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According to the classifications listed in the "Figuring Foreigners Out" article, South Korea leans to the collectivist, indirect/high-context nonverbal, monochronic, external culture (I think). I looked up a study that used a more 'scientific' method than my guessing method here. According to the Geert Hofstede Center, South Korea is a collectivist country, as I have guessed. They state that their collectivism is evident by the commitment to the "member 'group', be that a family, extended family, or extended relationships. Loyalty is paramount... and the society fosters strong relationships where everywhere takes responsibility for fellow members." 

The Center scored S. Korea on an aspect called "uncertainty avoidance," which they define as "the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these." This seems to tie in which S. Korea's monochronic nature because, as the country is one of the most uncertainty avoiding countries in the world, they believe that time is money, people have an inner urge to be busy and work hard and precision and punctuality are the norm.

The site doesn't have many thoughts on S. Korea as an external culture but I personally think it is due to the prevalence of "fate" themes in Korean dramas. The article defines an 'external' culture as one which believes that 'some things in life are predetermined...there are limits beyond which one cannot go and certain givens that cannot be changed and must be accepted.' Usually in Korean dramas, especially those of the romance genre, a couple is tied by fate, as if their love was predetermined (example: "The Sun and the Moon") and is inescapable (which leads to comedic situations if the couple starts off with a love-hate relationship). 

During this week's meeting with my language partner, he showed me a news article on naver, a popular Korean search portal, about some guy's altercation with the police (I don't have the exact link to the story). I read the article aloud so that he can gauge my reading level. I mainly had trouble pronouncing words that I hardly ever come across since my mouth is unaccustomed to shaping them. Reading an article like this on The Korea Times, about a Japanese scholar's criticism of Japan's claim to S. Korea's islets, is difficult because I may understand the barebones gist of a sentence but lack many important details. (That Korea Times article has a side-by-side translation so I see what I'm missing.) Written Korean is also much more formal than daily speech, which is something I'm more used to, having grown up trying to speak to my grandmother. 

I will continue going through the Talk to Me In Korean curriculum (currently I'm on Lesson 2). As a supplement, I will continue to listen to Kpop music since the songs usually contain everyday speech / vocab, something that'll be easier for me to understand than the news or the radio. Weekly meetings with my language partner will also include one-hour dedicated to watching a K-drama together. 

For my artifacts, I have already posted a picture of me writing out Korean letters and proceeding to outlining them in photoshop. I wish to do two videos in iMovie, and another picture of me writing in Korean. I have not yet decided what I want these three last things to be, but I hope to make them very entertaining. I might have some difficulty in doing so because I am not able to learn Korean quickly. But in the future I know I will learn more.

아자 아자! (Hwaiting!) 

(This means I will do my best in Korean) 

It took me a lot of time to figure out a topic for my culture project. There is just so much I want to learn about Turkey and Turkish culture that I just could not make up my mind. First I wanted to do a project on how Turkey got its name, then I changed my mind to talking about Children's day which is April 23rd, the day when I will be delivering my presentation, however in the end I decided to talk about the integral part of Turkish culture- Turkish coffee! 

Turkish coffee is very popular in Europe, especially on the Balkan. However, not so many people know much about the tradition of "Turkish coffee" or the actual rituals of preparing and usage of it. I did some research on this topic and I can tell that this topic can be very interesting for both myself and the classmates that I deliver my presentation to. Few things I found interesting so far: in arranged marriages, Turkish coffee plays a very important role. By sweetening coffee too much or too little, the girl tells the guy indirectly whether she is interested in marrying him or not. Turkish coffee is not only about drinking it, there is another part equally important and that is fortune reading from the coffee grounds remaining in the cup. There are many more rituals related to Turkish coffee that I want to talk about in my presentation and need to do further research. I have also asked my language partner what she thinks about this topic, and she said that talking about Turkish coffee is a great idea. 

My learning goals for this project are the followings:

- get deeper insights in Turkish culture

- learn what makes "Turkish coffee" so popular in the world 

- learn more about the rituals related to drinking "Turkish coffee" such as fortune telling, or marriages  

- be ready to prepare a great cup of Turkish coffee in case I get an arranged marriage with a Turkish guy

I believe this is going to be a very interesting topic from which we all can learn more about the Turkish culture and tradition. I am truly excited to work on this project. 

