Note: For a longer version see the e-mail I sent with my cultural project.After reviewing the videotype of my monologue with Chelsea, several thoughts pop up. First off, overall, I am fairly satisfied with how I sounded and with what I was able to say. I chose to speak in Farsi, rather than Dari, because I am still more comfortable with it. I felt as if I sounded somewhat fluent, but at the same time I am disappointed in how much I was able to say, and how quickly I could say things without having to think about them.One of my strengths is that I feel comfortable speaking the language, and do not get embarrassed if I mess up or forget something. This was key in learning Swahili, and I think will be helpful as I continue my pursuit of learning Farsi. I also thought this was reflected on the video, as I looked pretty comfortable and confidant.So, overall, I am happy with the way I sound, but would have liked to say more on a larger variety of topics in this video. Please see my longer self-evaluation for my thoughts on the course overall. ThanksWill
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When I first began to study Farsi at the beginning of the semester, I was unsure of how successful I would be in learning the language. Most of my language instruction has been through formal classes or by living in a country where I was forced to use the language to communicate. Neither would be true with my study of Farsi and I worried that I would not get as much out of the language as a result. When we had to make goals for our first week, I made mine much too ambitious. I had always heard that Farsi and Arabic were extremely similar and since I had taken Arabic I thought Farsi would come easy. I was mistaken. While the alphabet is similar there were new letters for me to learn and I still had trouble pronouncing some of the sounds from Arabic that were in Farsi too, like the ain and ghain. Even after a semester, my pronunciation of these sounds is still shaky. The first several weeks were trial and error, because I was trying to figure out what I wanted to learn, how much I could actually learn and what was the best way for me to learn.I think that for the most part I was overzealous in my goals each week, which allowed me to learn some things extremely well and others not as much. I was able to master all of my long term/semester goals of being able to introduce myself, say goodbye, communicate basic information, describe objects and order food. I also learned other things such as days of the week, telling time, some articles of clothing, household objects and classes. However, there were other pieces of information that I cannot communicate as clearly as I would have liked, such as weather and directions. There was so much information I wanted to learn because I was enthusiastic about learning Farsi. About halfway through the semester, I came to realize that I would learn more by learning less and learning the things I did learn extremely well so that they would stick with me from week to week. This worked well for me along with periodically reviewing the vocabulary from past weeks. Though I might not have learned as much as I would have wanted, I feel that I was more realistic in my learning approach and by learning less vocabulary I was able to spend more time making sure that I knew well the vocabulary I did learn.Part of learning Farsi was also figuring out the best ways for me to learn the language. At first I worked with a variety of materials trying to figure out which I liked best including, Rosetta Stone, BIKI, and several Farsi textbooks. I soon realized that Rosetta Stone was not helpful for me because when it would tell me words I wasn’t always sure of the meanings. Also, it was difficult for me to hear the word, write it down so that I could remember it and then do the project asked by the program. I also found that some textbooks were more helpful than others and decided to use the “Teach Yourself Modern Persian” book as well as a traveler’s Farsi phrasebook. The phrasebook was extremely helpful because it had a comprehensive dictionary in the back for many of the basic phrases that I wanted. It also gave clear simple explanations of grammar, which was much more helpful than the other books. I also used a variety of websites on the Diigo in addition to watching some movies.The grammar was always difficult for me to learn especially because of the way the sentence was structured with the verb coming at the end. However, after lots of studying and repetition I feel much more comfortable with the grammar. In order to do this, I had to take basic linguistic principles like language families and universals and understand how Farsi fit into or did not fit into those principles. I