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I found the reading "Figuring Foreigners Out" very interesting.   Each of the points about society and culture are very necessary to take into consideration:  Individualist vs. Collectivist, Nonverbal Communication, Monochronic vs. Polychronic, and Direct vs. Indirect Communication. 

Coming from a very Italian family, the Israeli cultural tenancies do not overtly shock me.   This past Thursday, my language partner and I went out to lunch together to go over the menu and speak about food.   When she saw a table outside that she really wanted to sit at, she put her jacket on the chair, claiming the table, and we walked up to the waiter and told him that we were sitting outside at that table.   I laughed at the directness of her actions, because it is exactly what my grandparents do whenever they arrive at a restaurant.  However, as an American, this action was startling and was something that I am still learning and becoming comfortable with, the directness of the Israeli culture.   When I was in Israel, I had to insert myself into situations if I wanted something to happen, otherwise someone else was going to get what I wanted.    Thus, I would say that the Israeli culture is quite direct in their confrontations. However, I do not see the culture as being more individualistic and having "less developed ingroups."  On the contrary, I find Israeli to be quite a collectivist society and that their directness is part of their culture and how they show affection.   You cannot go to Israel and easily be offended, otherwise you will be offended.

      Additionally, Non-verbal cues are essential.   Last week, my language partner taught me how to say "wait a minute" with her hands.  This hand signal to me, from my Italian background, meant "CRAZY PERSON!!".  She had to take five minutes to explain how the gesture is used and what context.  To me it was very different and just showed me how much cultures can very with the same gestures.   Thus, I would have been part of the second category where a non-verbal communication gets mistranslated.  

I found the reading "Figuring Foreigners Out" very interesting.   Each of the points about society and culture are very necessary to take into consideration:  Individualist vs. Collectivist, Nonverbal Communication, Monochronic vs. Polychronic, and Direct vs. Indirect Communication. 

Coming from a very Italian family, the Israeli cultural tenancies do not overtly shock me.   This past Thursday, my language partner and I went out to lunch together to go over the menu and speak about food.   When she saw a table outside that she really wanted to sit at, she put her jacket on the chair, claiming the table, and we walked up to the waiter and told him that we were sitting outside at that table.   I laughed at the directness of her actions, because it is exactly what my grandparents do whenever they arrive at a restaurant.  However, as an American, this action was startling and was something that I am still learning and becoming comfortable with, the directness of the Israeli culture.   When I was in Israel, I had to insert myself into situations if I wanted something to happen, otherwise someone else was going to get what I wanted.    Thus, I would say that the Israeli culture is quite direct in their confrontations. However, I do not see the culture as being more individualistic and having "less developed ingroups."  On the contrary, I find Israeli to be quite a collectivist society and that their directness is part of their culture and how they show affection.   You cannot go to Israel and easily be offended, otherwise you will be offended.

      Additionally, Non-verbal cues are essential.   Last week, my language partner taught me how to say "wait a minute" with her hands.  This hand signal to me, from my Italian background, meant "CRAZY PERSON!!".  She had to take five minutes to explain how the gesture is used and what context.  To me it was very different and just showed me how much cultures can very with the same gestures.   Thus, I would have been part of the second category where a non-verbal communication gets mistranslated.  

In learning a language, culture is really just as important as vocabulary, pronunciation, and other standard parts of language learning that are usually taught. Practically, language is not used in an artificial setting -- it is used in the context of a culture that speaks that language.

For example, in America, a thumbs-up signal has a positive association and usually refers to approval or something well done. In Iran, a thumbs-up is obscene and is basically the equivalent of the middle finger in America. Language is all about communicating a message, and without being aware of the implications of cultural signs, one may convey the wrong message or nothing at all, as the reading said. Other cultural behaviors can have disastrous consequences if not understood. In Iran, there is a social convention known as taroff. For example, if a group of people are out to dinner, everyone will at some point offer to pay for the entire thing, even if they don't want to or can't afford it. Eventually, after much conversation about it, everyone will split the bill. Not participating in taroff is considered extremely rude, but a foreigner might not understand taroff if they have never been exposed to it before. If an Iranian tried to taroff in America, most people would accept the offer, leaving the Iranian stuck with paying even though they did not expect to.

