all boys are responsible for two year mandatory military training; it is not only good in building strong characters, but also being ready to serve the country anytime. Plastic surgery in South Korea is famous and is considered the best in the world, so there are lots of people from lower classes become stars, such as singer, actors and actress in order to make more money. However, stars in Korea do not earning that much income than other countries, and it is considered a normal career and job because of the huge supply trends. Korean and English are different types of language, but many words pronounce similar, such as the “menu”, “coffee” and so on, so she has strong Korean ascent. Another challenge is that people try to make friends in the US. Americans are very independent, and people always go to class by themselves, and crab lunch fast when they are busy. Koreans always be around with friends.
I think learning a new language is important to help participating with local people around, building experience, knowledge, and be patient when she builds her friendship and networking. There is an old phrase: “walk a mile in someone else's shoes." There is no way that we can get involved into the new society unless experiencing what life is like in another atmosphere, and get to taste the different cuisine, enjoy music, and interact with citizens who are dissimilar. I think staying motivated and getting rid of all the stereotyped ideals are important. We should be curious and eager to learn new things. It is a country with a combination of people from different and diverse cultures and become unified. Citizens will learn tolerance and respect for difference. They will be privy to information that others do not have.
From my personal standpoint, I leant lots of thing from this.
It is a way to interact with individuals, who are diverse, and also an opportunity to build and strengthen a better understanding of people worldwide. In conclusion, I think students are essential to have worldviews when we move from a different cultural background into a new diverse culture, and learn to acquire a new worldview and apply critical thinking to become pro-active learners.
As new century students, gaining knowledge through our life experiences within the culture, as well as deeply engage and assimilate with the knowledge we learn and appropriately applying to recognize situations in reality. Cross-culture is a shared mutual respect for the world in which we live and is a valuable experience we had in our lives!
Response to reading
I think this article is interesting when explain the extinction of the language. What happened when language die? I think this would be a terrible topic to think about because there will be silence in the world. How language is dying? There are so many people (old) who lose the ability to speak language, they dont know how to communicate to others, to focus.They are more likely to talk themselves, and make the listeners upset. The language is facing a crisis.
I think languages are important thing to be recorded, and it shows history, culture, and timeline. Now, our languages are losing, which I think we are losing something valuable, humans are losing wealth. Even though everyone in the world speak one language will make easier to communicate, but it would be less diversified if we just have one. Overall, I think humans should come up with a plan to keep our languages, and pass to the next generations in order to make life more well-rounded.
Why Bilinguals Are Smarter” NYT
I enjoy reading article, and I think the fact is true that: being bilinguals are remarkably important. After I have experience of several interviews, I think it is beneficial after graduate when you try to look for jobs. It is a more globalized world, and more and more multinational corporations are looking for language talents, so they think this is a big criteria when they look for employees.
We should start learning a second language at younger ages, so thats why we need to prepare our children to learn when they were young because it is easy to adopt and they learn faster. There are so many universities require students to choose a second language in their education. We can see language is the power! And being able to speak a language proficiently make people smarter and more diversified, and more knowledgeable.
Culture shock can be a really tricky part to navigate when leaving your own culture. The video we watched in class described culture shock as the way we feel leaving a familiar space or our home to enter a new culture. At first, there’s a honeymoon phase. Everything is different and new, and we’re excited to experience that. However, that soon wears off. Some of the students in the video discussed the role that language plays in culture shock. Oftentimes it can be really overwhelming to travel to a new country without knowing the language well. This creates a feeling of isolation that you really have to fight against. I worked as an international orientation leader on campus in the fall, and I noticed that many of the international students grouped together by country at first. There was an especially big group of Italian students all from the same university who constantly spent time together speaking Italian in a sense of familiarity. I know firsthand from living and traveling in foreign countries myself that it can be extremely frustrating to not be able to communicate fully. When I lived in Rome, I understood spoken Italian pretty well but wasn’t able to verbally respond as quickly. This became especially frustrating in my Italian language class—although I went to an American-model school, the Italian classes were taught by Italian nationals—if a student waits too long to give an answer in Italian schools, the teacher thinks that the student doesn’t know and moves on. For the first month or two I went crazy because I couldn’t translate my thoughts into Italian quickly enough to express myself, but then I was able to think more easily in Italian and it got a bit easier. The video also talked about silence as a form of communication that differs culturally. The professor gave the example of silence as something we’re very uncomfortable with in America, but it’s much more widely accepted in conversations in other countries. I definitely noticed that to be true as an orientation advisor, especially at the beginning. I would walk around with groups of international students or sit with them at meals. The students who were from English-speaking countries were obviously much more comfortable with small talk, but it became extremely uncomfortable for me sometimes when I would try and have a conversation with other students in my group and they wouldn’t say much. They seemed happy to be invited to lunch and enjoying themselves, but they would only answer questions. In response I would talk to fill the silence but then feel really awkward because I felt like I was talking too much. The video also addressed the differences between level of directness in communication, which was something I encountered as well.