had to learn how to make a definite and indefinite object, how to conjugate verbs in several tenses, and how to form more complex sentences than just subject, object, verb, with adjectives and multiple subjects and verbs. For me, learning the grammar was interesting because it truly showed me how different the language was from Arabic in terms of structure and not just vocabulary. However, I feel that I was able to master many of the specifics of Farsi.I began learning through writing down lists of vocabulary and then transferring them to flash cards so that I could study. I also made a sort of cheat sheet of basic Farsi phrases and grammar that I could bring with me and anytime I couldn’t remember something or was confused about the way a sentenced was structured, I could look at it. This method of learning coupled with bi-weekly language sessions really helped me achieve my long-term goals. At first when I would be asked questions in drill in Farsi, I would get nervous and freeze up. By the end of the semester I was much more comfortable in answering questions and actually liked speaking in front of the class. It was great to be able to see the change from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester in terms of speaking and also in terms of how much I had learned.The other part about this program that I enjoyed was the fact that I was able to learn so much about another culture, and a culture that because of politics has more or less been closed off to Americans. Through my own readings, conversations with Mona and movies on the Iranian Revolution, the status of women and divorce in Iran, I was able to learn more about Iranian culture. It was interesting to see how Iranian culture was similar to Arab culture in some respects, but also had its own nuances. For example, Mona explained to us how it was common for people’s middle names to come from old Persian heroes’ names. I also really enjoyed learning more about the culture through my own cultural project as well as others. Through them I was able to learn more about certain movements within Iran, typical Iranian food, music and the importance of poetry. My cultural project on Hafiz allowed me to understand why he is such a prominent and beloved poet and how he has affected Iranian culture up until the present day. My favorite part was learning how people used Hafez as a fortuneteller and that there were websites you could go to, to have it done.Looking back on what I have accomplished over this past semester, I am proud of myself. I was not sure how I would fare in a self-directed language course, but I think that fared extremely well. It was nice having the freedom to decide what I wanted to learn, how I would learn it and when I would learn it. From January until now, I believe that I developed my skills as an autonomous learner and was able to draw on past language learning abilities to help me study and learn Farsi. Through this process I was able to learn what worked well for me and what did not in addition to learning about Iranian culture. For me this has been a positive course because it taught me a lot about another language and culture and how I learn best.
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Here's Obama's Noruz message from a while ago along with my attempt to translate it. I wrote down the many, many words I had to look up and circled the ones I couldn't figure out. I feel like the first 1/3 or so of it I could get for the most part, but once I got past that it seemed like I had to look up almost every word unfortunately. This made it a little disappointing, but I'm still pretty happy that in the end I was able to more or less figure most of it out. It's good to know that given a text and the resources I have readily available I can pretty much figure out what something means, considering this is a relatively high level of the language compared with most of what I have dealt with.
This is a description of a picture of my mom and I. I submitted it in an e-mail but am finally posting it.Ism man Will hast. Man az Boston hastam. Man beastoyik sal am. Farsi, Swahili, vav ingliz baladam. Man daneshju hastam. Man coat shalvar pooshidam. Eeshan madare man hast.Ismish Marilyn ast. Madaram baz neshaste ast. Un panjah vav shish sal ash. Ingliz baladad.Artifact 2:This artifact was posted on Taylor Napier-Runnels blog and can be found there.Artifact 3: This artifact is a short description of Kabul.Kabul – Man az Boston hastam. Hala man dar Kabul zindagi mekonam. Man Kabul ra dost doram. Kabul markaz Afghanitan hast wa buzurghtareen shahar dar Afghanistan hast. Dar Kabul mardam Dari sohbat mekonand. Kabul koh hai ziad darad. Hundu Kush yaki az koh hai mashHoor Kabul hast. Darya-i-Kabul ziba hast.