From what I know about Iranian culture, I would say it is very collectivistic. It is definitely about harmony and saving face, as I showed previously in the example about taroff. That example also shows that Iranian culture and society is focused on indirect communication, and what is meant is usually between the lines and not explicitly stated. Iranian society is also definitely polychronic; we are notorious for always being late! But I liked what the reading said about it being a continuum and not absolute -- my mom is definitely more monochronic despite being Iranian.

The norms of the Indian culture essentially shape the Hindi language. One’s identity is closely associated with the identity of a larger group, in Indian culture, that group is family. The survival and honor of the family is to be upheld by all the members of the family. The two very basic and extremely important gestures in the Indian culture are:

One: Holding hands and bowing your head. This is a greeting for everyone, regardless of whether or not you know them. This gesture is a sign of respect for both elders and the younger youth.

Two: Touching an elder’s feet. This a very large and significant part of Indian culture because this is a gesture of respect towards the elder in particular. It entails that you are asking for their blessings. In my family, this gesture often takes place on the Indian New Year day. I also touch my parents’ feet when I leave home for a long period of time, i.e. before coming to UR.

The norms I stated above are the most basic rules of the Indian culture. Owing to the size of the country, norms tend to vary depending on what part of Indian a person is in. But the overall picture is straight-forward: Indian culture is more collectivist than individualistic, it is polychronic as opposed to being monochronic, it is external versus being internal, it in indirect rather than being direct.

Cultural dimensions of learning a language...

I've heard the saying that language is a mirror of culture. This is true because I agree that language and culture are closely related. Culture has a huge influence on the language of one's country therefore language acts as a verbal expression of culture. The Korean language reflects many different aspects of Korean culture. For example, when Koreans speak, they tend to use the word "our" more than they will use "my". So when a person is conversing about his or her country, instead of saying "my country" one will say "OUR country". This is a reflection of Korean culture because everyone living in Korea is more collectivistic as opposed to Western cultures where they are more individualistic. Their way of thinking is that the group that the individual is in is more important than the individual itself. A group is more valuable than a single person. 

Another way culture influences the Korean language is the different forms of politeness when speaking to people of different age groups. People of Korea are generally known as extremely courteous people who differ from the Chinese and Japanese. There are several different expressions for saying one/same word which all depends on who the person is talking to at the time. It can range from super informal to polite to extra polite. Because of the bureaucratic culture and respect to elders one must choose the appropriate phrase when speaking to others. Many characteristics of the Korean language are the results of Korean culture. 

Culture Dimensions of a Language: 

Urdu is spoken mostly in Pakistan, and it seems that the culture in Pakistan, and the culture where I come  from “Afghanistan” are pretty similar in the areas of dimensions.

Both Pakistan and Afghanistan score high in power distance, people do not consider themselves equal in both cultures regardless of formal positions in both these countries the power is in the hands of men. Also both countries are very high in collectivism and believe in power of union and togetherness rather than individualism.

Afghanistan scores a bit higher in masculinity vs. femininity because women in Afghanistan are much less powerful then women in Pakistan and are seen more naive. People in Afghanistan emphasize more in gender differences and women do not have same values as men.

whereas, in Pakistan it is not always like that, and in most places women have the same values and men in their society. Afghanistan is very low in uncertainty avoidance and has high tolerance for ambiguous situations. however, Pakistan is a little higher than my country in in this area. 

 As far as the language is concern, both countries think about long-term relationships while speaking than short-term.   Urdu language is not very straight to the point, but more of explanatory. Mutual respect and understanding is very important for this culture, and they do not usually say no in a direct way because they care more about one's feelings and try to understand them. 

Language Partner Meeting #1

Goal for the semester: My goal for this semester is achieve the “elementary” level of Hindi, i.e. read, write, and speak.

