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Learning Categories
Speaking
a. In class
i. Louise speaks more Swedish
ii. Translate stories/conversations told by Louise
iii. Work on listening comprehension
iv. Acquire new vocabulary
v. Repeat back what was said, practice pronunciation
b. Outside of class
i. Talking to the Anderssons in Swedish during more social contexts
ii. Thinking in Swedish, coming up with every thoughts in Swedish
iii. Using Swedish with each other when possible
Writing
a. Practice creating sentences for homework
b. Combine vocabulary with grammar concepts
c. Create sentences/dialogues with those words
Reading
a. Books
i. Read TinTin/other books
ii. Add words to vocabulary list
b. News articles
i. Read in Swedish
ii. Translate into English
iii. Summarize in Swedish
c. Texting
i. Texting group in Swedish about homework/planning meetings
ii. Texting each other in Swedish, teaching each other new words/concepts
Listening
a. Videos
i. Listen in Swedish
ii. Write down Swedish (to best of ability)
iii. Summarize in Swedish
b. TV shows
i. Watch Bron
ii. Pick up on Swedish vs. Danish words/pronunciation
iii. Understand commonly-used Swedish phrases
iv. Get a feel for how Swedish sounds
v. Learn more about regional accents
vi. Work on own pronunciation independently by shadowing/mimicry
vii. Ask Louise to clarify pronunciation
Specific Sections
a. Occupations
b. Prepositions
c. Countries/nationalities
d. Negative sentences/short answers
e. Coming and going/to make/to become
f. Past, present, and future tenses
g. Fruits/vegetables
h. Conjunctions
i. Word order/asking questions
j. Conducting interviews/answering interview questions
This semester we spent a lot of focus on translations of things. So we did translations of video clips and also did translation of music lyrics. The lyrics were my favorite because they were a little slower pace and a little more repetitive so I could catch on quicker.
These are some text messages amongst Molly and I and then Molly, Louise, and I in Swedish.
So I decided to stay away from the environment on this post just to mix things up. Today I will be talking about why Swedes are okay with paying such high taxes. So according to Sweden.Se the official Sweden website 83% of Swedes say that they have confidence in the government agency. So this can be broken up into four parts:
1. A highly trusted public body. Skatteverket, the Swedish Tax Agency is very popular and very well trusted. Most people feel that the taxes are done fairly.
2. The Tax agency is also responsible for population registration. When a baby is born the agency registers the birth and send out a personal identity number. The parents then apply to register the babies name through the tax company, the tax company then has the power to reject names. Also when you decide to get marries you must apply to the tax agency for a investigation of impediments to marriage. You must also notify this agency of any address changes and deaths.
3. It is a societal norm to pay high taxes. Taxes aren't seen as a negative things as it is in most countries. The Swedish word for tax is skatt which also means treasure. Another reason the Tax Agency has such a positive view is because of it's customer-friendliness and accessibility. Almost all tax errands can be done technologically.
4. The tax agency also takes the initiative. If something happens it knows about it and sends you the forms need to fix it , so that your tax return shows up in your mailbox already filled out. In the case of having a baby the hospital informs the authority and registers the birth so you don't have to.
So as you can see the tax agency in Sweden has a pretty positive view about it. That's not to say all Swedes love taxes but as a society their view is a lot more negative than a majority of countries.
After reading Yudhijt Bhattacharjee’s article “Why Bilinguals Are Smarter,” I found myself feeling proud and satisfied for taking SDLC. This article confirmed many beliefs I had about bilinguals and made me want to continue my Hebrew studies. The part of the article that talked about the executive functions reminded me of another course I am taking and how people with more fully developed executive functions are actually more successful academically. I think that in America the way we go about learning languages is disruptive in its nature. Growing up, I took French starting in 6th grade and was only in my class for 3 hours a week. How could a teacher expect a student to learn a whole new language in such limited time? I think that we should teach children two languages throughout their entire lives, beginning at childhood. Another part of the article I found interesting is that bilinguals are better at creative problem solving. As someone who is applying for jobs, I have found that one of the key skills employers are looking for is analytical thinking skills. I think that bilinguals are much better at analytical thinking and therefore would stand out in an applicant pool. This article was very interesting and should encourage people to want to learn multiple languages.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AX--cMfooYYZxAeLbuIQxwEtu-EGez2laVEauBDv9Gs/edit?usp=sharing
Since the beginning of the semester, I've met weekly with Omar Farooq, my language partner for Urdu. Our meetings consisted of reviewing what we went over last week as well as continuing my effort to reach my next learning goal. I asked him about different phrases that I was interested in learning and he would provide me with the translations. We worked a lot on reading, writing and spelling during our meetings to make sure I can easily write and read in Urdu. He also helped me in terms of learning about Pakistan's culture. He was a good resource for the numerous cultural posts I had to write for the class. During our meetings, we mostly relied on his knowledge of the language and did not work with many outside resources. However, I did make sure to review anything I've learned from an outside resource with him during our meetings.
Because Omar is no longer my language partner, I have not met with him for the past two weeks. However, I made sure to keep up with my learning as much as I could. This week, I will be meeting with Hadi Abdullah for the first time. We will review what I've learned so far and I will make sure to keep him up to date.