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When I first came into this course I was extremely ambitious in what I thought I was going to learn. Even when I revised my semester goals I was probably too ambitious. Each week I decided that I was going to push myself to learn as much as I could, particularly in the way of vocabulary. However, the problem that I realized towards the end of the semester is some of the information that I did not study as much or use on a regular basis was not really retained. Examples of this include, weather, directions and even some locations. I also did not realize that I would struggle as much with the grammar as I did, but finally at the end of the semester I feel like I have a basic grasp of sentence structure and how to express my thoughts in simplistic ways. There are still areas that are difficult for me including the present tense and the use of the word ra, which I think is used when something that could be a subject is used as an object. Below are the semester objectives that I set out for myself and I think that because these are topics that I used on a consistent basis I learned them much better than other things.My semester/long term goals are as follows:To be able to identify letters of the alphabet when written, and simple commonly used wordsTo be able to greet others and say goodbyeTo be able to introduce myself, express basic information about myself (name, age, where I am from, how I am doing, details about my family, occupation) and ask others the sameBe able to describe objects using their position, color and the number of itemsRead and order from a menuBe able to describe my daily routine in simple termsBe able to communicate basic information to a customs officerI definitely can identify letters of the alphabet when written as well as simple commonly used words. Most words I can sound out even if I don't know its meaning and the only part I get tripped up by is not knowing where the vowels go since they aren't written out. Still, I feel confident that I have succeeded in this goal. I also feel that I am able to greet and say good bye to others in a variety of ways and at a variety of levels (formal vs. informal). These expressions are probably some of my favorite and I use them quite frequently. Being able to introduce myself is something I am confident in my ability to do. The only thing I would worry about is sometimes I get confused by family members (aunts, uncles and cousins) when I am speaking and listening. I also feel confident in my ability to describe objects in terms of its color, position and how many. For example I could say there are 3 red shirts next to 4 green apples. In terms of ordering from a menu, I could most likely identify the basic ingredients in a dish, rice, meat, yogurt, bread etc, but I would not be able to know what a dish consisted of based off of its authentic name. While I did learn some food, I would say that I did not learn and exhaustive list of fruits, vegetables etc, but that I know the basics and enough to ensure that I can eat and survive. I also feel confident that I could describe my routine in simple terms because I did an artifact doing essentially that. I do not know if I could necessarily describe it in terms of what I would be doing in the future, but I am extremely confident in my ability to describe my routine in the past tense. I also feel like I would be able to communicate basic information to a customs officer including, age, name, nationality, home address and gender.Overall, I feel like I achieved all of my semester learning goals and feel confident about my progress with them. As always there are areas where I am more comfortable than others, but with more time I feel like I could completely master them all. I think that each week I felt that I needed to add new things to my Farsi arsenal, which did not allow me to learn some things as thoroughly as others, and if I could do it again I would certainly spend more time on certain aspects and limit the amount of vocabulary I was trying to learn. But still, I feel confident about what I know and what I learned.
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So last week was my last week of Farsi. I feel pretty confident that I achieved my learning objectives for last week although after reviewing all of my vocabulary and grammar I have realized that there are certainly areas I know much better than others. For example I feel much more comfortable introducing myself and talking a little bit about myself than trying to give directions or talk about the weather. I also still struggle with present tense verbs because of the way the stems change in irregular ways that it is hard to always remember how to conjugate verbs in that tense. The past tense is much easier for me and I sometimes find myself switching to the past tense when I don't know what the present tense is because at least I am getting my thoughts across that way.Last week we also had several more presentations that taught me more about the cultural aspects of Persian, Muslim and Afghan culture. One presentation was on the culture of Afghanistan, which was extremely similar to Iranian culture. There seemed to be certain aspects that transcended state boundaries including hospitality and the importance of tea. Another presentation was on the political structure of Afghanistan, which although length, was extremely helpful. In one of my other classes we were talking about the political structure in Afghanistan and I was able to contribute to the class because of what I had learned through this presentation. The final presentation was on the way the Dutch speak, but it actually tied into the Middle East slightly because of the murder of several prominent Dutch politicians and activists by radical Islamists. The presentations were interesting and it was also nice to be able to do my presentation.It is weird to think that this is going to be one of my last blog posts and that I will no longer have language sessions with Mona, who was a wonderful language partner. This has been a great experience and I am extremely glad that I signed up and took this course.