I'm going to be using pictures and audio recordings for documenting my learning. I have already started to take photos of my writing of the alphabet and construction of sentences. I think these forms will be the most logical and relevant for the purposes of my language goals. 

One of the biggest difficulties I have had in Korean is reading and writing. This has been my target goal to be able to do both without any issues. I have tried reading various things in Korean. The previous Korean language partner, Joon Kim, provided my current language partner with an ebook which he gave his students last semester. Although it basic and probably does not go past grade-school level in the grammar and writing, it still takes me sufficient amount of time to read it.

This difficulty can be traced back to the first day of class when we all discussed the idea of learning a language. Although I do not clearly remember who stated this, but learning a new language when you already have knowledge about a language which is somewhat similar might make it more difficult for the student. For instance, if someone already knows Spanish and wants to learn Italian. Well I am in the same boat right now. I have taken and have engraved Japanese in my brain that I can not seem to pick up Korean as fast. (Shout out to the Japanese department aka Suzuki Sensei and Kadekawa Sensei. They have definitely have taught me so much since my freshmen year. Anyone reading my blog posts and wish to learn an Asian language more formally, I highly recommend Japanese.) In Japanese each letter represents a sound. While in Korean you combine letters to make a sound.

Switching between the two languages is a struggle for me. But, I might have found the solution. Well, my language partner actually did. He took my cell phone and without my permission changed the language settings from English to Korean. Now I am forced to read in Korean. Also I have picked up vocabulary words randomly as well. This is almost similar to being in a foreign country because at first I was taken back by all the new words that I have never seen before. But slowly and constantly seeing these words has eased me into learning them and remembering them. But due to the fact the semester is about to end, my goal is still simply to read more swiftly with confidence.  

At this point I think I would say that I know about 30 or so words... I must admit that I think I was a bit ambitious thinking that I would be able to write the language. I'm getting there slowly, but I struggle a bit with writing backwards in addition to the form of the letters. 

I'm a very slow writer, and I find myself getting frustrated often. Practice. Practice. Practice. 

Week 4: First Artifact and Evaluation 

Recording 1: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1j8zwFYuowu

For my first artifact, I recorded two conversations with my Korean partner that reviews what I have learned in SDLC 110 and also added a few new things learned at the end of our session. The first conversation was a short, concise one that expressed destination and direction. The second conversation was a longer one that used greetings/farewells, numbers, formality, and lots of vocabulary and a few grammar. I think I did the best with my pronunciation even though I stumbled a bit when it came to long words and words that sound very similar. I need to perfect my sounding kills in order for natives to understand what I am saying. Cultural appropriateness was well done because I used the formal rather than the informal language. I will make the necessary improvements by listening to more conversations and repeating sentences to better my pronunciation skills.

Week 5: Second Cultural Post: Korean Food

For this cultural post, I will discuss the importance of Korean food in their culture. The proximity of Japan, China, and Korea resulted in lots of cultural exchange among the three countries. This includes their food and the basic flavors of tastes are hot/spicy, sour, sweet, bitter and salty. 

Korean meals are generally more heavily seasoned than those of other countries usually with a combination of garlic, ginger, green onions, sesame, soy sauce, and red/black peppers. Most of the meat in main dishes are accompanied by rice and an impressive assortment of small vegetables and seafood are collectively referred to as "Ban Chan". Rather than being an individually plated meal in the western sense, traditional Korean foods are thought as a table setting, with all items served in harmony with each other and eaten as a family style. 

Along with the food, you must have the correct table manners to show respect to elders and or superiors. Elder people or those of a higher rank are to be served first and no one begins eating until the eldest begins to eat. There are also such rules as not stabbing foods with chopsticks, not eating with fingers (unless it's finger food), no using two hands when offering a dish or a drink to another, and waiting to be dismissed by the eldest person. Respect for elders is very important in every aspect of a Korean person's life.