In all honesty, I don't think knowing the origins of a language is very helpful in learning it. But I do see that it slightly helps in retaining information. For example, certain English words are very closely related to certain words in another language. These words sometimes are pronounced similarly and often times mean the same thing. Therefore it helps people associate the word with the English equivalent quickly. Learning the origins of a language can help someone determine languages that are similar to it. This is especially true for the English language. People can trace the language to Latin roots. Other languages that sprouted from Latin are French and Spanish. And so, it sort of explains why some words in the English language are derived from Spanish and French.
For Korean, the Chinese language is a big influence in the way that words are created. Today Korean words are a combination of chinese and hangul characters. Half of the vocabulary in Korean is derived from China. The pronunciation of these words (korean and chinese) can easily be used to identify how closely related these 2 languages are in Korean.
Though I assume that it was Mandarin that played a huge part in influencing the Korean language, I can find a few similarities with my first language, Cantonese, and Korean. For example, for the "eo" sound, I realized that it sounds very similar to the first sound made when I say "to poop" in Cantonese. And so based on this, in order to pronounce the "eo" sound, I draw on my Cantonese experiences.
The origins of Korean are still being debated today. But there are 4 hypotheses of where Korean language came from. The first is that Korean is a version of old Japanese. The second is Japanese is a version of Old Korean. Koreans is related to the Austronesian language family is the third hypothesis. Finally the last one is that Korean belongs the Altaic language family. This last hypothesis is more commonly accepted among experts since there aren't archeological and linguistic evidence to support the other three hypotheses.
Here is a picture of an example of some of the vocabulary we learned this semester in our readings. Although the book we read was not very relevant, it was helpful to learn words for pronunciation.
So this week in particular was very interesting. Louise's brother Freddie had came to Richmond for a visit so we invited Freddie to one of our session for dinner. It was kind of hard speaking Swedish in the cellar because of the noise around but we had some decent conversations. Another thing I noticed about myself and I may have already spoken about this but I can't recall. Anyway, when someone starts to speak a foreign language to me I zone out at first because I am so used to hearing all of these languages and not being able to understand them. It takes me a few seconds to realize I am kind of able to understand them and I should be trying to listen to what they are saying. That happened during a few conversations during dinner. I think what also helped is the fact Freddie was really nice about my Swedish. I didn't expect him to be mean or anything but he was really encouraging when I tried to speak to him. I think im always criticizing the way I say things when I speak it is nice to hear a third party tell me I am not the worst Swedish speaker of all time. It was also really fun listening to Louise and Freddie speak back and forth.
Swedish%20Cultural%20Presentation%202.pptx
Here is my 111 Swedish cultural presentation
Fourth Cultural Post: Corporate Hierarchy
For my fourth Cultural Post I decided to discuss about the importance of the concept of hierarchy in the South Korean corporate world.
It is known that in South Korea, companies are strictly hierarchical, meaning that the important decisions are taken by the top executives and delegated down for their implementation. In fact the largest conglomerates (the "Chaebols") are family run companies where all the power and ownership resides within the family.
Besides that written hierarchy, another form that dominates is the hierarchy based upon personal relationships and loyalties. Koreans tend to do business and consider people they already know that are "secure", in this way, people who are well connected are considered as very powerful and valuable.
In respect to the confucian traditions, managers, who are respected just because they have the title, are expected to take care of the well being of their staff, which includes an interest in their personal life. In fact, the quality of relationship is the number one element to consider when doing business/working with someone. It is the most important factor that can determine a successful partnership/business deal; which means that one has to be patient and maintain a healthy and positive relationship to be able to, one day, collect the benefits.
In the last two weeks, I have been practicing my speaking skills. I tried to listen to many short teaching videos in order to correct my pronunciation and get a bit more fluent by listening to them. It was a good experiment thought, it helped me alot with my pronunciation. I will be putting the links at the end of my post because i am sure it will be very helpful to Urdu learners. In addition, I have done some interesting readings. I read some news on Urdu BBC and i was really glad that i could figure out many things that i have even studied. So it was a good practice as well to improve my understand of Urdu.
The sites :
Anyone who wants to learn Urdu, i highly recommend to watch these videos, it its very helpful for speaking skills, pronunciation, and learn Urdu correctly. :)
This is an artifact of me eating Swedish fish with Chokladbollar. Louise brought the Chokladbollar for us from Ikea. We talked about how it used to have a different name until the term became outdated. This then lead into the conversation of what Swedish foods we enjoyed and which ones we didn't.
Today ladies and gents, you get to learn about Eco-tourism in Sweden. Now doesn't that tickle your fancy? Basically Swedes are pretty amazing when it comes to being environmentally aware. The are the second country it the world to introduce an Eco-tourism charter. Which essentially is just tourism that is focused on the land and wildlife. They also set up Nature's best which is Europe's first Eco-certified tour operators around the country. There are about 147 tours run by 87 Eco-certified tour operators. You can do anything from dog sledding to timber-rafting, to sea kayaking with this group. Allemansrätt is a very important part of why the Swedes love nature so much, it is written in their constitution. The word translated into English talks of every man's right to walk freely in nature. Basically as long as no one or anything is harmed anyone has the right to walk, ski, or cycle anywhere the please (minus private property). It gives a lot of freedoms to enjoy nature at its fullest but it also creates a lot of responsibility for protecting the land.