Date: September 16, 2012

Goal for the day: Get familiar with the Hindi alphabets

I met with my language partner Sanya Hirani today for the first time. For the first half of the meeting, she repeated the alphabets for me and I recorded her. The Hindi alphabet is divided into vowels, consonants and matras. There are a total of 33 consonants and 12 vowels. The matras are the same as the vowels, however, unlike the vowels; they can be combined with the consonants to change the pronunciation.  For example, the consonant pa added with the matra sound aa becomes paa.

In the second half of our meeting, Sanya connected consonants and matras and pronounced the words so I could get a better idea. This drifted into a cultural conversation (the best part according to me!). We started talking about food and how the pronounce for the exact same meals are different in Hindi and Gujarati.

Overall, my first day with my language partner was very helpful. In my schedule, I dedicated 2 weeks to learning the alphabet but I am going to have to extend that to three to ensure that I get the base of the language right. 

          I was born and raised in India. Growing up in the state of Gujarat, the first language I learned was Gujarati. Later, I went to an English medium school where I studied in English. Hindi is the national language of India and, since I was raised in India, I am more familiar with Hindi than other beginners are. I can watch Indian movies and understand at least eighty percent of the material. My goal for this semester is being able to read, write, and speak proficiently. As of now, I am aiming to reach the elementary level of Hindi.

          I am both an auditory and a visual leaner. I prefer lectures because I learn from listening to others. I take notes when I listen so I have something to look back at. I study for tests using my written notes. I write in a colloquial language to make the notes more interesting. Using informal language helps me study easier when I have to go back and learn the material for a test. I also take informal notes when I have to read articles or read stories in that language. Informal notes that help me concentrate when I have to refer to the reading again. When I am learning a new language and encounter words that I have a hard time remembering, I try to find the similar sounding words in Gujarati. This technic helps me broaden my vocabulary in the language I am learning. For example, diez in Spanish became dus in Gujarati. I like to save all my notes from the classes I take; this is especially true with languages. I like to look through my notes every once in a while to make sure I don’t forget the language.

           When I was India, I started learning Hindi in school. I took classes for approximately two years. I learned the alphabet and the very basics of the language at an elementary level. However, when I moved to the United States, at the age of eleven, I slowly started losing all the Hindi I had learned. I did not have any notes and, at that point, my attention shifted towards bettering my English instead. Over the next few years, I lost all the elementary Hindi I had learned in school. I do not want to repeat this again and, therefore, I will be taking good notes to keep with me for years to come to ensure I don’t forget the language again.

           Throughout high school, I took Spanish. After coming to college, I took the intermediate level of Spanish to satisfy my language requirement. Whenever I have questions for the teacher/professor, I always prefer staying after class and talking to them one on one. I learn more from one on one interaction than class room surroundings. According to the FIRE Model, I am an evaluative learning. When I study, I prefer to study in comfortable surroundings rather than sitting at a table and a chair. I love talking to people and hearing about their experiences in a particular country. I like to learn from people’s experiences.  I hope to learn more about Indian culture from my language partner. 

SDLAP 110 Entry #3

Goal for the week:

Learn fifty vocabulary words

Improve Present tense conjugation

Learn “I like” structure

Result:

Completed

Method:

My language partner would orally drill me on present tense forms and vocabulary. Some activities included fill-in-the-blank, English-Bosnian translation, and Bosnian-English translation. The goal is to be comfortable with common present tense verbs before moving on to commands, and past and future tenses. Ultimately, I’d like to start writing and reading soon.

I saw the movie Gbravica over the weekend. I not only learned a few knew words, but am proud to say I recognized a few too! It was a great film that actually helped me to understand my Bosnian friends a bit better, particularly their intensity and sensitivity regarding the Bosnian War.

SDLAP 105

Blog Entry #2

Reflect on cultural dimensions of learning a language.

