The writing system in Turkish is in the Latin alphabet. This is part of the reason I chose Turkish in the first place. As my third language and the only one I didn't learn as a small child, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to learn a third language or that it would be significantly more difficult. By choosing a language that uses a Latin alphabet, I gave myself a better chance because I didn't have to learn a whole other writing system. What I didn't know was the modern Turkish also uses suffixes which means that it is a language that basically just uses building blocks to contract sentences and phrases. I also learned that Ottoman Turkish used to use the Arabic alphabet which would have been really really hard for me to learn in one semester.
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I think that my first artifact was a great demonstration of the phrases we learned so far. I liked that I got to do a video with other people, it made it easier to use all the phrases together in conversation. In terms of meeting my goals for weeks 4 and 5, I am glad that we started to use more phrases in class because now I can incorporate the words I have started learning on my own. Although what I am learning on my own and what we are learning in class doesn't always line up.
In weeks four and five, I would like to continue to bolster my vocabulary. I am still working through the First Words section of the uTalk app and will continue to do this. I like this app so much because even though all of the words are pretty basic and cannot really be used to make real sentences, they are still useful words rather than Duolingo which I find teaches you random words like "Apple" first which are not as practical. I'm using this app to learn but also to help me with my recall. I plan to use the games to work on my recall. I also hope that between this week and next week I can become more consistent in my practice rather than doing big chunks at random times.
My first topic of culture is Turkish raki. Raki is a liquor that is a traditional drink of Turkish culture. While Turkey has long been a secular state, the new government which is much more conservative and religious is trying to diminish the presence of alcohol in Turkish society by taxing it heavily and making it expensive to drink. However, raki is seen not just as a drink but as a tradition or custom of Turkish society. The tradition of drinking raki is mostly about the conversations you have around the table while drinking this drink with family and close friends. Some instances in which you might drink raki are: a new birth in the family, a wedding, a promotion, a bout of hard times, or even just after a long day at work. I think the importance of raki is that it brings people together to talk about and reflect on life, share advice and be a part of each others' lives.
In this learning plan, I think I outline realistic goals of what I want to accomplish. For the most part, my goals are related to basic interactions between me and someone else. Directions, ordering and interacting with shopkeepers are my main goals since I think my Turkish would best serve me in a traveling setting. I hope that my focus on certain topical areas doesn't limit my vocabulary too much but i think that is just something to be aware of.
The hardest part of trying to write in Turkish is not knowing which vowels are making the sounds I am hearing. For the most part I can get very close to the correct spelling as Turkish is a very straight-forward language phonetically speaking, however, I often confuse vowels for one another. To me, this seem like I am pretty close to writing the correct word but I realize that switching a vowel (like in English or in Spanish) could mean an entirely different word. In terms of reading the language, I find that Turkish is really easy to sound out. Sometimes it is hard to string together all of the sounds together to make it sound like all one word, but with a few rounds of practice I can usually get the whole word down. I just don't know if the way I would say the word would be distinguishable to a native speaker.
In the two readings from this week, they discussed the idea that being bilingual may or may not make you "smarter". The New York Times article outlines that the ability to switch between tasks or to stay focused on a singular tasks and ignore distractions because of practice the brain has doing this between multiple languages. The second article also agrees that bilinguals do show higher executive functions, however, that does not make them smarter necessarily. Mostly this second article clarifies that the term "smarter" does not qualify or disqualify certain cognitive abilities acquired by being bilingual.
For my next cultural post, I did research on the creation of the Korean language. Koreans did not always have their own language, but used Hanja, which was Chinese. There were many problem because of this. For example, the Chinese characters were too complicated for the common people to learn and understand. Using the language meant you were in the upper class and it was generally used by the educated. Another problem was that since the Chinese script was of foreign origin, Koreans were unable to fully express their Korean cultural thoughts and spoken language. The common people who had complaints had no way of submitting grievances. They were also unable to record agricultural wisdoms that were gained over the years. As a result, King Sejong, the king during the Choson Dynasty (1393 - 1910), created the Korean language called Hangul. It was very easy to learn so the problems that existed with the common people began to dissipate. It is apparently so accessible that a foreigner can gain a working knowledge of Hangul after one or two hours of intensive studying. It even allowed children who were around 2 or 3 to be able to express themselves which was considered a rare phenomena throughout the world.
