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The Korean alphabet consists of 10 vowels and 14 consonants, many of which have sounds that are completely unique to the Korean language. While the language itself is a historically easy language to learn, gaining fluency in the language is extremely difficult because of how different certain sounds in it are from the English language. In particular, vowels like yeo and euh are difficult to pronounce correctly, especially in sentences, because they don't have an exact translation through English phonetics. For example, the word "yeo-ja" which means woman in Korean, is easily mispronounced because the first yeo sound isn't pronounced exactly as the english phonetic transcription would describe it to be. Besides certain difficult, unique sounds, the sound system of Korean as a whole makes the language itself fairly easy to learn because the sounds of the written words correlate with each other. The written language was designed to adhere as closely as possible to the actual sound of the words when spoken. One of the most useful tools I found for discriminating different sounds and producing them in Korean, was to simply watch and listen to native speakers. Because of modern technology with free, easily accessible online platforms like Youtube, finding segments of variety tv shows or Korean dramas where one can listen to native speakers is both plausible and easy. In order to advance my grasp on these skills, I would use these platforms to listen to native speakers, and try to mimic the exact sounds they made as closely as possible until I am able to produce the sounds on my own. 

Korean language consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels, doubling the number of vowels English carry. In addition, most of the phonetic sounds of English consonants are present, but the letter "L" and "R" is used interchangeably in Korean. English does not have some of Korean vowels like "yeo", "eo", "eu", and "ya". Also, while Korean alphabet only consist of 14 consonants, it has letters that double to make a new sound like "gg" or "kk". For example, the Korean word for crow is "kka-ma-gwi" and the double "k" sound might be a bit unnatural and hard to pronounce for English speakers as there aren't any double "K" phonetic sounds in English. One thing easier about Korean is that every consonant is consistent with its sounds. 

In Korean language, each syllable is separated and can be easily noticed in a word. The key to Korean phonetic sounds is learning how to pronounce the new vowels that doesn't exist in English phonetic library. In general, Korean phonetic flow is separated in to each syllable, whereas in English, the flow is present throughout a whole word. In addition, syllables are pronounced more separately and distinctly than English. Korean usually requires sharper sounds than English. Each vowel in Korean is emphasized, whereas in English one or two vowels are emphasized. Learning the sounds of the vowels and practicing applying and emphasizing the vowel sounds seems to be the key idea in producing the phonetic sound of Korean. 

Hindi has most of the same phonetic sounds as English. They do not have any vowels that are different, but there are many extra consonant sounds.

One type of phonetic difference is regarding aspiration, or the addition of an “H” or extra exhalation of sound. English has aspirated sounds (P, as an example) but we do not often distinguish or pay attention to differences between aspirated and non-aspirated sounds. Hindi, however, considers the aspirated and non-aspirated versions of a letter as completely different letters and not to be confused! One example of a word that uses both the aspirated and non-aspirated version of a phone is Hindi for “good”. It is written अच्छा and can be transliterated achchha, because it is literally “a” “ch” “aspirated ch” “a”.

Another difference between the Hindi phonetic inventory and American English is the many distinctions between types of “T” and “D” sounds. It is the bane of Hindi-learners everywhere! There is regular T, aspirated regular T, heavy T, aspirated heavy T, regular D, aspirated regular D, heavy D, and aspirated heavy D. Sometimes these similar sounds are combined within the same word, and it is important to be able to audibly distinguish them in order to spell the words correctly!

To learn the differences between these sounds, I have been consulting linguistics books that have descriptions of how physically to make the sounds, and I’m also watching alphabet videos for kids on Youtube. J At this point, if a Hindi-speaker can understand me, I am ok with not perfectly distinguishing between the similar sounds. I know that ability will come with time and practice.

Similar to English, the Korean hangul is also made up of consonants and vowels, however, that inventory has a lot more vowels and less consonants compared to English. What I have noticed that is especially hard for me to learn is the difference between the “eo” and “o” sound, they sound very similar with only subtleties in pitch. This goes similarly for sound difference between “yu” and “eu.” The sound of “yeo” does not exist in American English. The sound system in Korean seems to focus on accentuated pitch and relaxed pitch, there is a difference between pronouncing “k” and “kk,” which would result in two completely different words. I will learn to discriminate between different sounds by just practicing it more, through speech and listening. Also, as I get more familiarity with words and sentences, using context clues could also be helpful.