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Posted by Brian Mahoney on April 24, 2009 at 12:57pm
Recently I have been working a lot on conditional clauses and sentences. I feel like I have learned most of the tenses and types of things I would like to be able to say, but I still misuse them a lot. I have also been practicing using a lot of common expressions and interjections (like "sure", somewhat, the rest of, finally, etc.). I had tried to learn some of these types of things before but they're often hard to find in a dictionary or to learn from a book, so most of them I have come across during class meetings and written down. Since I was just writing them down as I came across them I hadn't really learned them, I could just recognize them and sometimes infer their meaning. I finally got organized and compiled them into one list, which has made learning them a lot easier and more efficient.Overall, I think I have made more progress than I expected to this semester. When I first started out it seemed like things were sort of too overwhelming to be able to really gain much understanding of the language. At some point, though, I feel like I crossed a threshold where I am now much more comfortable with the language. I feel confident enough with the language to try to sort of improvise ways to say things to get my point across. I can still really only speak correctly at a very basic level, but it seems like when I try to say things that I don't actually know how to say what I end up saying is usually wrong in a lot of ways, but usually understandable. I've never been very good at studying lists of things and memorization, so my vocabulary is still pretty terrible. A lot of the vocab that I wanted to learn I'm still not as familiar with as I would like to be, which is disappointing since I picked the things I wanted to know how to say. I've also realized that there are a lot of basic expressions that are usually the first thing someone learns when learning a language (like how to ask someone to repeat themselves, or talk slower, or what a word means...) that I only sort of know. I had skipped them because I thought it would be more useful to learn enough to be able to actually understand what they mean instead of just memorizing, but I never went back later on to learn them. Having realized this, that's one of the things I want to do now, especially considering how important they are in carrying out an actual conversation. In the end, I'm fairly pleased with the progress I've made. One of my main goals was to reach the point where I am familiar enough with sentence structure and inflection and such to be able to pick apart sentences that I don't understand. I think I've made a lot of progress in this area, which will make it a lot easier to continue to learn the language through reading, which will be the easiest type of medium to have access to in the future.
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I really enjoyed being an autonomous learner this semester and not worrying about learning or pacing myself through someone else’s standards. Focusing on my own individual goals was an awesome change of air from the learning I have been accustomed to for more than 10 years of being a student. I believe the main hurdle most people have in autonomous learning and especially in autonomous language learning is motivation. But for me, from day one I knew this was never going to be an issue due to the pain and discomfort I have felt for years by not assimilating in my Persian community back home. Sticking with the rational model/framework even thou sometimes I wanted to stray toward other mechanisms and having the discipline not to really helped me have a consistent level of learning during the many weeks.From the outset I wanted to focus primarily on the oral elements of the language and especially the sub-areas that would help assimilate better in the Persian community back home. By far, the greatest resource for me was my language instructor. The resources provided to us, i.e. Rosetta, TV channels, textbooks, etc were okay but I didn’t feel they played even a minor part in my development throughout the semester. Having stockpiled an array of personalized recorded clips that my language instructor and I critiqued was the by far the main resource in my learning process. Hearing and listening people has never worked for me, I have been listening for more than 10 years in the Persian community and it hasn’t helped one iota. Therefore, I focused on recording myself as much as I could and continuously going back and forth until I perfected my recordings for whatever area I was working with at that time. This also helped me realize which areas I was progressing with and which areas I was not, i.e. the “ka” sound was one of the most troublesome, tongue-twisting areas for me. Working with various forms of comedy no doubt was extremely interesting throughout the semester and I feel that I can somewhat go back home and at least not feel as uncomfortably conscious of my Farsi when I am with strangers. My flashcards helped me maintain the vocabulary I learned starting back from week 1 because I knew there were too many words for me to use on a regular basis and so a more systematic approach worked better on that front.The cultural project helped me understand the context behind shifting my accent from Khandari to Kabuli. Throughout the semester as I worked on having one consistent dialect in my speech, I did not bother to understand the history and underpinnings behind the two variations of Dari, and the cultural project as a whole helped bridge my overall learning between the two accents. Understanding precisely how and why the two dialects emerged from one language and not just the differences on the surface can help escalate my long-term development in mastering a single accent.My original learning objectives were not realistic or precise enough for me to be consistent and successful throughout the semester. I had too many goals and if I tried to achieve each one before the end of the semester I would’ve had no progress at all. Therefore after meeting with Dr. Scinicariello and revising a new plan with my language instructor I decided to focus on comedy (jokes, riddles, satires, sarcasm) and elevating my childish, Khandari-esque accent into a more mature Kabuli variant form. On the comedy side, I believe I’ve made huge strides as I can comfortably understand most children jokes, and I’m gradually getting a bit more comfortable in the longer mullah nasrudin jokes. The most difficult part in this front was trying not to translate a Persian joke in my head into English to understand it, most Persian jokes don’t make sense in English let alone be comedic, therefore the ones I posted in my blogs were the closest I could muster that were at least somewhat witty in both languages. My pace in telling jokes is a bit slower compared to my conversational pace overall, but when compared to the gap that existed early in the semester, I believe I am close in developing a consistent pace in both areas.I know some people spend decades without completely erasing their accents in a language, so therefore this semester I primarily wanted to work on developing at least a more mature tone in my conversations and not sounding like a child. This area was a bit more difficult than my other learning objective, but I feel more proud in my development in this area because at times I felt completely frustrated as I never did in my development in Persian comedy. Working on pronunciation and many tongue-twisting, i.e. 5 or more syllable words were areas I primarily focused on in my weekly recordings. At our sessions, I spent more than 80 percent of the time talking and I believe that was the correct way of approaching it. I am extremely glad with my progress in phonetics and intonation and overall I see them as very good building blocks that I can carry into the future to further remedy my accent.