The video definitely reinforced many of the things I’ve noticed working with international students here at U of R. The whole concept of orientation often brings about major culture shock. The American university system is pretty much the only one that conducts orientation in this way, and many students were confused as to why they had to be shuttled around to different seminars for several days. Several of them said it was very overwhelming. We also addressed some of the issues that were discussed in the video, such as how to respond when an American student says, “Hi, how are you?” Several of the international students have been my close friends this year, and we’ve discussed some of the differences they’ve had to get used to academically, such as having homework set every day, the importance of class participation, and the level of interaction professors have with students. I was thinking about it and thought that it must be extremely challenging for some exchange students to have to cope with the amount of work assigned here, if you are not used to having regular assignments at your home university and especially if English is not your first language! I also had a bit of culture shock encountering an international friend last year. My friend Nina was from Germany. I had a Jepson class with her and she was the only exchange student, so I went out of my way to be friends with her. We would chat in class or go to lunch occasionally, but it was difficult to establish a friendship with her at first. Then once we became friends Nina felt comfortable being extremely direct and blunt. She was very well-informed on politics, both in the EU and the US. It took me a little while to realize that Nina wasn’t being mean or overly critical, she had just opened up and was expressing herself more directly, in keeping with German culture.
I have experienced culture shock myself. I first moved to Italy when I was eight years old. I was pretty open-minded about it and overall enjoyed the adventure, but very recently after I moved I pitched a fit sobbing on the sidewalk after we’d passed a butcher shop in our little town because I could read in the window that they were selling horse meat. (My actual quote was, “They eat HORSES here?! These people are BARBARIANS!” I was very dramatic.) That was my first encounter with culture shock for sure! When I studied abroad, my culture shock was very delayed. I didn’t have the same culture shock as many of my classmates, because I had lived in Italy before and understood the language fairly well. I didn’t miss my family particularly much at first either. It was about a month in that I became more critical and frustrated. I began interning, teaching in an Italian high school, and there was a level of disorganization there that I was not used to at all. (Side note, in keeping with the video’s discussion of outside view of Americans, many of the students in my classes I taught asked me stereotypical questions about the US like if we all owned guns and if college was like the American Pie movies!) I soon realized that I was going to have to adapt to the situation if I didn’t want to be miserable teaching the whole time. I wasn’t saying that Italian schools were run better or worse than American schools, I was just adapting to the cultural practice. I tried to take this “fight” (as opposed to “flight”) approach whenever I came into a situation that gave me a little bit of culture shock. In fact, I think I experienced more reverse culture shock returning to the US—I was very disillusioned, overwhelmed, and had to readjust.
I found the article "Why Bilinguals Are Smarter" very interesting. It is commonly known that being bilingual gives you an advantage in such a competitive world. Many people believe that knowing two or more languages gives you an advantage only in the real world where you communicate with other people. However, this article reveals that apart from well-known benefits of being a bilingual, recent research has shown that bilingual people are much smarter than monolinguals. In a bilingual brain, both languages are always active even when he/she is using only one language at a moment. Having both languages active creates interference (which is a downside), but it creates something much more important: "it gives the mind a workout to strengthen its cognitive muscles." The research showed that bilinguals are more skilled in solving certain mental puzzles, and that their executive function is more developed (executive function is a command system that directs the attention processes that is used for planning and solving problems and also helps you stay focused on a task.) Research conducted at the University of California in San Diego found that bilinguals with a higher degree of bilingualism were more resistant to symptoms of Alzheimer's disease than individuals with a lower degree of bilingualism.
After reading this article, I can say that I am proud for being bilingual. I feel smart!
We experience culture shock because our identities are so enmeshed in the fabric of whatever society in which we have been living and growing up. It's inevitable in some cases. Thus, changing our sense of place by moving to another country for a length of time is physically, mentally and psychologically taxing. Our identities are not entirely our own for they are anchored in part to the place we grew up / live in, to the food that we eat, to the smells we are familiar with, and especially to the friends, families and acquaintances in our lives. Home is not only a physical space. Most people experience culture shock because familiarity is comforting so to be thrust out of one's comfort space is akin to being a child again, unable to command the language and having to navigate a new world from the first step.
My main experience out of the country is the summer I spent studying abroad in Prague, Czech Republic. However, I didn't experience any of the symptoms of culture shock with the exception of yearning for home-cooked Korean cuisine. This probably has more to do with my own personality, my state of mind with which I went into a new country, and the relatively short duration of my stay (a month and a half). I had realistic expectations of going abroad (meaning I didn't entertain fantastic notions of what will happen). I immediately separated myself from the other American students on the trip because disassociating myself from that image would help me assimilate myself (at least in my mind) into Prague life. Traveling alone, getting to places that would be difficult to get into if I were with a group, and generally doing the usual activities I would be doing if I were home made the physical and mental transition as smooth as possible. I guess I was able to bypass the four steps of culture shock (honeymoon, negotiation, adjustment, and mastery) for two main reasons: 1. Most of the people Prague have some working knowledge of English, if you even initiate a conversation in the first place (one Czech value is to mind one's business), 2. I felt a sense of 'mastery' in that I learned through trial and error how to utilize the excellent transportation system; I never felt dependent as a foreigner. This was also a fun exercise because I'd research a place I wanted to go and I'd map out the route and if I reached my destination I'd call it a success.
