Unfortunately, I have not been able to have a conversation in Portuguese as I have no language partner. However, the few times I have been able to practice Portuguese it has seemed to be fine. In my Capoeira class I have practiced singing in Portuguese, and I have not been corrected for pronunciation. I feel as though I have met my learning goals for this week quite well. I have practicing my duolingo daily, and I have been able to watch a few soccer videos in Portuguese.
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Reflect on the classmates presentations
I really enjoyed the presentations. Listening to the Korean ones helped me reinforce my own culture (especially hanbok and the beauty culture) and the ones about Turkey were very interesting. I spoke with my Turkish friend afterwards about raki and he told me that he would bring me some. In general, all of the presentations were very well thought out. I wish I could have made mine a little more interesting. I think I spoke a little too fast and I wish I used my Czech the entire time, but because nobody would have understood it, I refrained from doing so.
I thought that the presentations were good. I learned a lot about many different aspects of Korean, Turkish, Czech and Spanish. I felt as that through the presentations I learned not only about the differences in language, but also the differences in customs. For example, we learned about the Korean clothing which is drastically different to that of Brazilian clothing. Another example is how Are spoke about the greetings in Korean. This was different than in Portuguese as in Portuguese having no eye contact or physical contact is seen as disrespectful.
This semester, I will focus on modern day Ukrainian political music. Originally, I thought about doing my project on folk music, but I realized (by accident) that the modern day politically charged music coming out of Ukraine is more relevant and interesting. The conflict with Russia, Russian backed separatists in the East and the widespread government corruption in Ukraine all shine through in the music that is popular. As far as I can tell, there was a large increase of political pop music during and after the Maidan Revolution. This element of Ukrainian culture is complicated and difficult to understand because there are so many moving parts, however, I believe that researching this topic can begin to show much about Ukraine's current culture in the wake of multiple political and social crises.
The presentations were really good. I loved learning little nuances about the cultures whose languages we are studying. I think that offers a really unique perspective on the language and peoples' reactions and excitement towards what they are studying is encouraging and makes me feel a sense of pride in our abilities to learn new languages.
Specifically, for my classmates learning Turkish, I think we were able to offer them another insight into the culture and tradition behind the language, just as they offered us.
I really enjoyed the Korean presentations because Korean is a language with such a deep-rooted linguistic history and the Chinese contributions to the language are surprising in a way to me. I was surprised when I recognized some of the characters and they retained their meaning when they transferred from Chinese to Korean.
I think I met my learning goals a little bit. In my last post I noted how I would try to just continue what we are doing. I have memorized nationalities and countries that we were taught. I also have mastered basic introductory conversation.
There are some challenges that I am facing with numbers, but we have played a few different games to help that. I think it's actually a lot more simple than I think and reminds me of an even easier version of numbers in Chinese in a way. Chinese is very unique in that it counts the places and goes by tens, so twenty-five is literally "two ten five". Turkish has words for tens up to one hundred so all you say for twenty-five is "twenty five" which I guess is more similar to English than Chinese for now.
Based on my work from last semester, I would consider myself at level 1 intermediate. Because I have been accepted to an intensive summer Ukrainian program, I decided that for this semester, I will not focus as much on grammar, but instead I will focus on listening comprehension. In order to do this, my language partner and I will watch Ukrainian films (starting with children's cartoons and working our way up to something more applicable like the news or a sitcom). We will also work together on things like listening to a dialogue and answering questions. We will spend the first month working with very simple material (cartoons designed for children) and then we will move to watching a show designed for more advanced audiences (sitcoms or game shows), and for the final month, we will try to watch the news. I anticipate that the news will be the most difficult to understand because they often speak quickly.
This artifact reviews what I learned in SDLC 110 and includes what I have learned so far in weeks 1 - 3 this semester.
Evaluation:
1. Accent:
- I believe that my accent was more or less good. Of course, I have to continue to assimilate newer letter-pairing sounds into my wheelhouse. For example, words that contain "n" and "g" next to each other are very difficult for a native English speaker to pronounce.
2. Cultural Appropriateness:
- I believe that the monolog was culturally appropriate. I adhered to the norms that guide the Indonesian language. For example, some words do not translate cleanly into English. And I used the proper words in the monolog's context.
3. Linguistic Accuracy:
- The monolog was linguistically and grammatically accurate -- for the most part. It is difficult to judge a monolog based on its grammar, but, linguistically, I remained very much in the realm of an informal, or "slang," as many Indonesians like to call it, type of conversation. The words were modified to account for the informal conversation.
In all, I think I can improve my spacing in between sentences. The awkward timing between sentences will abate as time goes on.
Joora: 왜이렇게 늦었어?
Why were you so late?
Vivian:아 미안해! 차키를 잃어버려서 버스타고왔어. 많이 기다렸지?
Sorry! I lost my car keys so I took the bus! Did you wait long?
Joora: 괜찮아. 너 감기는 다 나았어?
That's okay. Is your cold better?