The Korean language, similar to the English language, contains phonetic sounds that are split into consonants and vowels. Consonants such as ㄱ, ㄴ, and ㅁ which represent "g", "n" and "m" sounds are then paired with vowels such as ㅏ,ㅗ, and ㅜ which represent "ah", "o", and "oo" sounds in order to produce words. 

Korean, however, compared to English differs in some of its consonants which have interchangeable sounds depending on where they are placed in a word, consonants that have in between sounds, or which completely lacks consonants we have in English such as "f" or "q". One example of an interchangeable consonant is ㅂ. If it is placed in the start of a word, the ㅂ will sound more like a "b" while if it is placed in the middle of a word or at the end it sounds more like a "p". There are also consonants like ㄹ which is in between "l" and "r". The ㄹ in 사랑해(I love you) is not pronounced solely as a "l" or "r" but a mix between the two- sa(l/r)anghae. There are also double consonants based on the different amount of emphasis on it such as ㅂ versus ㅃ. In this case, ㅃ is pronounced as a more emphatic, short "b" sound. For example, 빵 means bread while 방 means room. These mean two different things based on a slight pronunciation difference. 

In terms of learning Korean, I need to be attuned to these slight differences in pronunciation based on the position of the consonant or vowel or if it is a double consonant. I also need to practice in between sounds that would be difficult for me to put together having separated the sounds most of my life. In order to acquire this ability to discriminate these subtle differences, it will require me to listen to a lot of native speakers and being intentional in figuring out what word they've said whether through instructional videos, Korean dramas or movies as well as talking with family and friends. In terms of being able to speak these differences I will have to simply practice and imitate what I hear until I gain an ear to correct pronunciation.

The Korean alphabet, Hangeul, consists of 24 letters: fourteen consonants and ten vowels. They are pieced together into blocks of syllables and produce a combined sound. For example, the "han" in Hangeul is a combination of the [h] consonant, [a] vowel, and the [n] consonant. There are sounds in Korean that do not exist in English, and there are also sounds in English that do not exist in Korean. A few English sounds that don't exist in Korean are /v/, /f/, and /r/. In Korean, the [v] sound is actually pronounced as a [b] sound. "Vitamin" would be pronounced "bitamin." The English [f] sound is pronounced as a [p] sound in Korean. Instead of "phone," it's pronounced like "pone." Since Korean has a [l/r] sound that's different from the English [r] sound, many native Koreans usually have a difficult time saying words like "girl." Also, because English doesn't have that [l/r] sound, many native English speakers struggle with it. Also, there are five Korean consonants that have a "double" form, which does not exist in English. For instance, the word "bul" ([b̥ul]) is different from "ppul" ([pul]) which is also different from "pul" ([pʰul]). The /pp/ is the double consonant of the /b/ sound.

Knowing more in depth about the sounds in Korean and learning the phonetic transcriptions will help me understand and improve my pronunciation. Even though I have some prior knowledge about the language, I still struggle with certain sounds. For example, I do not understand the difference between the /ae/ ([æ]) vowel and the /e/ ([e]) vowel. I also have trouble with /wae/ ([wæ]) and /we/ ([we]). They sound the same to me. I think paying more attention as I'm listening to Korean and going back to the basics and repeatedly practicing would help me improve.

A language has several facets to it. In order to have a full grasp of what it is, it is essential to know all these details and all the components you need to understand and employ the language.

In my learning of Turkish, I initially wanted to put a lot of the focus on vocabulary and grammar. After reading these readings, however, I rethink this approach quite a bit. A lot of my focus actually includes elements like phonology, semantics, and medium of linguistic transmission without me realizing it. I, of course, think it is important to include all these elements in my study of Turkish or else I would be approaching the language in a short-sited manner.

I want to learn the phonetics of Turkish through listening to native Turkish speaking whether it be through music or television, and to try and replicate their pronunciations. I plan to learn the semantics and grammar through the textbooks and reading/listening to Turkish sentences to see how they are constructed. The medium of linguistic transmission is already familiar to me as I know it is both oral and written, though I am curious as to what Turkish sign language is like. I am studying both the oral and written modes. I will learn vocabulary in the traditional textbook and flashcard sense, as well as catching onto words in the Turkish music and television programming I’ll be hearing.