Truly, having the right mindset (different cultures are the same in their differences) and plunging into the way of life of wherever you're going are the best ways to mitigate culture shock.
A great part of Korea's body language culture is bowing as it has ties to the hierarchical structure of Korean society. The bow is the traditional Korean greeting, although it is often accompanied by a handshake among men. To show respect when shaking hands, support your right forearm with your left hand. Bowing is usually done to elders, someone of greater status; for a relevant example, if you worked in a company, then you would bow to senior members as a sign of respect.
A youtube video I found comparing some American and Korean body language. The guy on the left shows American body language while the girl on the right shows Korean body language:
(Here's the video in case the embed code isn't working.)
My first artifact was a screenshot of a cellphone conversation I had with my Korean friend about the weather.
My second artifact was a scan of Korean lyrics I wrote. Since I listen to Korean pop music nearly every day and music is an essential part of a culture to me, I wanted to do something with it. Unfortunately I am unwilling to record myself singing along with the song, I decided to record the lyrics instead. I've posted a Youtube video of the song and an English translation for others to follow along. The song is A Pink's "Please Let's Just Love," from the drama I've been watching, Protect the Boss.
For my third and fourth artifacts, I want to show my speaking capabilities. I think a voice recording of such topics such as greetings or cooking-related dialogues would be good, as it will be another way to efficiently memorize pertinent vocabulary.
Considering everything, I'm content with the progress I've made thus far. I admit that I've been lax with doing my weekly posts on time as I usually just jot down my thoughts on a word document that I've used to collect ALL of my 105 and 110 posts. I know I've been favoring the more 'passive' learning methods of listening rather than 'active' learning methods. Maybe I can incorporate more active learning methods in the coming weeks, via speaking aloud, even to myself? I tend to concentrate on reading Korean rather than speaking it so when I go through the talktomeinkorean.com lessons, I will try to read aloud so I can internalize the language better.
I wonder what I can do to keep myself motivated for the rest of the semester, though. It seems like dramas and music aren't enough anymore... Since I will begin looking at teach English in Korea programs, a future trip to Korea will be motivation enough?
I also need to think about what other artifacts I can do, as I still need at least 2 more before the end of the semester.
I will continue to use the talktomeinkorean's curriculum. It's not just a string of grammar lessons. There are podcasts with each lesson and the two speakers are always affable and easy to understand. There are pdf file attachments along with each lesson, which I've found to be very helpful since I'm a visual learner and I need to read while listening to the podcasts. TalktomeinKorean is an invaluable online resource.
Reading the article “Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction” was highly interesting. There are various languages in this world that are potentially dying out. The one mentioned in the article was known was Silentz, a Native American language that have severely died out. Currently there are about only five speakers left in the world. This was historically due to the reason, past America wished to eliminate the language. With American history knowledge, many of us know that many perceived Native Americans to be savages.
In a more current day situation, there are barely any people that speak Pidgin. Pidgin is the language that is spoken in Hawaii. Here is a video revolving around the language.
Hawaiian Pidgin traces back to Creole. Although the words are spoken in English, the usage is highly different. Current day Hawaii many people are speaking English, and the school system does not teach Pidgin any longer. It is interesting how the school system, and the decision of the government can influence the cultural aspect of a location. If places truly do wish to keep their identity, education is the best way to do so.
Week 10: Third Cultural Post
I wanted to talk more about my cultural project for this post. The topic of the idea and standard of beauty in South Korea is really appealing to me. While doing research, I found so many new information that I was never aware of before and I did not realize that it was such a big issue present in this world right now. Plastic surgery has swept the nation of South Korea and has become so common that even children as young as twelve years old are getting it. What's more interesting is that the parents of these children recommend that in order for their children to be beautiful, they must go under the knife. In particular, the most popular type of surgery is the "ssangkkopul" or better known as the double eyelid surgery. Their society believes that people with small eyes that have monolids are seen as "ugly". Beauty seems to play a huge role in people's everyday life. I read that people get eyelid or nose surgery performed before going to an interview or before going on a date in hopes of enhancing their chances of landing a job or getting a husband. I find these to be extremely ridiculous. Children are told by their parents and family that they are ugly everyday just because they do not have a double eyelid. I will continue this topic on the next cultural post.
Week 11: Fifth Bi-weekly Post
For weeks 10 and 11, my task was to learn the grammar for the marker '-보다' : more than and 제일/가장 : the most. I read over the explanations provided by the lesson for this particular grammar and my language partner explained it further. Comparing and saying something is more expensive or cheaper than an another object required more vocabulary and sentence structuring. A lot of the combination of previous lessons were required to complete this task. I think I understood the main part of the lesson and tried my best to accomplish this task. I made a few sentences comparing items which seemed to help practice this grammar lesson. These grammar lessons have been useful in understanding how to create sentences but sometimes it is still a bit difficult to master everything and all the tasks I've created for myself. Overall, these past two weeks were okay and lessons weren't too bad but still were challenging.
Third Artifact:
I've attached a review of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