This weekend, I saw a Bosnian film called Grbavica. It helped me to get a better sense of why some Bosnians are the way that they are and in turn, gave me a greater understanding of the language. Of course, one does not want to generalize. Socioeconomic and historical factors in Bosnia for instance however, are tied very closely to the tone and regular vernacular of Serbo-Croatian. The story features a twelve-year-old girl who lives in Sarajevo and attends a predominately Bosniak school. In order to attend a class field trip free of charge, she needs a certificate from her mother confirming that her father was a Bosnian war hero. They live in a modest area, and her mother works nights as a waitress. They are not a family of means. Sara’s mother, Esma, continued to prolong the attainment of the certificate. Tension builds to the point where Sara holds a gun to her mother in efforts to learn the truth of who her father was. Esma had been withholding the fact that she was raped by Chetniks as a means of ethnic cleansing and humiliation. The Bosnian language I’ve heard spoken is tends to be intense, loud, confident, emotional, and sarcastic. It might seem cold and stoic from the outside, but masks some very deep wounds that arises from the country’s war-torn history. When I speak it and hear it spoken, everything sounds like a forceful, quick, direct, and confident assertion. This is at least what I’ve seen when Bosnians talk to Bosnians. The fact that family is so central to life in Bosnia is also reflected in conversations and behavior. I saw it in the movie. There is the informal, sharp, direct, and sardonic means of talking to everyone outside of the family, and then there is the loving, kind, generous speak reserved for family and very close friends. I’ve found the polarity striking in my own language learning simply because I don’t speak the language like my partner or Bosnian friends do! I don’t mean just pronunciation, but intonation and force. It has nothing to do with confidence either. I think it’s mostly cultural difference! Bosnian speak seems much quicker and to-the-point!

This week was the first week I met with my language partner. My personal goal for the week was to learn to introduce myself to people and talk a little about myself. I also wanted to master the alphabet. During our first meeting, my partner taught me how to greet people formally and informally. At the start of our meeting, trying to listen to him and to get the pronunciations correct was a little difficult but after repetition, things got easier. He suggested that I should not write anything down and that I should just keep repeating everything back to him until I memorize it. This was pretty effective since repeating everything sticks to the memory. After that, I did write down everything in order to practice it more on my own during the week. He taught me things like "Hello, my name is Byambaa and I am 22 years old. I am a sophomore at the University of Richmond studying Psychology. My favorite food is sushi and favorite color is purple. It's nice to meet you." At our second meeting of the week, we reviewed the alphabet and he wrote them on the board so we practiced saying them together. He also added more onto my self introduction. I learned how to say I was born in Mongolia but I am from New Jersey. I think our main strategy is repetition and it seems to be working pretty well so far. In between our meetings, I used youtube videos to instruct me in learning the alphabet further and how to put the symbols together to construct words. I now know how to write my name in Korean! The first week with my partner is off to a great start and I am eager to learn more things during the upcoming weeks. 

On week three I learned how to greet, how to order in a restaurant and also writing and memorizing the days of the week. I found all the activities so far very interesting. specially learning the days of the week was very interesting, at the beginning hard to remember but then after repeating it with myself it became easy. 

on week four I am planning to learn more about the writing styles, and grammer structure. it a little bit hard to understand grammer because in Urdu they have feminine and masculine forms of the verbs. so I have to be very careful  while changing the subject to male or female.

On Week Five, I want to learn about sports, food, and music of this culture. I would also like to learn how to talk about their food, sports etc. I have done some research about the music and I really like to listen to them. But it would be much interesting to understand their music while listening.  

 Attached is my learning plan for this semester.

SDLAP_learningplan.docx-Susan%20J.docx

Reflection Paper # 1

I was born in Afghanistan and raised in other countries, like, Pakistan, and American. All through, my life I have been struggling on learning new languages, and understanding new cultures.  The first language, besides my native language “Farsi” I learned was Pashtu, which is also a national language in Afghanistan. Learning Pashto was not very hard, since I had always listened to the people around me, and heard it on TVs, Radios, and etc. Then I started learning Arabic when I was in elementary school. Arabic is widely thought in public and private schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan because everyone needs to learn it, in order to understand and read Quran.

