Blogs

• Third Cultural Post
• Teach someone using the activity you created in Week 9; reflect upon the effectiveness of the activity.

I tried teaching my roommate how to read Korean using the learning activity I developed and it worked with surprising success! The Korean alphabet is pretty simple and intuitive, and while some of the pronunciations can be hard to distinguish, learning the basics can be very intuitive. I taught my roommate Jake the basics of the alphabet and then asked him to match simple Koreanized pop culture names like Batman and Spiderman to their pictures, and he was able to sound out the words with the occasional assistance of the alphabet sheet very quickly. I'd say the exercise was effective and I think incorporating fun activities like this can make learning a new language more engaging and fun. 

I think I’ve made good progress in my language learning but I still have a long way to go. I thought I would know more by now but thinking about it, I took Spanish for 4 years consecutively just to be at an intermediate level. When putting that into context with my Amharic studies, I think I am doing fine but I know I will have to continue after this semester for a while more. It’s been rewarding to be able to talk to my dad in his native language and I really hope to get to the point where I can talk to my other family members and grandma. At times, my learning gets overwhelming because there are so many words to learn and they change in different contexts. Also having to learn how to pronounce sounds that don’t exist in English has been a huge hurdle for me in this process. I would say I’m almost over that hurdle but I, of course, have more to improve on.

I think the relationship between understanding culture and language in undeniable. Each culture has different values and beliefs and those are usually reflected in the language. If one does not understand the culture, then the way the people speak and the way they construct sentences probably won’t make sense. I have somewhat of an advantage in the aspect of understanding the target culture because it is what I’ve been around my whole life. I think learning the language that goes with the culture helps me understand more.

To improve communicative competence, I need to learn how to ask and answer questions and how to express my thoughts and feelings. I think in order to have communicative competence, I need to really learn how to speak and listen to Amharic so that I can make the necessary comments to get my point across. To do this I need to practice Amharic and try my best to speak with native speakers so I can immerse myself and learn the most effective ways to communicate. For example, in English, there are ways to communicate that are not the most efficient for getting your point across. I need to make sure that I am learning the most useful language first so that I can say what I am aiming to say. I think the other forms of competence that is most important for me in my studies are sociolinguistic and strategic competence. In order to speak a language and sound somewhat like a native, it is important to know the sociocultural rules that go with the language. Knowing what words and phrases are appropriate versus inappropriate is necessary in order to communicate the language effectively. Nonverbal communication is another essential aspect of being competent in a language. Body language and hand signs that relate to the culture and language can have lots of different meanings. I think this goes back to the relationship between language and culture because the culture shapes the nonverbal communication of the language.

Knowing the history of language can help one understand its origins and make connections to other languages with similar histories. I think when you know where a language originated and how it has mixed and interacted with other languages, some parts of the language are put into context and make more sense. Amharic belongs to the Semitic language family along with Arabic, Tigrinya, and Hebrew. Amharic and Tigrinya has similar sounds to Arabic which makes sense as there was contact between the Middle East and Ethiopia and Eritrea across the Red Sea. In both languages there are a lot of sounds that are produced from the back of the mouth and do not exist in English. This contact has made a lasting impact because along with having similar sounds with Arabic, the Arabic language itself is spoken throughout Ethiopia and Eritrea. Arabic is also the second national language of Eritrea after Tigrinya. Amharic also shows examples of contact with the Italians since the Italians conquered Ethiopia and Eritrea for a long period of time. There are words that clearly show this influence including autobus meaning bus and escribito meaning pen. Although I’m not sure what the history is, some words in Amharic are English words. Some have the same meaning while others do not. For example, soft is used for toilet paper and napkins. Words for technology are usually just the English words such as television and computer.