This semester I have progressed in two major categories of Portuguese. The first is soccer. I feel as though I am able to play a soccer game in Portuguese with other people, as I can clearly communicate what I want in a game. I can also speak a little about current soccer event in soccer, however, not very well as I still really don't know sentence structure in Portuguese. I can also listen to soccer commentary Portuguese. From the commentaries I can get the basic idea of what the commentators are trying to say, but I cannot specifically translate each and every word. The commentator also has to be speaking slower than normal, because I cannot understand Portuguese at the pace in which they typically speak. The other are I have progressed in is the culture of Brazil. I have come to know the Afro-Brazilian culture quite well as I have been studying Capoiera in another class. I can confidently sing songs in Portuguese and perform the movements of Capoiera. I can also translate what the name of each movement is in English
I taught my friend Nang on the learning activity that I previously learned with my learning partner, which was about some common phrases and words that can be helpful for a tourist in South Korea. I taught him around only 15 vocabulary words and phrases that were not too advanced so that he could easily create sentences with with the amount of Korean that he already knew. He is learning Korean this semester for SDLC as well but in the more beginner level so while it was a bit difficult for him to learn all the words at first, he got most of it down by the end of our learning session.
I made sure to put more emphasis on the words and phrases that I believed would have been the most used or practical in an interaction with a Korean person. We practiced a bit on the pronunciation since Korean is still a new language for him. We utilized the Korean website that Joora had found so that Nang could pick what category of phrases he wanted to specifically learn. I think the website was very helpful since we were able to focus on his needs and wants instead of learning vocabulary that wouldn't have been that useful for what we were trying to accomplish. Overall, it was a fun and enjoyable time teaching him and I think he did really well for learning all these new words at such a quick pace.
For the past two week we emphasized on learning more vocabulary since this was one of my main goals in my learning plan. This time our learning partner provided us vocabulary based on the topics of the many labels of measurements. Koreans use many different measurement labels when describing the amount of items such as trees, pencils, flowers, chopsticks, books, socks, medicine, letters, and much more. They each have a different label so I was a little bit intimidated by how much more there must be to describe other daily artifacts. To make sure we mastered the new vocabulary, we took a test in our next lesson of the week to make sure the newly obtained knowledge was reinforced. I did well so I was happy with my results. We spent the majority of the next week learning to write a proper letter. My letter was addressed to my parents. I particularly enjoyed this lesson because it was practical and I was able to write a personal letter to my parents, which I normally do not do.
For one of the weeks we analyzed poems. We learned a lot of new vocabulary and phrases that are not usually used in English. Since these were poems, direct translation of the Korean words led to nonsense in English. As a result, it was a little difficult to fully grasp what was being presented. It was interesting to learn the beauty of poetry in a different language. Some of the poets that we learned about were those who were living in Korea during Japan's invasion. Through their poems, we got insight into the minds of what some Koreans were feeling and thinking during those difficult times. On another week, we read a brief part from a book. This helped us practice our reading skills. This is something I found a lot more difficult than I expected. It felt like reading a tongue twister every sentence because I was not used to reading and saying Korean that I am not used to saying. This exercise assisted me in learning more words and being able to read a little more efficiently. I think more of this type of practice would be good for me.
Magnificent Century Episode 1 - English Subtitles - YouTube
Watching this TV series has given me real insight into how the Turkish language has contributed to the culture and visa versa.
SDLC 110 Learning Journal #14:
Learning Journal 14: Summarize your work this semester, the progress you made and the difficulties you encountered.