Knowing now that each one of these components is as important as the other in getting the full picture of Turkish, I will make sure I try to pay attention to all of them instead of zeroing in on just a certain aspect.

The phonetic inventory in Korean, Hangul, is comprised of 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Although the majority of the sounds made from hangul are similar from the sounds from alphabets, there are a few exceptions. There are sounds from hangul that sound as if they are in between two alphabet sounds. For example, the hangul ‘ㅈ’ has a sound between the english alphabet ‘j’ and ‘z’. The word ‘자유’, which means freedom, is pronounced as ‘jayoo’, with the ‘ja’ sounding similar to being between ‘j’ and ‘z’. There are also times when some consonants can be doubled up to make an even more emphasized sound. For example, ‘ㅃ’ is the same thing as two ‘ㅂ’. ‘ㅂ’ would make an equivalent sound to english alphabet’s ‘b’, but makes a similar sound to ‘pp’ when doubled. An example of this would be the word ‘빵’ which means bread, and is pronounced as ‘ppaang’.

One of the two things that people need to know about when learning Korean is that Korean is less fluid language compared to english. While some words can just roll off the tongue smoothly, each words are heavily syllabled, and is distinctly sounded out when speaking and writing. Another thing is that multiples of consonants and vowels can be used for words and for single syllables.

In order to acquire the ability to discriminate differentiated segments, I believe that listening to more Korean, such as from movies and shows, will be the main source of resource. By listening to daily conversations, I believe I will be able to improve by mimicking the sounds and repeating them multiples of times to get the pronunciation correctly.

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Same as any normal child, I learn language from making voice to putting words together. It seems like people are following the same part of paths to learning language, no matter which language you are learning. One important thing that I realize when I study Chinese is the creativity of the language. Especially for Chinese, it is interesting that people saying the same words with different tones have different meanings. And the creativity of the language allows people to use different combinations of words to communicate. The way people communicate also shows people’s personality.

The remarkable thing that I start to think about language, is that language have some systematic pattern and structure. For example, the basic one structure in English is noun plus verb. I am not sure what pattern or sentence structure do Korean have and whether that is different from English. I know that for Korean, they use different sentence structure when they talk to different people. It is similar to Japanese. I think once I learn more about Korean, I will learn more about it.

Also, for Korean, it is more phonetics, which means the sound of the words and the written words are the same. This makes Korean learning much more easy.

After reading the diagram on Aitchison’s linguistics, I would say that the Korean language is most about phonetics. Unlike other languages like Chinese, which the sound of the words and the written words are completely different, Korean language pronunciation associates with its written words. Hangeul is the alphabetic system used for writing the Korean language. The consists of 24 letters, including 14 consonants and 10 vowels. The Korean language has the characteristic that the pronunciation is highly correlated to the written form.

I prefer the approach that starts with a phonetic description and follows by syntax and semantics. Korean is mostly a phonetic language, therefore, by learning the system first could help me better understand the sentence structure and meaning. Since I watched a large number of Korean shows and dramas, I understand some of the basic semantics. Therefore, my learning plan will be more focus on the grammar and vocabulary.

The creation and adoption of Bahasa Indonesia as the official language of Indonesia has an interesting history related to Dutch colonialism and the Indonesian nationalist era in the first half of the 20th century. Due to the fact that Dutch colonists prevented Indonesian colonial subjects from speaking Dutch to keep a social boundary between colonizers and colonized, the Malay language (from which Indonesian is based) spread in popularity among the population while Dutch remained the language of political affairs. When Indonesia declared its independence in 1945 and identified Indonesian as the official language, only 5 percent of the population identified it as their native language, with Javanese being the dominant language with about 45% of the population being native speakers. However, in contrast to the post-colonial linguistics of many colonized languages, it was quickly adopted by the government and is considered to be one of the most successful adoptions of a national language (S. Dardjowidjojo). Indonesian was accepted as the national language because of its ability to unite diverse inter-island populations and not be seen as pushing the dominant culture of the island of Java. Today, most Indonesians are at least bilingual, speaking BI as well as their local language, such as Balinese, Javanese, Sundanese, etc. 