I think my progress so far is not bad, but it could be better. I find it hard sometimes to keep myself on track outside of my weekly meetings with my language partner. I also think my learning plan did not encompass of all the things that I need to learn in order to communicate. After thinking about what I need to learn and looking at my learning plan, I feel like it only scratches the surface. I definitely need to make my tasks include more topics in order to increase my learning as I finish out the semester. The main activity that I do is speak with my language partner, so I need to start doing more of the activities that I put on my learning plan. I also think I need to find more online resources so that when I am not learning with my language partner, I can learn more on my own. I also think I could start asking my language partner to give me activities to complete between our meetings.

Overall, I think one big area of progress that I’ve made is practicing the sounds that don’t exist in English. The more words I learn, the more prevalent those sounds become so it’s impossible for me to be able to speak Amharic without reproducing those sounds. I do still find myself getting overwhelmed when learning new words and phrases since there is so much to learn. I will, however, finish the semester strong and keep learning as much as I can.

For the past 2 weeks my language learning goals combined revision, grammar, vocabulary and cultural activities. I planned on revising the future tense, speaking and writing about my spring break plans, learning new actions verbs, going over times vocabulary(since it is a bit harder than it sounds) and briefly going over the past tense along with speaking about Turkey's current political situation, possibly going over a few news articles etc. 

Firstly, me and my language partner went over the future tense again and created a few sentences about my possible spring break plans, such as where I will be going, who with, what I will be doing etc. Secondly, we went over the most common Turkish verbs and worked on conjugating those in present and future tenses. Next, we did some revision of time vocabulary and how to ask what time it is and answer. Me and my language partner got to speak about Turkey as a country in terms of economics and politics and how those factors shape the culture. We also spoke about Ottoman empire, 1915 Armenian Genocide, its history as well as some common cultural habits present both in Armenian and Turkish cultures. Lastly, we briefly went over the past tense and conjugated 2 verbs just to get the idea of the tense and how it works. 

There was a lot done this week and I felt challenged at times in terms of memorizing vocabulary and being on top of the grammar rules learnt during these past 5 weeks, however with the help of my language partner, classroom discussions and exercises with my classmate, I was able to overcome the challenges and memorize at least 80% of the vocabulary and the majority of the grammar rules. I also took lots of notes during these past 2-3 weeks to make sure my writing, reading, speaking and listening skills were equally developed.

How to say times: Example:

Present tense conjugations: 

Past tense conjugations:Future tense conjugations: 

Although Sanskrit is generally written in either Devanagari (the same script that Hindi is written in) or in transliterated roman alphabet, Sanskrit has no official script of its own. It was originally an oral language and thus had no written needs. Its first written evidence comes from the Rigveda from around ~1100-1700 BC.  Historically, it has also been written in a number of Brahmic scripts, which is a family of loosely related scripts used across Asia. Here's an example of some, which includes Devanagari: 

In this blog post I will discuss formality and informality in Sanskrit. 

Sanskrit is a unique language to learn since it is taught in a formal context with very structured grammar. I am not diving into the vernacular of spoken word since my main goal is to understand Sanskrit as it is written traditionally. I have not been able to find a large amount of information on written Sanskrit and the role of honorifics. I have found the role of pronouns very interesting and confusing! Most of the time a pronoun isn't directly needed since it is built into the verb ending as an inflection. Consider the following sentences and the English translation: 

gacchaami --> I go. 

gacchamah --> We go. 

gacchaavah --> The two of us go. 

gacchati --> He goes. 

etc. 

First and second person pronouns do not mark for gender, and an independent third person pronoun doesn't really exist since it is always built into the verb, and also does not account for gender. The words for "that" or "it" are still there though if needed. 

There is a kind of polite prounoun/title, "bhavant" which means directly "your honor". It seems like this mostly acts as a 2nd person polite pronoun. It will be interesting to see if I run into any honorifics while furthering my reading skills. 