Second Bi-weekly Post:

In these two weeks we covered two lessons with the objectives of learning more basic greetings which covered how to ask "what is this" and how to identify things. Learning how to use negation, how to ask questions and give answers for directions and locations were also a part of the lessons. Of course, in addition, I finally started with small grammar lessons which are the markers which roughly correspond to some prepositions and adverbs such as also. In order to achieve these tasks, I did a listening lesson with analysis and translation which also included a check up at the end. The check ups include true or false for comprehension and fill in the blanks for grammar. This exercise also enhances my vocabulary and reading skills because I need to read the dialogue in order to understand the content. I think this semester is off to a great start with the help of my language partner. I felt very accomplished after our meetings and actually felt like I learned new things. I am now able to ask questions such as "Where are you going?" and give directions (The bookstore is behind the cafeteria). I am more enthusiastic about the Korean language now that I have a solid guideline of what to learn. I will build listen to the dialogues and memorize the vocabulary in order to prepare for the upcoming lessons.

I can say that I am very happy with my first artifact. I was a little bit intimidated by preparing an artifact because I had never done it before... it was something new for me. I really liked what I did for my first artifact. I found a video on youtube, and downloaded it. I also recorded myself having a short conversation (such as hi, how are you, what is your name...).  Once I had the video and my voice recorded,  I combined them into one short video using iMovie. I also included a Turkish song in the video which I found online. I also included subtitles (I included both, Turkish and English subtitles) so that anyone who does not know Turkish could understand what I was talking about in the video. I showed my artifact to several people and my language partner and they all liked it! 

There is a greeting "Merhaba" in Turkish which I used in the video that we in Bosnia also use frequently, so that one was easy for me to memorize. I kept practicing this conversation for so long because I really wanted my artifact to be very good! There was one word that I had A LOT of trouble with pronouncing it (tanıştığımıza) because that word has several letters that neither English nor Bosnian alphabet has. 

I have been working on my goals that last week I set out to reach. I worked on present continuous and I can say that it is not very hard. Actually I enjoyed it a lot. There are some tricks that you have to be very careful when forming a sentence in present continuous. I also started working on telling the time, but at this point I am still not very confident that I am very good at it. I think that telling the time in any language can be very difficult. I think I focused more on present continuous and grammar than telling the time, so I think I should work more on the time now. I also learned many Turkish words, especially verbs because when I practiced present continuous I had to use different verbs in order to completely understand the rules. 

My language partner told me that I am doing well and that my accent is really good! This was very motivating for me, because at first I thought that when I pronounce something in Turkish nobody is going to understand me. But now, I feel more confident. 

I think I asked a lot from myself last time when I thought I was going to achieve so much in such a short period of time, however, I think I did a lot of work and am satisfied with my progress so far. I just need to keep up my work!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i6-y4nra6c&feature=youtu.be

Within the Iranian culture, there is a custom called 'taroof" that is a form of civility grounded in self-deference and social rank - essentially it's an interplay of propriety that is done through verbal and non verbal communication. It has been incorporated in many different interactions such as business, dinner invitations, or inviting someone over. One example that would be incredibly out of place in an American context takes place in a grocery store. The cashier will tell the customer that they don't have to pay as they customer has already honored by their presence. Meanwhile the customer insists on paying and ultimately pays for their groceries. In an American context, this would not make sense unless the cashier and customer really knew each other and it was understood as a joke... however I don't think it's meant to be taken as a joke in Iranian culture... although I could be wrong. 

A very common display of taroof is when guests have come for dinner. The host will offer food, drink, and comfort in abundance to the guest. The guest will return the taroof as well, declining all of it initially, only to accept it in the end.

This reminds me of Hojam's story about the woman who stayed with her family on her visit from Turkey. When the woman was asked if she wanted to go to DC, she declined, however Hojam knew that she actually meant yes. Had Hojam's husband been the one who interacted with the woman, the DC trip would not have happened. 

From what I have been exposed to thus far, I would say that the Persian culture is collectivist, monochronic, and indirect. I do not know how the internal/external aspect works right now. 