In my study of BI this semester, I will likely be focusing mostly on the domains of Sociolinguistics and Anthropological Linguistics. Julie and Thalia have been naturally moving us in the direction of the domain of Sociolinguistics through the conversational nature of our language meetings and the use of texts introducing Indonesian grammar through social contexts. Through my research of Indonesian performing arts, I have identified Anthropological linguistics as the most relevant domain for my research and thus the domain within which I will spend much time and effort. As I gain more proficiency in written Indonesian, I plan to continue my study by reading Indonesian literature on the subject of performing arts, and utilizing these and other important pieces of Indonesian literature to familiarize myself with cultural references and touchstones. 

In Korean, the language I'm currently studying, the advanced structural language can go from phonetics to psychology, sociology, literature, and etc. When learning about language, there are dialects, and different sounds you can make that have different meanings. For example, there are sarcasm in English that mean the exact opposite of what you said. Likely, learning about the different dialects could lead to better understanding of Korean sociology, literature, psychology, and etc.

I prefer the method on starting with phonetic description, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics beacuse as children grow up, this is the method that they go through. When I studied Spanish, I went through the opposite direction of learning vocabulary first followed by sentences and grammar. With this route, it is easier to write and read than speak and listen; however, my ultimate goal of this course is to get prepared for study abroad in Korea. In order to live a daily life in Korea, I need to know to speak and listen more than read and write. While I still do need reading and writing, Korean is mostly written the way you speak, so know how to speak and listen will provide a more efficient way to learn reading and writing.

            Thus far in my study of Maltese, I have noticed that there are a lot of inconsistencies within the structure of language. It has been a little bit difficult to observe common patterns because of the influence of so many different cultures. It is a bit tricky to anticipate the suffixes and prefixes of words, considering a large percentage of them are adapted from Italian and French. I am currently working on pronunciation, the alphabet, numbers, and basic greeting words/phrases. I have not yet advanced into verb conjugations, but I anticipate that it will be a bit difficult. In contrast to broader vocabulary, though, I discovered that the numeric system was fairly simple to learn. The endings and syntax for combining multi-digit numbers were completely unfamiliar, but I was able to pick it up.

            In reference to Jean Aitchison’s linguistic diagram for structures, I decided to start my learning at the beginning of the circle with phonetics. I am placing a lot of emphasis on this component because the pronunciation of letters and being able to interpret the new sounds has been a challenge for me. I have noted that during my study of Spanish, pronunciation and dialect really hindered my progress, so I want to prevent this obstacle from getting in the way again. I have seen a few basic phrases and sentences, but I have skipped over the next circle, syntax, in order to start learning the meaning of basic words. To facilitate learning word meaning, semantics, I practiced learning the alphabet with images of words beginning with each respective letter. This learning method was very effective for me because I am a visual learner. I combined this practice with listening to YouTube videos for proper pronunciation of words, which was very successful. Looking forward, I would like to continue with learning methods that apply various media outlets.

            At this point in my study, one thing I think I can do a bit more of is incorporate the anthropological linguistic and sociolinguistic learning approaches.  One of my primary goals in studying Maltese is simultaneously learning more about Malta as a country. These past two weeks I focused heavily on the basics, but I would like to move forward with learning more vocabulary through reading literature, poetry, and basic Maltese texts. I believe that I may give preferences to these two approaches, but this is okay in the early stages of my language plan. In order to study the historical transition of language over time, or the stylistics of a new language, I need to first get a solid foundation of the basics.

            Knowledge of the language structures and different disciplinary approaches remind me the importance of keeping my learning plan multidimensional. As we have discussed many times, it is very easy to begin a new language and get caught up in the literal translations. Reading Jean Aitchison’s paper helped reinforce to me that learning a new language needs to be holistic. Rather than delaying my next steps any longer, I will move forward this week with beginning to practice reading Maltese texts. I think this will be positive because this is often, also, how children learn to speak their first language. By reading books and practicing the pronunciation with pictures and translations, I can make good progress in multiple areas. In addition, we have discussed how people are often uncomfortable beginning to simply speak the language in the proper dialect, so reading aloud will help me to overcome this hesitation.

Korean is a language that has much to offer when viewed through the lens of language structure, especially when its original intent as a language is considered. Since it was a language constructed with the lower-class or uneducated population of Korea in mind, phonetics play an enormous role as a structure. The sounds that many of the consonants and vowels make, were then transcribed to the written letter; so the form that vocal cords or mouth would make when the sound was produced, was factored into what shape the actual written letter would take. This fact makes the idea that D. Crystal mentions, of separating or "selectively focusing" on certain parts of the language, both an enormously helpful method of language learning, and a nearly impossible task.