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For my final artifact, I wanted to expand on what I did in my second artifact, instead of recording myself saying short children jokes, I have here recorded myself here saying the more longer and mature "chicken soup" joke that I mentioned in my week 10 and 12 blog.
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Semester Goals and Objectives:My first draft on 1/26/09 encompassed many goals and objectives that I don’t believe was very realistic for a semester’s length of time although they were perfect for a more long-term based approach. With that said, I still plan on just focusing on my oral skills because I believe they will have the most practical use for me and I find it a lot more interesting. My two primary areas of focus were one, Persian jokes, riddles, satire, sarcasm, etc. and two, improving my child-like accent into a more adult sounding form while increasing my vocabulary.I decided to focus on forms of Persian comedy because from my experience, if a person can feel comfortable making others laugh or understanding other people’s jokes that are from a different culture than yours, it’s one of the fastest and safest ways to form a connection with that person and consequently use it as a springboard for further learning and development. Many times in the past I felt ostracized from Persian gatherings and events because I did not understand or appropriately react to various forms of comedy for various reasons, which really prevented me from forming bonds with those people and hence increasing my progress in understanding their community. Being able to understand and relay jokes is one of most important social tools a person can have in a foreign environment and I believe if I can improve on this area it will escalate other need areas for me long-term in the language.Secondly, I wanted to focus on this semester on improving my accent in the language. Due to the fact that my language instructor and the Dari community overall in this country use a Kabuli dialect, I wanted to gradually shed my Khandari accent and adopt a more Kabuli tongue so to speak. I also have been told in the past that my accent was akin to a 5 or 6 year old kid but with a very deep voice, and therefore developing a more mature and confident accent was important for me. I know I might never if at all get rid of my accent completely, but I do want to improve upon it and set myself up for further improvement in the future.Future Goals and ObjectivesBe able to follow very complex and lengthy forms of comedy, ie. >1 min as I discussed in my blogs.Recognizing when to match voice level and intonation to a variety of situationsUsing correct grammatical structure for a variety of purposesIncreasing knowledge of proverbs and fablesDeveloping a faster pace in my daily conversationsStart having more dreams in Farsi, because it is said that dreaming in a language is one of the first signs of comfortLess reliance on physical gestures to communicate what I am trying to say
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Posted by ReidSchluter on April 21, 2009 at 3:30pm
This week I only studies one section of the book, albeit an important one. Instead, I spent a lot of time looking at the internet resources that Jan gave me in order to gauge how my understanding of Dutch has developed.The section of the book that I looked at was perhaps the most important I have read to date. It explained that Dutch was a TMP language meaning that modifiers in any sentence are always ordered by time, manner, place. This is incredibly useful knowledge because English is the opposite as a PMT language, and to this point I had always been confused by the word ordering in Dutch. I don't know why the book waited so long to elaborate on such a fundamental rule, but it is certainly helpful knowledge that will help me a lot.Since I've learned many of the fundamentals of Dutch including the basic verb tenses, all the major word groups including vocabulary, pronouns, interrogatives, possessives, etc..., I asked Jan for some Dutch-language websites that would help me reinforce & contextualize these skills. I already look at the main--sort of tabloidish--newspaper a lot, but he gave me some other helpful resources.Geenstijl.nl is a useful popular news website that is sort of similar to drudgereport.com in the United States. It explains popular news in relatively everyday linguistic terms.Spitsnieuws.nl is another, slightly more formal, news source that uses more functional dialogue than de Telegraaf.He also gave me two other websites jeugdjournaal.nl & hetklokhuis.nl (which I already had), which are for early-teenaged kids. These sources possess a lot of reading and listening material that outline things in a simpler & more easy to understand fashion.All of these sources together are very helpful. They will allow me to keep interacting with the Dutch language on a daily business once this semester is done, and I'm no longer around Jan. Reading the blogs & comments on the sites is very helpful too, as I can read colloquial/conversational Dutch.