Collectivist makes sense with the culture's foundation of loyalty towards family and it's honor. Nepotism is often practiced when dealing with business negotiations. Interestingly enough, the families tend to be small with one or two children, however extended family is very close. 

In Iran, business etiquette calls for meetings made 4-6 weeks in advance with a week early confirmation. Since punctuality is considered a virtue, monochronic definitely fits this culture. It is however rude to track time whilst in a business meeting or other type of interaction. 

Given the custom of taroof, a system of politeness that calls for superficial self-denial in an effort to appear humble, I would definitely consider the culture to be indirect. For people unaware this is rather confusing, however those that live and function within it understand it clearly... which can be said of anything. 

Week 1: Assessment and goals for the semester:

According to the Levels of competence and LinguaFolio document, I am a novice learner at the beginning level of one. I am able to understand familiar words and very basic phrases concerning my family, my immediate surroundings and myself when people speak slowly and clearly. The korean language is spoken very fast so in order for me to pick up on familiar phrases and words, I need to listen very carefully to the people talking. I can recognize all the characters that are used most often to read sentences slowly. I have an understanding for the basic structures of simple sentences. I can ask and answer simple questions with a little help (some in formal and some in informal). I can also text my partner about the times we can meet and what day is good for us. 

This semester I plan on focusing more on grammar so I can try to formulate sentences correctly, start to learn to conjugate simple verbs, and learn negation. I will also focus on listening to dialogues to better my pronunciation skills and learn to distinguish words from one another. My main focus will be on grammar and new vocabulary. 

Week 2: First Cultural Post: What are your cultural learning goals for this semester?

I am interested in learning more about the concept of beauty and how everyone perceives it as a society. Beauty seems to be a hot topic because of the number of plastic surgeries performed annually in order to fit in to the ideal image of beauty as described by Koreans. Just from watching Korean dramas, I know that men and women both wear make-up. I think I will find interesting reads on this topic so I would like to explore more throughout to semester to prepare for my cultural project presentation. I hope to learn why and how the idea of beauty came about and why it is important for them to feel the need to get plastic surgeries. 

Week 3: First bi-weekly post

My partner and I met for the first time during the third week of classes. During our session, we reviewed what we learned from the last semester since it's been a while since we last met up. The task for this week was to rehearse and review the important lessons from last semester so I can be ready to learn new tasks for future sessions. What I hoped to accomplish during out two hour meeting was to revive and pull out old information and vocabularies I've learned previously. We achieved this task by going through my notebook with every lesson in it. I read a few things to her and listened to her speak in Korean to see if I was familiar with the words in the sentences. This seemed to be effective because old knowledge came back to me slowly and I was able to recognize most things.  I will build on to what I already learned by practicing my future tasks and by trying to use it everyday. 

My%20learning%20plan-%20Lejla%20Muhamedagic.pdf 

Like Noraya I found this article particularly interesting, especially once it started discussing how different languages "parcel out the world in different ways," and particularly referenced familial assignments. As in the examples of Pitjanjatjara and Swedish, Persian also has specific names for family members contingent upon the side of the family and relation within that side, like father's brother's daughter is closest to the english concept of cousin or sister's child isn't just niece or nephew depending on gender. I think this ties into how Persian is not a gendered language, something that is an interesting concept for me. 

Even though in depth specific terms are not used for relatives, I find that within my family, we differentiate especially between cousins by means of referencing the generational connection. I guess this corresponds to the antecedents like, grand-, great-, or great-great for parent's parent, grandparent's parent, and great-grandparent's parent. Given the size  and varying age groups of my extended family, I grew up knowing the generational connections between myself and other relatives. I know my aunts and uncles children are my first cousins, and we're more or less within the same generation. However, I also have cousins that are my age that are children of cousins; I know that they are my second cousins, and their parents are my first cousins. This was definitely a learning curve when I realized that many of my friend's did not conceptualize their ties to their cousin's in the same manner. This touches on the notion that the article opened with: that we think that our language is the only way that the world is conceptualized. I think that it may even go a step further into how one's community uses a groups collected language and the differences within and between communities. This makes me think of how important it is to travel and meet new people and experience different cultures in order to introduced to the cast complexities of the world and universe via language.