While it would be helpful to approach a completely new and foreign language by compartmentalizing and separating it into smaller, more approachable sections, this act of separation also takes away vital components of the language. Since I'm currently approaching the Korean language with some form of education already, I think it would be useful to understand that the existence of these structures in the language, and to try and incorporate the sections that I've learned about separately up until now. In the Korean school I attended when I was younger, they put an enormous focus on grammar and vocabulary, clearly differentiating the different levels of language and almost making them seem separate if not unrelated. However, while this approach did make it easier for me to learn the language in the beginning, by acknowledging that there are levels, and by combining them, it would allow me to dive a bit deeper than the superficial level I'm currently at.  

The study of linguistics has many layers to it, each of which contributes greatly to the meanings and functioning of a language. Phonology, the sounds a language employs, plays a huge role in the understanding of a language. Verbal language depends heavily on the sounds one makes in order to convey a certain word and, thus, meaning. A simple mispronunciation of a word can lead to a completely unintended meaning.

Turkish uses a lot of similar phonetics to English in some regard, especially considering that Turkish now uses a Latin script. However, there are many letters, with corresponding sounds, that exist in Turkish that do not explicitly exist in English. These include ı, ö, ğ, and ü. I find all four of these sounds very hard to pronounce correctly. Examples of words I have had difficulty pronouncing would be sınıf, phonetically pronounced /sɯnɯf/ and gülümsemek, phonetically pronounced /gylymsemek/. Because Turkish uses a phonetic system heavily dependent on vowel harmony, it is critical learning how to pronounce these letters correctly as all of them are either vowels or, in the case of ğ, involved in extending vowels.

My language instructor has been sending voice recordings of her saying certain greetings. In the future, I hope to ask her to send recordings of how to say words that are phonetically difficult for me to pronounce. I can try to replicate the recording and see if my pronunciation matches. I also want to pay more attention to bits of Turkish language in Turkish shows and continue doing so in Turkish music and commentary.

 My language of study mostly consists of study of medium of linguistic transmission and semantics. Because I am a native speaker, a lot of the grammar and vocabulary is already there. However, I can further learn about how meanings are expressed and how I can approach different meaning with different use of words. Like it says in the reading, I started my language learning with grammar and currently learning more towards on the subject of meaning. In addition, in order to talk and sound like a native, phonology is another kind of structure that I'll be focusing on.   

For me, the combination of sociology and anthropology can tell me a lot about the language and its culture. By understanding the target language culture, one will understand why a word has its specific meaning and why a sentence is structured in a particular way. It will also help figure out when a word, particular phrase or sentence should be used. In addition, phonology is very interrelated with culture and in a sense, different sub-cultures have different approach to phonology. Knowing my focus on specific language structures and disciplinary methodologies, I am able to plan specific activities integrating the culture aspect as well that are specialized to focus on those specific language structures. Most of my activities focus on improving language transmission, learning multiple meanings of one particular word or phrases, and knowledge of knowing how and when to use a particular phrase or words. 

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Linguistics, the scientific study of language, can be broken down into several subtopics. The most basic model only includes phonology (the actual sounds made), syntax (the formation of words and sentences), and semantics (the meaning). More complex models may also include morphology (strictly, the forming of words) and pragmatics (the influence of context on meaning in language).

Linguistics can also be paired with many other disciplines to form inter-disciplinary subjects, such as psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and many more. Personally I see no need to "choose" one view of linguistics over another - they all simply have different focuses. For my own personal enjoyment, I am most interested in psycholinguistics, since my major is psychology, and sociolinguistics, because examining how culture and language are interrelated intrigues me. For the purpose of language learning, probably the most helpful focus is applied linguistics, since it is already the study of how we can use linguistic knowledge to teach languages (and, by extension, self-teach languages).

I can examine the basic structure of Hindi through the simple linguistics model outlined above. For phonology, there are about 46 different sounds, although that number may be slightly higher or lower depending on who you ask. :) For syntax, words are formed by combinations of consonant+vowel (with a few exceptions), and sentences are formed differently than in English (for example, as far as I understand, Hindi verbs always go at the end). I cannot comment much on semantics because I have not started learning a lot of vocabulary yet.