For my third artifact I went out to a local Korean Barbecue restaurant with my girlfriend. It was really fun talking to the waitress in Korean and ordering food in Korean, even though the waitress seemed significantly less impressed with me than I was feeling. Isla and I tried to speak in Korean as much as possible throughout the dinner, and stick to Korean customs. I told the waitress, 이인분 차돌바기  주새요, 도 갈비 돌솥비빔밥  주새요, which means can I have two orders of chadolbagi, and also an order of galbi hotstone bibimbap? Chadolbagi is my favorite type of Korean barbecue, its this very thinly sliced beef that comes rolled up and raw. When you drop the meat on the hot grill it starts to sizzle and then slowly unrolls. Bibimbap is a classic Korean dish, and this version had rice, chunks of galbi, and plenty of vegetables, cooking in a very hot stone bowl. Isla also descibed the side dishes that they traditionally serve you at Korean barbecue restaurants which she told me are called BanChun, and which can vary widely between restaurants. My favorite BanChun is called Gyu Lan Jjim, and which is like an egg souffle with green onions. 

For my 2nd artifact, I spoke about my daily routine. I did use my vocabulary to write down the sentences and asked my learning partner to correct my mistakes, if any. I also did a speaking exercise with the same sentences in order to improve my accent and speaking.

• In your learning journal, reflect upon your progress to date, consider the effectiveness of your learning plan and activities, and discuss what changes--if any--you will make to finish the semester.

I think my studies are progressing well and I have learned a lot and become more confidant in my listening skills. My goals of learning practical vocabulary and terms for finding my way around Korea and using public transportation have come very far and I feel confident in my ability to understand and even give basic directions and understand transportation names. One thing I would like to learn more about is the different levels of formality, as we have mostly been learning the informal tenses and I think it would be helpful to learn the formal tenses as well for my goal of talking to my girlfriends parents. 

Recently we've learned how to talk in the past tense in Korean(숙제 했어요, which means I did my homework), how to talk about and describe food (i.e. 갈비 짜요, which means Galbi is tasty/savory), grammatical words like 이게 and 저게, which mean this and that,and 도, which means also, amongst others. 

My learning activity was to teach someone how to read Korean, or at least to learn the Korean alphabet and be able to sound out words. I did this by teaching them the basic consonants and vowels and then trying to get them to sound out words like 바투만, which sounds like batman. I've used this tactic of typing english using Korean characters to practice my reading and writing skills while texting my girlfriend. 잍서  걸에잍!

The second aspect of culture I have examined in Brazil is video game culture. Brazil is in a unique situation for video games. Major video game producers, such as Nintendo and Sony, don't see much of a market for their games the country so they don't export their games there. Their are also hold set in place by the Brazilian government which state that certain types of items cannot be purchased if they are not made in Brazil. This was originally set in place to improve the economy, but has backfired interns of the level of technology for video games. As a result of this, many people are still playing games on Atari's and Nintendo 64's. Systems which are centuries old. There are also Frankenstein systems, which are ps3's and xbox's which have been stripped apart for just their internals and repackaged with local casing to be branded as Brazilian made products. These machines however, tend not to be as reliable. The Brazilian market also offers games for these systems which are knock offs, or rebrands of popular games sold around the world.

In my Portuguese classes I have been learning about verb conjugations. More specifically we have examined ar, er, and ir verbs in the tenses of present, past, and future in their different modes. I have found that the conjugations are quite similar to that of Spanish. I have also found that the context in which you use the tenses are the exact same as those in Spanish. My language partner and I have not gone over the irregular verbs such as ir, but we do plan to work on those next week.

Hangul is the name of the Korean writing system and even though other Asian languages like Chinese and Japanese are character sets, Hangul is actually an alphabet. Even though it's not as complicated, in my opinion, as character sets, it has been an extra hurdle to learn the new alphabet before even beginning to learn vocabulary and grammar. The writing system was actually not too hard to learn, but some of the letters don't translate perfectly to English sounds, so it's still a challenge to try to make these new sounds, such as the sound in-between a "g" and a "k" or an "r" and an "l" in English. Also, there is a concept called the last consonant, which is that only a few sounds can be at the end of a word, so some words are spelled differently than they are pronounced, which creates words that may sound the same, but their distinction is in their spelling. Despite these few difficulties, the writing system is pretty straightforward. Each consonant has to be paired with a vowel and words are split up syllable-by-syllable. Obviously there are exceptions to rules in every writing system that just need to be memorized. However, when I thought about it, there are very minimal exceptions in Korean compared to English, and I couldn't imagine the difficulty of learning English and all its grammar exceptions this late in my life, so I appreciate Korean's relatively simply writing system. Also, the grammar is very simple because it's a contextual language, meaning most verbs aren't conjugated, so the subject is just implied. This makes it a lot easier to begin speaking sentences, not having to think about whether I'm talking in the first-, second-, or third-person.

