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This is an audio recording of me introducing my family and myself.
This is a picture of some us going out and ordering food at a Korean restaurant. We all had to say what we wanted to the cashier and ask how much it was.
This semester I am learning Korean as my target language. I am native to the United States and only visited Korea once in my entire life. Therefore, I do not have a lot of knowledge in Korean. What I do know about Korean was acquired from listening to my parents talk and watching Korean dramas and music videos. The relationship between Korean culture and Korean language is very important. Unlike America, which is very individualistic, Korea is very collective. They value tradition and working together as a group. A lot of their language is shaped by this culture. An example of this would be when talking to people of higher authority or to an elder. If you do not use a formal language with them it is seen to be extremely disrespectful. As a Korean employee, you are also expected to join company dinners. If you have plans on the same day, you would be expected to cancel the plans in order to join the company dinner. Because of this culture, it is looked down upon if you talk back to an elder or a boss. It is also disrespectful if you make direct eye contact with them during conversations. As a native born American, this became a culture shock for me because you would not do any of those things in the states. In fact, gestures such as looking at an elder or a boss directly in the eye would actually be a sign of respect in America. After my first trip to Korea, it made me realize how much I have yet to learn about the culture and the language. Although I grew up in a Korean household, there are things you absolutely cannot learn unless you go a visit the country yourself.
To become better at my target language I need to be more cautious and aware of my situation. I had a lot of times where elders would think of me as being rude because I did not respond or gesture to them a certain way. One major culture difference I experienced in Korea was in the metro. There is a spot in the subway that is only designated for elders and those that are pregnant. However, I was originally born in New York and anyone is able to sit anywhere regardless of their age, even when it was only supposed to be designated for elders. Therefore, without much thought, I picked the only available seat left since my ride was around one hour long. Once I sat down, two elders came up to me and started yelling at me in Korean. At that time I was not proficient in Korean and had a hard time apologizing to them and explaining that I was not from Korea and that I had made a mistake. Because of this, I think I need to improve my strategic competence in order to get my meaning across. To do this, my language partner assigned me some readings and variety shows to watch.
This was one of the lessons for Korean history with my language partner. It shows how the people are governed in Korea and the three branches. The middle word is 국민 which translates to "the people of the nation" which symbolizes that the people are at the center of government.
This is is a photo of some Korean class students and my language partner eating at a Korean restaurant. We ordered food all in Korean.
While talking to Gökhan the other day, I realized that there are some interesting honorific differences in Turkish in comparison to English. In English (or at least in my English speaking community), I believe that the main honorifics are “Sir, Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Ma’am” and most people use these honorifics to show respect and distance from their interlocutor. While Turkish has similar honorifics, such as Beyefandi (Mr.) and Hanimefendi (Mrs.), it also has other honorifics that we lack in English. For example, abi is used to address a male that is slightly older. It literally means “older brother” and is used as a sign of respect. Abla, which means “older sister” also serves a similar purpose. In addition to these two, amca and teyze are commonly used to address older men and women. Although we have words like “dude” and “bro” in English, Gökhan mentioned that the use of these words are at times mandatory to show respect. Also, I was really intrigued by these words because I don’t really pay attention to my use of honorifics and it made me question myself.
Below is a list of these words mentioned and more!
A couple weeks ago, Gökhan sent me a video on Facebook about a community in northern Turkey that have developed a bird language, which is based off of WHISTLING (link shared below). I was completely amazed because I have never heard of anything like this in my life. I already struggle with whistling, so I can’t imagine being able to communicate this way. I think I’m going to stick with Turkish now and maybe learn some greetings in the bird language haha. Around 10,000 people use the language to communicate from far distances in the mountainous region. Interestingly however, the United Nations claim that the language is endangered because of the growing presence of cell phones in the region. I hope that they find a way to preserve the language!
Also, I found another video on YouTube about the Black Sea (karadeniz, northern) region of Turkey and it looks absolutely stunning! The link is shared below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQmF7kbOrmE
What are your cultural learning goals for this semester?
At the beginning of last semester, I had very little to no understanding about Turkish culture. I learned very broad information about Turkey as a whole instead of the different parts of the country. This semester, I plan to focus on the certain regions (cities) of the country that deviate from and contribute to the overall perception of Turkish culture. For example, I hope to explore some differences in the cuisine in varying parts of the country, some dialectal differences, tradition differences, etc. I am also interested in learning about what art and/or literature is famous in Turkey. I am going to refer mostly to Gökhan and the internet for this information.
- Learning Journal 14: Summarize your work this semester, the progress you made and the difficulties you encountered.
This semester’s been really interesting and tough! It was really cool to be able to try and tackle a language which which I am familiar, but still feels so foreign. I discovered that in many ways Sanskrit is more similar to English that learning a language of a different origin (like Sino-Tibetan). I discovered/confirmed that Sanskrit is still really similar to Nepali and I was able to expand my vocabulary in both languages. Overall I immensely expanded my vocabulary, have a grasp of noun declension, increased my cultural knowledge, and expanded my yoga undertakings. I think my format of focusing on both grammar and traditional structure and also yoga vocabulary has been really impactful for me. Sanskrit studies are increasing as Westerners become more interested in yoga practice, and I succeeded in being more able to understand the culture and meaning behind these mantras, aasanas (poses), and general spiritual terms. I found some of the grammar pretty difficult, and I still feel like I have so much to learn. The noun declension was really hard since I’ve never had to study a language with that structure before. The sandhi/vowel agreement rules are also difficult and sometimes when I’m writing my own sentences I slip up. Overall though, it’s been fun and meaningful and I will definitely continue my Sanskrit studies!
Optional%20Reflection%20Paper%20%232%20%28500%20words%29.docx
Attached is a picture of when some of my classmates and I went to a Korean restaurant. I tried ordering in Korean but was too shy at times to articulate well. Nevertheless, I tried and the cashier was nice and seemed to appreciate my attempt to order in Korean.
Attached is a body I traced from this website.
I then labeled parts of the body and identified some illnesses or diseases using these websites:
http://talktomeinkorean.com/lessons/kvb1/
http://translate.naver.com/#/en/ko
After doing so, I asked my learning partner to check over this. She helped me correct some of the words and informed me of different ways to convey the same (or a very similar) meaning, when talking about some illnesses.
For this artifact, I used a UR map from the school's website to practice how to describe things positionally in relation to one another. I also tried practicing different forms of formality: that's why some of the endings differ. My learning partner and I went over it together and she helped me correct the mistakes I had. This is the final product.
Aside from consulting my learning partner, I also made use of these websites to guide me through this topic:
http://mylanguages.org/korean_prepositions.php
http://koreanchamp.com/2012/01/19/simple-prepositions-in-korean/
Attached is a conversation (script and audio) created by my learning partner and I to help me discuss the topic of weddings in Korean. I had particular difficulty completing this artifact but my learning partner was amazing at guiding my through the grammar and vocabulary.
Artifact%208%20Conversation%20about%20Weddings.m4a
Attached is a copy of the script (and audio recording) that I used (and created with my learning partner's help) to describe my daily activities.
Artifact%207%20Describing%20Daily%20Tasks.m4a
