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This week, we discussed tenses.  In Indonesian, there are several important characteristics to keep in mind.  The three areas are tense, aspect, and temporal marker.  These have to do with time and if the action is completed, ongoing, or yet to be started.  This lesson was very difficult.  Different key words indicate different scenarios.  Sudah represents a completed action. Belum means a continuing action.  Bara saja means recently completed. Masih means a situation is ongoing.  Masih belum means a task is expected, but it has not yet occurred.  These tasks are all accompanied by time markers such as time, dates, months, or weeks.  In Indonesian, these time markers are extremely important to clarifying speech.  Depending on how recent or old an action is also determines what phrase to use. 

This lesson taught me the importance of the vocabulary for time.  Without this vocab, it is pretty much impossible to have a conversation in Indonesian.  Because there are so many terms, I made flash cards to help me memorize their meanings and when to use them.  I am confident in my ability to read and write with the new grammar rules, but I am not able, yet, to fully understand them as I speak or am listening.  This grammar section was very difficult, and I hope to work on it more when I study Indonesian next semester. 

After finishing my pronunciation exercise, I decided to listen to some Indonesian speakers and see how closely I could follow along.  Thalia showed us a video from a video blogger a while ago that I thought would be perfect for me to use.  The woman is from the United States, but she is currently living in Indonesia with her husband and son.  The videos were helpful because the woman used both languages when speaking.  She would say easy words in Indonesian and more difficult ones in English.  I watched a few videos and just tried to focus on translating as she spoke.  I found it extremely difficult at first, but I started to get the hang of it after a while.  I started to realize her cadence and sentence structure.  I then watched one of her more recent videos.  In this video, she almost exclusively spoke in Indonesian.  She was discussing the different prices that warungs, local stores, charge different people.  Having knowledge of the most common food in the warungs, I was able to follow along very well. 

This exercise showed me that learning how to listen and translate at the same time is the most difficult task for me to accomplish.  The best thing I can do is try to learn as much vocabulary as possible.  Accomplishing just this helps because I can at least follow along and fill in what I do not know with context clues.

Today, I decided to work on my pronunciation.  I came up with a list of words that I feel confident in my pronunciation of, and another list of words that I have difficulty pronouncing.  First, I recorded myself pronouncing the words that I am confident in.  I then listened back to my pronunciations and thought back to how I have heard Thalia pronounce the words.  I noticed that my pronunciation was close to Thalia’s.  I then recorded myself pronouncing the more difficult words.  I found that my pronunciation of these words was not like Thalia’s.  My pronunciations were rushed and did not focus enough on the vowels in every syllable. 

By doing this recording, I had an opportunity to dissect my speech patterns.  This led to me slowing down and focusing on each letter.  The pronunciation of Indonesian is much different than in English.  Using my recordings, I was able to see where my pronunciations wavered from Thalia’s.

For my final artifact, I decide to try and experience some of the Indonesian culture.  I decided to go online and search for authentic Indonesian cuisine near the University of Richmond.  I found BoBoKo Indonesian cafe in Harrisburg, Virginia.  The food focuses on fruit, rice, and aesthetics.  For the most part, the food is simple and neat.  The food was unlike any other I have ever had.  The dishes were made with a mixture of all types of fruits, vegetables, and meat.  Another interesting aspect of the food was the influence of the Dutch and French.  French macarons were a highly requested dish by the patrons.  I sat down at the table and talked with my waiter.  He was not born in Indonesian, but he could speak the language.  I told him about my class and why I decided to come all the way from Richmond to eat some food.  He gave me the opportunity to try and order in Indonesian.  I asked for beef rendang, a meet dish with rice and vegetables.  The plate was small, but the food was delicious.  I greatly enjoyed the seasoning on the beef.  Finally, I tried the coconut ice cream.  The waiter was surprised that I knew the word for coconut, kelapa, because it is very unusual.  After eating and paying for the bill, I looked around the restaurant and saw all of the different kinds of people in the restaurant.  There were all kinds of ethnicities in the restaurant.  I think it speaks to the influence different cultures have had on Indonesian.  Every group that has been on the islands has left an imprint that has culminated into a very eclectic environment.  I was glad to see that others were experiencing and enjoying that environment as I was.    