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For my third artifact I'm thinking about writing a recipe in farsi. It could be for Iranian food or it could possibly be for something we eat everyday, but I think that this project would summarize my learning for this semester because my lesson plan was focused on reading and writing.
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Learning ObjectivesLearn 5 kitchen objectsLearn past tense ing form of verbsReview of vocabulary and grammar learnedEvaluationBe able to describe a kitchen including a place setting on the kitchen tableBe able to tell someone what I was just doing and ask them what they were just doing.Since this is my last week before the evaluation I would like to focus on reviewing material rather than learning new material.
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Last week I met all of my learning objectives and I am feeling very comfortable with household objects and rooms in the house. The verbs in the present tense ing form ended up being extremely easy because it is the same as present tense verbs. Apparently the two forms are used interchangeably. I also spoke with Mona about family life and it was interesting learning household customs such as taking off shoes when you enter the house or having special kinds of shoes to go to the bathroom. Also, we talked a lot about the differences in treatment between boys and girls. Boys are allowed a lot more freedoms than women are because there is so much more at stake for women if something happens to them. If their reputation is tarnished for some reason then it makes their prospects for marriage much less likely. I also watched a movie called "Divorce Iranian Style" which showed a court in Iran and talked about what it took for people, especially women. It was interesting to see what women would say to try and get out of marriages they did not want to be in and how hard it was for them to obtain their bride gift (a sum of money) from their husband. Most women ended up giving up their bride gift in order to get a divorce. It was a very eye opening documentary and I highly recommend it.Last week was extremely interesting because we had cultural project presentations which allowed me to learn about a variety of topics including music, the youth and Iranian food. My two favorite were the presentations on music and food. Up until last week I had only really heard classical music and I liked listening to other forms of music, especially the Iranian rap. It was also interesting to hear about how in Iran the music was extremely censored but outside of the country certain artists had very popular followings. The food presentation was also really great because we got to learn about the main Iranian dishes and the ingredients along with getting to try the food. We tried a flat thin bread that we put sour cherry jelly and a white cheese on. We could also put halwa on it, but I don't like halwa so I didn't. The bread and the sour cherry jelly were great, but I wasn't really a fan of the white cheese. It seems that the staples of Iranian food tend to be rice and meat. The presentations were really informative and I am excited to see the ones tomorrow.
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Posted by Becky Walker on April 20, 2009 at 5:14pm
This week was spent almost exclusively practicing my oral skills. I created sentences for the week, and read them with my drill instructor, who helped me both with pronunciation and grammar. Fortunately, this week I had only a few errors with my grammar. The sounds that do not exist in English such as the 'kh' or the 'gh' have posed a problem for me throughout the semester, however this week I was able to pronounce them "like a pro (according to Mona)" so long as they were the last syllable in the word. When they fall mid-word they still cause me to stumble if I am reading them, however when I am speaking, I do better.This last week of reflection is a bit bittersweet. My greatest fear is that when I return to studying Arabic this summer that I will lose much of what I have learned and accomplished in Farsi this semester. Thus my next goal is to learn how to learn both Arabic and Farsi together, so that they supplement each other as opposed to hindering my learning process. Overall, this course has been a wonderful experience of how much I can accomplish without direct instruction--my ideal learning style for most classes.
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After the cultural reading and finishing my cultural project, I was able to find some interesting connections.The section on cultural difference categories was most relevant. The categories are: symbols, heros, and rituals.Especially with the poem that i chose, the Shahnameh, many of the heros of Persian culture come from this "Epic of the Kings." All of these heros uplift the culture and strengthen the moral codes and norms that they cherish most.There are also endless values given by the Shahnemeh, for example:the proverb shahnemeh quoteknowledge is power "one who has wisdom is powerful"finding true friends is "If the enemy is a thorn it is because of you own sowing, if he is aonly possible you you brocade it is because of your own weaving"are worthy of themReward and punishment "when you dg the pit dig it according to the estimate of the size of body"are inevitable. If we harmanybody we must be preparedto receive reprisal in return
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