            As a language learner I found Pashtu, and Arabic very interesting because they share the same alphabet and some common words.  Arabic was a bit confusing because it has a very complicated grammar, especially when it comes to the usage of masculine and feminine words in sentences. The thing I did not like about learning these two languages at the same time were the confusion on the usage of some words that were the same in both languages but had different usages in sentences.  I was still struggling in learning Arabic that, all schools started teaching English as a mandatory language. I started learning English when I was in High school, and as a high school student, learning a new language was not only hard, but also full of challenges and competitions.

Learning a new language has never been easy for me, but I found it always interesting. As far as my past experience with learning a new language, I really enjoy and like to learn new things and learn more about different cultures.  Beside these languages that I already know, I always wanted to learn Urdu which is spoken in Pakistan, India, Kashmir and some other South Asian countries.  

            The ways I learned these languages involves a lot of practice and having conversation with the people who can only speak them. After practicing for so many years, I found that when I learn a new language I don’t learn it by reading books, articles, and/or memorization. But I learn it more when I listen to other people, and then practice speaking with someone.

            Even though, I learn more by speaking and practicing with someone else, I would also like to practice reading and writing on my own. This way I would be able to be self-dependent and learn more things about the language and the culture. I am also planning on reading some literature books on Urdu poetry, and I am sure by the end of this semester I will be able to understand a lot more then what I expect.

             In order to know what learning style or activities suites me best, I have to practice different ways and techniques and find the best one. Because it has been awhile that I have stopped learning a new language, I feel like it is going to be a bit more challenging. However, I will try every possible way to reach my goal. I do not only want to learn the language, but the importance of this language in the countries where Urdu is spoken, the culture, the people, the literature, and how people like and perceive this language in other countries.  I also would like to know about the history of this language and find the similarities and differences with the languages I already know. 

Goal: Learn numbers and parts of the body

This week I met with Prachi and Pooja twice. We worked intensely on pronunciation of letters and body parts. I came to the meeting already knowing body parts, as the night before, during my workout in the gym, I took a colloquial Gujarati book that I ordered online, and pointed to all of the parts of my body and said aloud the specific words.  It helped me to memorize the words without converting them from English to Gujarati. It was similar to me learning body parts as a toddler, when my mother would point to parts of my face and body, and ask me to repeat after her. This method was extremely effective. 

During our language meeting, I stood up and pointed to about 20 different body parts, announcing the Gujarati vocabulary along with my gestures. Some examples:

eye: ak

nose: nak

eyelash: pa-pan

cheek: gal

throat: galuu

heart: hraday

rib: pasli

hair: val

These are just a few of the body parts that I announced to my language partners. They corrected me on very few words, as I took the time to meticulously master the pronunciation from the word breakdowns in the book.  After working on body parts, I repeated numbers 1-10. I found it difficult until I we were able to come up with funny ways to remember the words. By the end of the week, I knew the numbers. The hard part was working on the pronunciation, as Gujaratis speak with parts of their mouth that westerners do not. For example, they ah-na is apart of the alphabet. The "n" is silent and it is a roll of the tongue, in which the tongue does not touch the roof of the mouth. I found it increasingly difficult to master this. I am still working on it.

The three readings for this week were very informative and opened my eyes to so many aspects of language learning that I had never examined or thought of before.

How the Brain Handles Language  made me realize how involved even speaking a simple sentence in the native language is, let alone becoming comfortable speaking in the target language. So many steps, outlined in the neurolinguistic models, are run through by the brain to speak just one short, common sentence. I also thought it was interesting how language is typically processed by the brain in an analytical nature, rather than a creative one. It is theorized that each part of language is processed separately by the brain, a theory known as localization, and that was also really intriguing. Speaking is separate from listening comprehension, and so on. By understanding just how complicated language really is within the brain, I am better able to conceptualize how my own language learning is accomplished and understand why it can be so frustrating at times -- it is difficult to coordinate so many parts of the brain at once.