Food is an integral part of any culture and Korean culture is no exception. If you ever go to a Korean restaurant, you will order your entree, likely made up of noodles, meat, and vegetables, and then a bunch of little side dishes will come out as well. There will be kimchi, radishes, vegetables, and more. Rice is also an essential part of Korean cuisine and typically eaten at every meal. Korean food has typical seasonings such as garlic, sesame oil, red pepper powder, scallions, and more. Korean barbecue and kimchi are probably the most well-known Korean dishes in the U.S. Table manners are very important in Korea; you must have good posture, you should not show food in your mouth, and you shouldn't start eating until your elders at the table do so. Although less meat, especially red meat, is eaten in Korea in comparison to the U.S., special diets such as vegetarianism aren't as popular as here. The food preparation style makes pretty healthy food, so obesity is not a huge problem there. If anything, being overweight is a sign of wealth, while in the U.S. it tends to be a sign of lower income, because those with less money may need to sustain themselves more often on cheap fast food. Drinking during a meal, alcoholic or not, isn't as common as it is in the U.S. I notice that my mom never drinks while she's eating, but instead will have her glass of water, milk, tea, or whatever it is, after she's down eating. This is especially the case when eating soup, which is very common in Korean cuisine. Also, like I said that rice is served at every meal, this includes breakfast. Savory foods are eaten for breakfast much more than in Western cultures.

This is a page from my Vocabulary nouns list. I've found it helpful to make lists of vocab to memorize and remember what I've already learned. I then used these lists to make flashcards which make me memorize it more. When I'm reading a text I've also found it useful to be able to go back and double check on confirmation on the exact meaning of a word. This is just the first page of my vocab list but it's really the most common words and I tend to go back to it pretty often. 

Korean has 19 consonant phonemes, 8 vowel phonemes, and 12 diphthongs. For the most part, the letters in Hangul transfer pretty well to sounds that exist in English. Many of them are pronounced as a sound in-between two English letters, however. For example, there isn't really an "r" sound, but instead something in-between an "r" and an "l," which can be difficult to do. Also, there are a lot of Hangul letters that sound very similar to me, but are very distinguishable for native speakers. For example, there are different characters for a "j," "ch," and a double "j" sound, which are very hard to tell apart. Similarly, there are different characters for "b," "p," and double "b" sounds. This makes it difficult to spell words perfectly, even when you know how they're pronounced. Besides these distinctions, there aren't many sounds that are very difficult to pronounce for an English speaker, which makes learning how to read and speak easier than some other languages. A transcription of the word meaning "to go" is [kada], even though the letter used to spell it in Korean is the one that is supposed to translate as a "g" sound. Another example like this is the word for "fire" which is transcribed as [pul] even though it's spelled with the "b" letter in Korean. If I were to try to write this just by sound, I would probably use the Korean letter that translates as a "p" sound. However, if I were to this, I would accidentally be spelling the word for "grass," not "fire," which are obviously very different. That one is transcribed as [pʰul].

I was able to acquire the knowledge I needed to learn the structure of Korean through my online practice on Duolingo and with my language partner. It was pretty easy to learn the structure; the words are just broken up by syllable. I've been learning along the way about the grammatical structure of Korean, which is different than English. Learning the writing structure was a very important task for me, so I identified the materials I needed to learn this structure right away, because I couldn't move forward at all in my language learning before I knew the alphabet.