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            This week we discussed negation in sentences.  When saying “no” to a verb phrase, the speaker uses the word tidak.  When responding no to a nominal phrase, the speaker uses the word bukan.  These words go directly before their respective nominal or verbal phrases.  We also discussed vocabulary pertaining to the family.  Generally, wanita, pria, istri, saami, and anak mean woman, man, wife, husband, and child respectively.  Other important classifications are the phrases laki-laki meaning brother, adik meaning younger, kakak meaning older, and perempuon meaning sister.  To learn this vocabulary and grammar, Thalia asked me to incorporate the two into a short paragraph about my own family. 

Ibu saya namanya Lucibeth dan bapak saya bernama Clint.  Saya purya dua adik laki-laki namany Jack dan Sam.  Ibu saya tidak purya pekerjaan.

This translates as: “My mother’s name is Lucibeth and my father’s name is Clint.  I have two younger brothers named Jack and Sam.  My mother does not work. 

Notice when indicating that my mother does not work that I used the word tidak because I am negating the word work.

To further understand these concepts, I created flash cards for the vocabulary because that has helped me learn previous vocabulary.  To help myself learn negating phrases, I have been listening to people and myself talk so that I can think in my head whether I am negating a verb or noun phrase.

This week we discussed the days of the week and the formal way to create an email in Indonesia.  In Indonesian, the week starts on Monday rather than Sunday as it does in the United States.  The words for the days of the week are as follows: Senin, Selasa, Robu, Kamis, Jumat, Sabtu, and Minggu.  These mean Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  In Indonesia, the name of days of the week are upper case.  To say the word week, the word for Sunday is used, but it is not capitalized.  In other words, the word minggu means week. 

            The structure of an email is as follows:

24 Maret 2018

Bowman

Kepada: Kanin

Halo teman,

            Apa kabas?  Kurang baik.  Saya berbica di sekolah ini Senin.  Se mogu Anda juga baik-baik.  Apa Anda tinngal de Florida?  Syaa dari Tennessee.

            This is translated as follows:

March 24, 2018

Bowman

To: Kanin

Hello friend,

            How are you?   I am not doing well.  I have a presentation at school this Monday.  I hope you are doing well.  You are from Florida, right?  I am from Tennessee.

            To learn the vocabulary, I have created flashcards.  Remembering the email structure is not as difficult, as it is similar to the structure use in the United States. 

            This week we covered prepositions and using the word apa.  In Bahasa Indonesia, there are three key prepositions: ke, di, and dari.  Di can be translated as at, an, or in in English.  Ke can be translated either as to or toward.  Dari is used when saying from a place or a person.  When translating the sentence from Indonesian to English, the context is the greatest clue.  To learn these prepositions and their functions, Thalia gave me several sentences that used each preposition.  For instance, the sentence, “Ratih makan siang di rumah” means, “Ratih has dinner in his house.”  To better learn when the prepositions are used, Thalia had me develop sentences without notes using the prepositions correctly.  On my own, I found a paragraph that had missing prepostions and selected the correct ones to fill in the blanks.

            Finally, we followed up on our discussion last week of the word apa.  Apa is an indicator of a question sentence.  When used at the beginning of a sentence, apa indicates a yes or no question.  When the word is at the end of the sentence, the speaker is asking the listener to fill in the blank.  For instance, the sentence, “Kevin makan apa” requires a response of a food item.  The sentence translates as, “Kevin eats what?”  The receiver of the question could answer with the word nasi for rice.

This week, I am working on numbers.  This has been the most difficult lesson so far.  I first learned how to count from one to ten.  This part is simple vocabulary that will only require memorization to learn.  The rest of the numerical system is much more difficult for me to understand.  I do not feel that I have a very strong grasp on the numerical system, yet.  To further my understanding, I plan on looking up numerical tables in Indonesian so that I can memorize the vocabulary as well as the structure.  This is the first lesson I have learned that has required outside information.  I have found one source that is provided by the Indonesian government to help travelers understand the system.  However, I plan on finding more material in the coming week that can offer a little more clarification of the system.