Vivian: 응, 다났어.
Yes, it's better.
Joora: 저기요! 초콜렛 케이크 하나랑 밀크티 두게주세요.
Excuse me. Could we order 1 chocolate cake and 1 milk tea?
Worker: 죄송하지만 초콜렛 케이크이 없대요.
I'm sorry, but we sold out of chocolate cake.
Joora:아 그럼 치즈케이크 으로 주세요.
Then could we get cheesecake?
Vivian:나 네꺼 먹어봐도돼?
Can I try some of yours?
Joora: 안돼.
No you can't.
Vivian:어...알았어.
Oh, okay.
Joora: 너 이따 뭐할거야?
What are you doing later?
Vivian: 난 공부 할거야. 넌?
I'm going to study. How about you?
Joora: 웬일이야?
What? Study?!
Vivian: 그러게...해가서쪽에서 떴나봐.
Yeah I know...I can't believe it either.
First Cultural Post: What are your cultural learning goals for this semester?
I’d like to explore Korean idioms as well as Korean slangs/expressions during the course of the semester. My parents often used Korean idioms when talking with their friends, and I wasn't able to understand the meaning even by using context clues. Also, I will be travelling to South Korea this upcoming summer and would like to converse and text with my cousins and friends and understand modern-day slangs/expressions.
I expect to explore these topics by watching Youtube videos and finding a list of popular idioms and slangs/expressions used online. By exploring these topics, I hope to further my speaking and interpersonal skills and better understand Korean culture as well as media/shows.
- Reflect on the presentations of your classmates.
It was interesting to learn about different cultures around the world and to see what aspects of them interested my class mates. I learned new things from all of them but it was interesting to learn about the different use of the words we/our in Korean from Delila's presentation. It gives new insight into Korean culture and social behavior. It was also interesting to learn about K-Pop and the process of being trained as a Korean idol from Abigail, and about the prevalence of plastic surgery in Korea. I also was interested in the different rituals cultures associated with drinking, as shown in the presentations on Turkish Raki and Coffee drinking. It was also interesting to hear about other rituals, like Joora's presentation on holiday's in Turkey ,and Angella and Sharon's presentation on traditional Korean clothing. Lastly, I enjoyed Tom's presentation about the slower pace and different culture of Spain, and Oliver's presentation on Capoiera dance fighting.
- Learning Journal 4: Document (a) your goals and tasks for weeks 4 and 5, (b) the resources and activities you will use to achieve your goals, and (c) how you will evaluate your success.
(a) I will finish learning about greetings, introduction, farewells, asking where you are from, answering where I am from and I will review country names and nationalities in Turkish. I will also learn about vocabularies that I need for traveling in Turkey. I will learn "Do you speak English", "I'm sorry, I'm not from here" and so on in Turkish to deal with situations when I am traveling in Turkey.
(b) I will use Mango Languages Chapter 2 to learn the sentences I need to know when I am traveling in Turkey. I will also attend Sezgi's class and ask her about vocabularies I need to know.
(c) I will evaluate my success by videotaping myself after learning vocabularies and short sentences through Mango Languages. I will get a feedback from my language partner.
- Learning Plans: SDLAP_learningplan%20final%20Joora%20Baek.docx
- First Artifact: Greetings, farewells, introductions: FirstArtifact, Transcript: FristArtifactTranscript.docx, FirstArtifactTranscriptInTurkey
Learning Journal 3: State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.
In this week, I planed to learn about how to say nations and nationalities in Turkey. I learned country names in Turkey during the class with Sezgi. I made a dialogue about introducing myself, saying "how are you", "nice to meet you", "where are you from", "I'm from ~", and farewells.
- I also learned how to say "busy" and "tired".
- I learned how to answer to "How are you" in different ways. (Beautiful, Awesome, Good, So so)
I will review the vocabularies that I learned including South Korea(n), Germany (German), Nigeria(n), France (French), and China (Chinese). I will also record my first artifact that is including "Where are you from", and "I'm from ~".
Fourth Cultural Post: Target Language's Writing System
The Korean writing system was written by King SeJong during the Joseon Dynasty. It consists of 19 consonants and 10 vowels. The system of writing one character is combining 1-2 vowel with 1-3 consonants to create a sound. The consonants are: ㄱ (g), ㄴ (n), ㄷ (d), ㄹ (l/r), ㅁ (m), ㅂ (b), ㅅ (s), ㅇ( null (initial)/ng (final), ㅈ (j), ㅊ (ch), ㅋ (k), ㅌ (t), ㅍ (p), ㅎ (h). The vowels are: ㅏ (a), ㅓ (eo), ㅗ (o), ㅜ (u), ㅡ (eu), ㅣ (i and (with a y): ㅑ (ya), ㅕ (yeo), ㅛ (yo), ㅠ (yu). You can also double certain consonants to create a sharper and stronger sound. For example, to say hello, 안녕, the individual characters are smushed together to form one syllable. For the first syllable (Pronounced: AHN), you start with the consonant, which is the o. Then, you attach the vowel, ㅏ. As you say ahn, the n sound (ㄴ) comes last, so you put that at the bottom. In addition to the 10 basic vowels, you can create other sub-vowels by combining other vowels together. The Korean alphabet is similar to the American alphabet, but it is different in that each syllable is one character. Furthermore, unlike the American alphabet where one writes left to write, the Korean alphabet structure is written with a box-like structure.