How to Investigate Language Structure really made me more aware of the layers of languages. While I was subconsciously aware of all of the different "levels," like syntax, semantics, grammar, and phonology, I had never really thought about them separately or realized how much they were connected and played a role in language learning. It is so easy to change one tiny thing about a sentence (its vocabulary, tone, etc.) and completely change the meaning. Knowing all the complexities of language will help me in trying to master my target language.

How We Mean  made me really think philosophically about what "meaning" is. Like the reading said, "meaning" has so many meanings. And we often think the meaning we grew up with, like what is expressed in our own language, is the only way things can be expressed. Multilingual people definitely have a more cosmopolitan and diverse view of the world -- there are so many things in one language that cannot be expressed in others. Even with the rudimentary Farsi I know, I can think of many words that do not correspond to others in English directly. Meaning is dependent on experience, and without diverse experiences, we cannot open ourselves up to other meanings that may be possible. 

I really enjoyed the part about monosemic and polysemic words -- while some words are monosemic and only have one meaning, many words are polysemic, and their meaning is entirely dependent upon the context. Constructing sentences is key to language learning -- learning words in isolation is often fruitless. I will definitely keep this in mind as I learn Farsi.

Byambaa Khurelbaatar

Learning Journal #1

SDLC 105     

     All of the reads by D. Crystal were interesting and very eye opening. The section "How the brain handles language" broke down how each part of the brain works and how each processes different things. It's always great to have knowledge of how our brain operates that way we have a deeper understanding of what is happening while we are doing everyday tasks. The discussion of neurolinguistic processing caught my eye more than the rest because I never really thought about how complex the process of saying a simple greeting was. Also, slips of the tongue is something to pay attention to because this happens to me all the time but from reading this piece I understand that it doesn't happen randomly there is actually a process for it. 

      In "How to investigate language structure", it included useful information as to how to go about learning a different language. By learning the different levels of language structure (semantics, grammar, and medium of linguistic transmission) it helps me plan and organize my practice sessions better. "How we mean" and "How we analyze meaning" were both intriguing sections of the author's book. It is true that one simple word can have many different meanings which makes it a bit more complex for people to learn a language. For new language learners it might be hard to figure out when to use each meaning of a certain word. In my independent study class last week, my group had to come up with synonyms for the word "maverick" and at the end we came up with about 25 words. Just that alone amazes me because we can use multiple words just to describe one thing. She stated "different languages 'parcel out' the world in different ways." This is another interesting thing to point out because I know that every language has different ways of talking about one thing. Overall, all of the reads for this week added great insights and required me to think deeply about how I am speaking, how my brain carries out that process, and how complex learning a language could really be. 

I really enjoyed and liked reading the articles for SDLC 105. I liked the article "How to investigate language structure" because it tells us all about what to pay attention when learning a language. I really liked the part talking about the usage of the correct form of a word and how it changes the meaning and content of a sentence. Through my experience in learning different languages, I have noticed that there are many words in every language that the same meaning, but are different in writing and reading. 

The article ""How the brain handles language" was also very interesting. The fact that left handed people are more dominant in learning language was more interesting to me. I am a right handed person, however, I always find learning a language more fun and learn it faster. another thing that I found interesting in this article was the "slips of the tongue" I have noticed that sometimes when I or somebody else speak a foreign language, it is common to use words backwards or in an inappropriate order.

And, yes, the last article "How We Mean" was as interesting as the two others. In any language the most important part is knowing and learning the proper  vocabulary. Knowing the right word and where and how to use that word is very important in completion of a sentence and how it conveys the right meaning to the reader or listener. 

Over all, I think in learning a new language we should consider the structure, grammer, and vocabulary more in order to get used to that language. It is also important to know how to use the right word or verb so the reader or listener knows what you mean exactly.  

This week, I practice some useful conversations with my language partner, and i  learned how to introduce myself in Urdu. I posted my introduction as an artifact on my portfolio. 

my plan is to learn the numbers and days of the week for the coming week and for my next artifact. 

I met with my language partner on the second week, but we talked a little about the history of Urdu, the alphabet and some introduction on which countries speak this language. 

Our plan is to focus more on conversations, and literature.