            In my second week of working with Thalia, I am working on greetings and introductions.  We first worked on the equivalent of saying good morning/afternoon/night.  In Indoesia, the day is broken into 4 parts instead of 3.  The 4 parts of the day are broken up into specific times of the day.  This is a little difficult to understand as somone who has only known 3 parts of a day.  The four parts of the day are selamat pagi/siang/sore/malam.  We are also working on sentence structure.  In Indonesian, there is not a “to be” verb.  The direct translation, for instance, of “I am well” is simply “baik”.  Not being able to directly translate a sentence word for word is different to me.  I have taken Spanish and Latin, and this is much different.  In Spanish, you translate word for word.  In Latin, you may not translate every word, but you utilize case endings to demonstrate a direct object, indirect object, or possession.  To understand this concept, I need to work on understanding this difference by seeing more examples.  As far as learning the vocabulary, I think I have done a good job of keeping up.  I have worked on memorizing the information by quizzing myself and looking at flashcards.  I am looking forward to using this basic information I have learned to start understanding sentence structure and start a conversation with an Indonesian speaker.  To ensure further learning, I have been reading the textbook that Thalia provided us.

            I am currently working on developing my Learning Plan.  The goal of this exercise is to develop a set of tasks to hold myself accountable to so that I can keep track of my goals and my progress.  I hope to develop a learning plan that develops my reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills by using simple and interconnected tasks.  To develop my goals, I am using my learning partner to formulate goals that are simple and realistic.  My plan focuses on breaking down simple, everyday tasks into goals.  For instance, I want to know how to count to ten and learn how to pronounce the alphabet so that I can learn to speak in everyday life.  Another goal is to learn how to write a sentence while maintaining grammar rules.  This is so that I can go on to learn how to write a paragraph so that I can communicate with text.

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Sources:

Indonesian Grammar In Context, 2014, ed. Ellen Rafferty, Molly Burns, and Shintia Argazali-Thomas.

Oral Summary:

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Learning Journal 15: Summarize your work this semester, the progress you made and the difficulties you encountered.

Looking back through the Portuguese journal I keep throughout the semester, I have learned so many new words and phrases. I was also able to learn 5 different verb tenses. Overall, I learned a lot about Brazilian (and Portuguese) culture and the language in general. One of the main difficulties I encountered was pronunciation. Even now at the end of the semester, there are many sounds I struggle with (especially nasal sounds). Nonetheless, I have become more comfortable with Portuguese sounds and I like to think that even though my pronunciation is far from perfect people might be able to tell what I am trying to say. While studying there were many questions and topic that I would have liked to investigate more in depth but I did not have the time. In the future, I will like to continue exploring Portuguese in a more informal context. Rather than studying grammar, I would like to continue exposure through media (music and shows), which I hope allows me to continue learning or at least not lose everything I have learned. 

Learning Journal 14: Summarize your work this semester, the progress you made and the difficulties you encountered.

Goals: Imperative, traveling vocabulary

This week I will finish my study of the Imperative tense using more Babble lessons and exercises. Furthermore, I will like to end my study plan on a happy note learning vocabulary on traveling. I will use Babble lessons as well as Brazilian travel blogs for this vocabulary topic. After I document new vocabulary on my Portuguese journal, I will have a second review of material from past weeks to assess my progress.

Learning Journal 13: State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.

Goals: Imperative and Media

This week I will start working on my last verb tense, imperative. Babble lessons and practice exercises have been very helpful tools to learn verb conjugations and so I will continue to use them for my last verb tense. I will also be learning media vocabulary. For this topic I want to do some research to see what people have to say about Brazilian media (e.g. music, TV shows, etc) and compare it to my own impression of the things I have encountered so far. 

I will use my meeting with my language parter to ask some questions regarding some cultural aspects of Brazil and the Portuguese language. I want to ask these questions as a guide for my cultural presentation. 

Hello, attached is my cultural project powerpoint! Let me know if you have any questions!

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Learning Journal 12: State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.

Goals: Future, technology, and work

This week I will finish working with future tense conjugations. I will be doing my last review using Babble and and some handouts I found online that include present, past, and future tense in Portuguese. I will also review technology and work vocabulary using Babble lessons and document new vocabulary in my Portuguese journal. 

I plan to review propositions and accompanying words used in Portuguese with my language partner. 

Learning Journal 11

Goals: Future, life stages: adulthood and old age

This week I will start working on future tense conjugations. I have encountered a few examples of future tense through music and reading but I will be formally reviewing conjugation rules for future tense. Furthermore, I am to continue with my study of vocabulary for life stages. This week I am reviewing adulthood and old age. As usual, I will be using Babble lessons to practice and document new vocabulary in my Portuguese journal. I would also like to find time to go back through my journal and review material from past weeks.

This week I want to discuss media culture with my language partner, especially music. I will also like to discuss any questions I might find while reviewing material from past weeks.