Overall, this semester was eye-opening. I learned new phrases in Korean that I did not know before, such as how to properly talk to someone formally and informally. I learned basic words and sentences in everyday topics, including shopping, food, school, dreams, future goals, and more. I learned how to properly say phrases I had a habit of shortening, while also relearning phrases I did not use for years. To be honest, I underestimated the amount of work learning a language takes. I thought that I would reach an advanced level by the end of the semester, but I have not. I was overly ambitious in my goals of believing I would be able to understand the news in Korean. I thought I would be able to describe my day in Korean to the advanced level I am able to describe my day in English. However, I do know that though I do not sound like a native speaker yet, I still have made much progress from where I was in the beginning of the semester. I am able to talk to my mom for fifteen minutes in Korean, I am able to listen to music and understand, for the most part, what it is trying to say, and I am able to read basic Korean books with proficiency. My mom told me that she saw me improve this semester, and I am glad that a native speaker such as herself noticed my efforts. Some difficulties I encountered were forgetting my old ways of speaking Korean and learning a whole new way to say something. For example, my parents are from the countryside of Korea, so many of my phrases are learned from people with a dialect. It is difficult learning between dialects because, on the one hand, I know that I am still saying something that makes sense. However, I am more tempted to learn the more popular dialect way of saying certain words and phrases. It was difficult rewiring my brain like that. I also have many words in Korean that I have made up or shortened that my family members have come to understand. Therefore, it was difficult at times to speak in Korean because many of the words I thought were real words were in fact words that did not exist in the Korean language. From that perspective, it was difficult to once again rewire the way I learned a language because I had to relearn the basics all over again.
I created a learning activity on how to refer and designate specific days in Korean, such as day before yesterday, the day after tomorrow etc. I created a timeline of days on a piece of paper and put the days of the week on the top. I used Wednesday as the middle point (today). And then I put number of days after and before Wednesday. I then wrote down the terms to designate those specific days in Korean. For the activity, I would cover the last line with a piece of paper and point to a certain day and the person would have to tell me the correct designation term.
일 월 화 수 목 금 토 일
-3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 +4
그끄저께 그저께 어제 오늘 내일 모레 글피 그글피
My sources and slides are in the link above. Overall, my presentation was an attempt for me to understand why academics are so heavily valued in South Korea. In South Korea, the one test that holds the most importance of measuring a student's academic aptitude is the College Scholastic Aptitude Test. With this exam determining the future of a student's life, it is extremely prepared for and prioritized by the country. With such emphasis on doing well on this test, it also comes with negative side effects such as South Korean teenagers being chronically unhappy and often resorting to drastic measures to alleviate their struggles, such as committing suicide. Though South Korea's education system is often heavily praised, including by President Obama, it comes at a high cost. It left me thinking about how even though I was in America, I am also accustomed to this way of life to a degree because of the large Korean population in Los Angeles.
I had some difficulty uploading the cultural presentation. It currently says that it works, but I am not sure if something strange will happen to it again.
If anyone would like to see my cultural presentation and is not able to, feel free to email me at sharon.shin@richmond.edu so that I can share it with you in Google Docs.
SDLC 110 Cultural Post #8:
Eighth Cultural Post: Reflect upon what you have learned from the cultural projects presented in class
It was very enjoyable learning about the cultural topics my classmates presented on this semester. Since many of my classmates chose Korean as the language they wished to study, it was interesting learning about my culture without it being my presentation. Overall, I think I became more knowledgeable about different countries that I never knew about, giving me insight about the values and norms the country strived for. For example, I learned that Korean standards for hiring is very different than the United States’. The Korean round is extremely intensive, with potential employees having to prove themselves by passing multiple rounds of interviews and taking a test that bookstores often have practice books for. In addition, after passing all the rounds, it is still necessary for the individual to work overtime without extra pay for three straight months to prove themselves as hardworking employees. It gave me insight about how this attitude about the job force often spills into other aspects of one’s life in Korea such as academics, friendships, and more. It explained a lot to me about why Koreans often overexert themselves, attempting to compete and overexert themselves to make a point. I also learned that not all countries share basic university norms that we have in the US. In the Czech Republic, it is extremely rare for students to go to their professors during office hours. I thought this shed light on how individuals in the Czech Republic operated. They are very individualistic and do not tend to rely on others. Through learning about little things about how countries acted, I began to slowly understand what they valued, what they despised, and ultimately what they strived to be.
In this artifact, I answer the question of who my favorite contestant on Ukraine's version of "The Voice" is. I tell that my favorite is Elena, because she has a great voice and she is young, but extremely mature. I also talk about my favorite song that she performed. The song was called 1944, and it is about the Crimean Tatars being deported under Stalin.
Fourth Artifact: Document a learning task that you have completed.
Fourth Artifact: Document a learning task that you have completed.