For this semester, I really hope to expand on my writing and speaking skills. I want to work on my speaking skills, so that I can become more fluent and confident in having conversations with my family members. I have trouble saying what I really want to say because I don't know how to translate it into Korean, so it can be frustrating not being able to say what's on my mind. I want to work on my writing skills because I think it is one of my weakest areas. I am terrible at spelling and don't really know the more complicated grammatical rules. I hope to accomplish on expanding these skills through workbooks provided by Youngmin and through a lot of practice. I think having constant practice and interactions in speaking and writing in Korean in these weekly meetings will really help me become more comfortable as there aren't many opportunities for me to practice on these things outside of these classes.

For the past two weeks, we continued to learn through the workbooks that Youngmin had provided our class. We have been expanding on grammatical rules. We have been practicing through workbook problems that includes speaking, writing, and reading. Youngmin always provides other supplemental activities to do that correlate with what we are doing for the lesson. We also went over Korean proverbs on top of the grammatical lessons. We learned to interpret what the sayings meant from the literal definitions. We were then assigned to give a presentation on three proverbs that were similar in topic and had to provide the meaning and give examples of the proverbs being used in the right context. We have been working steadily on improving our writing, reading, and speaking skills with a lot fo practice every class and I could slowly see myself becoming more comfortable with my Korean skills. I definitely still need to improve my writing skills because that is my weakest point in those three categories. We had an assignment where we had to provide a summary of a movie that we watched and explain what we liked about it and what resonated with us after it finished. The teacher couldn't even understand what I was trying to say, so I know that this is an area that I really need to work on.

The first artifact was a few sentences I made to describe a story about how Korean culture interprets dreams.  I thought I did well on creating clear sentences using the correct grammar to get my points across. I still need to work on perfecting my accent to make it sound less Americanized. I also feel that there are better ways to explain the story, so I need to work on widening my vocabulary and grammatical skills. I hope to accomplish this through more practice in and out of class with the assignments made by Youngmin.

How would you qualify or describe different aspects of your target culture? Reflect and your own experiences and expectations of the culture in question.

Unsurprisingly, the Spanish/Catalan culture is more similar to my Brazilian culture than American culture. First, our languages are more closely related. And – risking to fall too much into stereotypes – we generally tend to be Catholic raised, soccer loving, outgoing people with a very flexible notion of time…

Another reason I was interested in studying Catalan: during my freshman year, there were more than ten exchange students from Spain, but after a while, I noticed a few of them were closer to each other and spoke in a different tone. This was my first personal contact with Catalan people, language and culture. I was curious to how/why these guys related differently than the students from Madrid.

Interestingly, in this past year, my first personal connection with a student from Spain ended up being with a Catalan student. My international friends always meet the exchange students and that’s how I get to meet them early in the semester… I would strike up a conversation, not knowing where the person was from, and when that subject came up, Ta-dam: “I’m from Barcelona.”

Maybe my mind is playing tricks and looking for connections, but I would rather see these as signs I am meant to visit Barcelona soon :) 

The Korean culture is one that is very collectivist. It values family over many other things so that the culture pays special attention to respect toward elders. This means that in this culture, many will interpret an individual's success as the result of good parenting and vice-versa. Due to this culture in Korea, there are different modes of the language when speaking to peers and when speaking to people older than you. There are specific ways to answer to your elders and specific ways to address them. In fact, some words are completely different when directed toward someone older. For example, the word birthday in Korean is 생일 (sang-il). However, when directed toward an adult, it is customary to say 생신 (sang-shin). The list goes on for words that are different depending on who it is directed to. In addition to speech, a lot of gestures must be changed in the presence of an adult as well. I was taught to not eat before an adult in the table has taken the first bite and not to put anything above my elbows on the dinner table. I was also taught to bow when greeting people that are older and also to use use two hands when receiving something. Most, if not all, actions require something changed in either speech or gesture in the presence of an elder. 

To incorporate this importance piece of culture into my learning plan, I have chosen to write letter to my parents to practice writing formally, order food in Korean to practice speaking to elders, and to watch the news since most of the news is in formal language.