This week, Mona went over how to say “How are you?” in different ways and broke it down grammatically. Also “What is your name” (and how to respond to the two questions). She also went over how to conjugate verbs, pronouns, and possessives.I thought these sessions were very effective. I was able to understand what was happening and break down the meaning of the words and their suffixes. I spent two hours with Mona total, and spent some time throughout the week reinforcing what I learned with Mona (about 4 hours).I also spent an hour going through the beginning of the Farsi phrasebook. While it is helpful, it is very simplified, and does not go into grammatical detail and breakdown, simply ‘how to say it one way.’I also learned some phrases to use on how to get somewhere if I was lost, but it was way over my head as far as learning the detailed grammatical specifics.My plan for this coming week is to start using the Pimmsler audio resource which I have at home. My goal is to do three 30-minute sessions a week. I will continue to read through the Farsi phrasebook a bit more. In addition, I want to learn how to refer to times of the day and tell time and such, so my task for the week will be to create a dialogue in which Mona and I discuss our schedules and figure out times to meet. The emphasis for learning will be on the times and different parts of the day, not the actual activities.I mentioned this before, but I do not think it would be worth my time to continue to learn the alphabet and how to actually write in Farsi. I think that is too difficult to learn simultaneously with how to converse, which is my focus. From now on, I will only be learning how to write Farsi using English characters.I think the best way for me to go about learning is to learn basic grammar structure with Mona, while learning how to converse more without knowing the grammatical details using Pimmsler and the phrasebook.
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Persian has six vowel sounds, all represented by the letter alef. There are three main ones, and different accent marks are used to distinguish. Stress is generally placed on the last syllable of the word, althought it is placed on the first syllable for proper names. Nouns are made plural by adding the siffix -ha at the end. Persian has five cases to show the function of a noun or pronoun in a sentence, using prepositions and postpositions to indicate the role of the noun. The five cases are the nominative case, the accusative case, the dative case, the locative case, and the ablative case. Verbs in Persian change their form according to the person and number of the Subject as well as for the tense. Subject and Tense are indicated by the type of the suffix which appears on the verb root. Verb roots are formed by deleting the suffix -dan from an infinitive.
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Persian is an SOV language which is very helpful for beginner learners because when we try to translate a sentence in English into Persian, we tend to want to translate in an order of SOV. For example: The boy went to school. We would first think, how do we translate ‘boy’ into Farsi? There are many more nouns (which serve as objects) then there are verbs, so we would think first of how to translate the object ‘school.’ As a beginner, we would probably first learn some basic verbs which we will use over and over again, but learn many more nouns to use as subjects and objects. The order of SOV is therefore easy for beginners to translate to and learn.
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In addition to completing all assigned tasks in Blackboard (2 hours), this past week I have also continued to work on learning the alphabet and numbers (2 hours). I have also perused through some online resources on Diigo concerning Farsi and Iranian culture, and bookmarked a few things myself (2 hours). I examined some of the resources in the language studio and decided against purchasing a grammar-based Farsi book(1.5 hours). I thought this would be too complex to learn as an autonomous beginner learner. I want to focus on speaking and understanding spoken Farsi anyway, so I researched some resources on Amazon.com (1 hour). I discovered an audio CD as well as a phrasebook which I plan on using to help me learn Farsi. I spent two hours with Mona going over the rest of the alphabet, and my plan for this week is to continue to practice the alphabet, learn some common phrases, and explore my newly obtained resouces.
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Culture is anything and everything that makes up a group of people. It is the characteristics they share which make them unique, or set them apart from other groups of people. These characteristics include, but are not limited to, type of music, food, language, customs, clothing, behavior, principles, morals, social norms, beliefs (religious or otherwise), values, interests, and activities. Cultures can apply to different countries, continents, states, cities, races, religions, ethnic groups, or even corporations, work environments, schools, teams, clubs, families, or basically any way that people are organized or relate to one another. Cultures are multi-dimensional and vary greatly. Some are static, while others evolve over time.Language can comprise a small part of a larger culture, or can be defined as a culture by itself. Characteristics of a culture can be seen in the way a language is spoken or written. For example, a strict culture may enforce strict rules in variances between who is doing the speaking and who is being spoken to, while a more relaxed culture will make less of a distinction. A more ‘simple’ culture may not have many vocabulary words for similar or the same things, while a more ‘advanced’ culture may have many words for essentially the same thing, or different words for slight differences in meaning. A culture which is a result of the mixing of many other cultures may have a language which borrows words from many other languages or has words with roots from other languages. Languages naturally embody the culture of the people who have created them over time.The language of Farsi is based on the very poetic culture of Iran. Writing is more poetic than informative at times. Speaking and writing are different. Speaking is more casual and less ‘poetic’, unless it is formal, in which case it would resemble more the poetic writing style. People try to write as if they are citing famous poetry. This will be a very interesting thing to observe as I learn Farsi.
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Language Universals are a useful concept for language learners. It is important to step back and think about what we are learning structurally and contextually. It is interesting that languages can be very similar in their structure, and that if we learn a language structurally, as opposed to being caught up in the different alphabets and vocabulary, we can gain a broader, deeper understanding of the language. The concept does not seem vague or unscientific, in fact, it is very specific and even a little complicated to think in universal terms!
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I was introduced to the basics of the persian alphabet and numbers 1-10. We did not have goals from last week, but the work I did was part of the goals for the coming week. It is a part of the plan for the semester. I learned how to read, write, and speak the first 5 letters of the Persian alphabet. I used a resource I found online that had the Persian alphabet and numbers, which was very helpful and which I will have to refer to. I learned a little bit about the current political/cultural environment in Iran. My activities did not generate any questions, other than how I will manage to learn this new alphabet, as it is the very beginning of my learning.
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I enjoy learning languages. I find it to be interesting and exciting to be able to speak in another language. I think understanding a people's language helps to better understand the people themselves and their culture. I like organization and structure, like following chapters in a textbook and filling out workbooks to practice what I've learned. I also like reviewing the same material in class to have an opportunity to show off what I have learned, reinforce it, and ask any questions I may have. I look forward to quizzes and tests when I am confident that I fully understand what I am being tested on. I also think it is very helpful to practice outloud and converse with people, or practice to express what I want to say verbally. I think it is much more difficult to say something outloud than to write it down on a piece of paper. I am mostly a factual learner, but also a little insightful and rational. I excel at memorizing things and understanding things at my own pace by learning from a book then applying using many examples with explained solutions. I am very organized, detailed, and want to know exactly what to expect. I am also very thorough when I need to be. I generally appreciate efficiency and competence, things that are rational and logical, and intelligent. I like to think about what I am about to learn a little before actually learning it so I have some type of mental framework for learning. I'd rather understand the big picture first before I get into the details.
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