Learning Journal 5: Post (a) an evaluation of your First Artifact conversation, and (b) an assessment of how well you met your learning goals for weeks 4 and 5.
Artifacts are evaluated for accent, cultural appropriateness, and linguistic accuracy.
My first artifact was a recording of my mom and I speaking briefly in Korean. I would evaluate the recording as moderately good. I said hello to my mom, and she asked me politely what my name was in Korean. I responded back with the polite term, but I realize now that I was supposed to reply in a nonformal matter. I told her it was nice to meet her, and she said it back to me. I then said that I would talk to her later. However, the phone call connection was poor, so we were not able to communicate well at the end. I told her goodbye and that we should talk again later. I think that, overall, it was a good start. However, I would like to further improve.
- I have met all of my learning goals for weeks 4 and 5. I have been watching one video from SCOLA once a week. Then I have also been journaling about it in my Korean notebook. I have also been listening to one song throughout the week, trying to understand what it means. Then I write about what the song is about in my Korean notebook. I also have ordered my book online, and it is currently in the mail. I do not think I am at the level of reading chapter books, so I chose a children’s book that was translated into Korean. Instead of choosing one book a month, I think that I will just focus on this book the entire semester due to Korean books being difficult to find and also due to my skill level in Korean. Lastly, I have been skyping my parents twice a week. I have been practicing talking about my day without reverting back to English.
I thought that the presentations in class were very interesting. I liked Dalila's presentation about the culture of “oo-ree” (us) in Korean because it’s a concept that I forget is not universal. Growing up in a Korean family, I was used to hearing pronouns that expressed an inclusive group such as “oo-ree.” Learning about this concept made me realize how my American side and Korean side clash in this respect. It’s difficult growing up with clashing cultures, one being group-oriented and the other being individual-oriented. I also liked Arnanto’s presentation on the prevalence of plastic surgery in Korea. Getting plastic surgery is an idea I’ve become used to due to Korean tv shows, music, culture, etc. However, I realized how this is a concept that is really not normal. It made me think about how the idea of beauty could possibly be influenced by individuals wanting to fit into a group (“oo-ree” culture). I understand the reasons why Koreans are getting plastic surgery, but I do not understand why these reasons can’t be resolved in a more emotionally stable manner.
- What do you need to know about the structure of your target language? How will you acquire the knowledge you need? Do you think a reference grammar can be useful? Why or why not?
I need to learn about how to make formal language, and how to make sentences in Turkish. I will learn the differences between formal and informal language, and Turkish grammar by taking classes with Sezgi. I will also keep learning how to form sentences through Mango website. Because Mango teaches basic grammars and the origins of the words, it is helpful for me to study or preview before Sezgi's class. The reference grammar can be useful because understanding how the structure of Turkish sentences works will allow me to speak Turkish more fluently. Today, I learned "What is this", "What is that" and how to answer these questions in Turkish in Sezgi's class. After learning that "this" comes before "what" in the sentence, I compared and contrast Turkish grammar with English and Korean. It allowed me to learn the structure easier.
(a) an evaluation of your First Artifact conversation
- Since my first artifact was writing based, I sent each writing to my friends in Korea before posting. They would often fix small grammatical issues such words that have the same meaning but different usage. For example, in one entry I wrote about wearing a ring without knowing there was a specific verb used for wearing of accessories. Although my sentence made sense, it was not quite right because I used the wrong form of wear. I think this artifact was good because it showed a wide range of topics and therefore a wide range of sentence structures. Often, I get into a rut of using the same basic structures but this exercise forced me to go outside of my comfort zone. I often had to look up words I didn't know and I learned a lot of new vocabulary and interesting grammar points along the way. I think I did well with this artifact because my friends never had to completely rewrite my work, only small revisions. Even they were surprised by the lack of rewrites.
(b) an assessment of how well you met your learning goals for weeks 4 and 5.
- I will admit that these goals have been coming around slowly for me because I spent too much time reviewing my past lessons without moving forward. I had completed unit 15 so far which leaves unit 16-18 to be completed along with my review and tasks. It seems to be so daunting once I get behind.
For this week, my goal is to review the consonants from last week and start the vowel letters. They areㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ. To help me to remember the letters, I practiced writing them and their English sounds. However, I seem to always get confused with ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅑ, ㅕ because they look very similar. I also wanted YouTube Videos that taught Hangul and how the pronunciations can be related to any English words. Besides that, I also looked up some introduction phrases and practiced to speak couple of them. So far I still write English sounds to relate how they are pronounced because I haven’t gotten Hangeul yet.
