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Reflect on your experiences as a language learner.  What did you enjoy?  What did you dislike?  Think about the FIRE model and the surveys you have just completed.  What kind of learner are you?  What kinds of language learning activities suit your learning style?  How do you think you should expand your learning activities?

I have learned Korean for one and half year now. What I enjoy learning this language is when I hear my Korean friends talking to each other and I can understand most of the conversation. Also, when I watch dramas or listen to a song and I can understand it without any translation brings me a lot of joy. What I dislike is learning the grammar. I know grammar is an important part for a language learner but sometimes I just find it boring and complicated, but it still helps a lot when making a sentence.

From the fire model, I think I tend to be more like an insightful learner. I prefer to learn something with logical organization because it helps me understand it not just memorize it. The learning environment I had before was always a big class with more than 50 students, we learned a lot about the grammars and vocabularies. I am not sure whether this kind of learning environment suits my learning style or not, but I have learned a lot from these courses. I think I definitely should expand my learning activities such as speaking lessons or learn more topics about the sentences for daily lives.

By the end of this week, I hope to have greetings/farewells under my belt.  I wish to not only be able to indicate how to say "hello" or "good morning" without referring to my notes, but to also have the correct pronunciation and spelling down.  I plan to do this by practicing again with my learning partner who will be able to aid in my pronunciation.  But I will also continue to review lessons on mango languages, duolingo, babble, and refer to the youtube videos I bookmarked on diigo to help me as well.  By practicing, listening, and writing out the language I hope to have a broader understanding rather than simply studying the words off of a sheet of paper.

In order to begin working on my language tasks, I have downloaded the duolingo app on my phone.  So far, it has introduced me to some basic vocabulary and the way in which such words are pronounced.  I have also been practicing with lessons on babble and mango languages.  In addition, I have bookmarked a couple of youtube videos that explain the alphabet, the pronunciation of Turkish letters, and words that aid in learning the letters and pronunciation.  These resources have aided me in becoming more familiar with basic greetings and basic words such as girl/boy/and/or etc.  Additionally, I have met with my language partner twice who also went through the Turkish alphabet and helped with our pronunciation.  

The Turkish language is reflective of the values and customs of the culture.  Respect is demonstrated through language such that you would greet someone that is older than you differently than you would greet someone who is younger or the same age as you.  Additionally, the Turkish language is absent of gender.  Therefore, the language does not consist of masculine and feminine words but rather it remains gender neutral.  In Turkey, people tend to value their families and their religion (Islam) the most.  This can be seen in the way in which family members or loved ones are addressed and by the religious terms that is incorporated into the Turkish language.  

The How the Brain Handles Language article explains how there is not one set part of the brain that specifically accounts for the understanding, production, and interpretation of language.  Therefore, learning a language requires a number of diverse strategies since the process involves not just one, but several brain regions.  In addition, the language learning article made me realize the importance of word usage and meaning.  It is crucial to learn not only a word's definition, but also to get familiar with the way it is used in sentences and common phrases.  As we know from English, words can have different meanings depending on the way in which it is utilized in a sentence or context.  For this reason, learning a language requires more than just studying vocabulary.  It takes practice through usage and listening to other native speakers to really grasp a good understanding.

In “How the Brain Handles Languages,” the author talked about learning a new language requires different brain areas because a single area of brain relates to a single behavioral ability, such as vision or speech, which is known as localization.  Once we mastered one language, a snatch of dialogue takes place so quickly that we forgot how complicated the neurological planning and execution involved in the process. In speaking, it is the vocabulary which most people associate with the notion of sense. 

However, one word often has different meaning in different occasions, even if different tonality can refer to different meaning.  Also, some thinks that words are intrinsically connected with the meaning while other do no.  I think it depends on the language.  Some words such as describing the sound of animal does connect to the meaning. 

For this week, my goal was to start my learning of Korean alphabets, or Hangul. Korean alphabets can help me in speaking Korean words and they are the foundation. Korean alphabets are separated into consonants and vowels. This week I want to focus on learning the consonants. They areㄱ= k,ㄴ= n,ㄷ= d,ㄹ=r/l,ㅁ= m,ㅂ= b,ㅅ= s,ㅈ= jㅎ= h. I foundㄹ to be really hard to pronounce.  It is between the sound r and l.  Korean words can be combined by Hanguls in four different ways and there are certain patterns and words are written into “blocks” that make up one syllable.   

• Do some research about the culture of your target language and write about the 'linguistic aspects', e.g., body language, how people talk about time, etc.

My computer died halfway through writing this the first time but here's my second attempt: 

In Korea body language is very different than in the States. While eye contact while communicating is encouraged in the States, it is typically discouraged in Korea unless you are talking to someone you know well. Similarly, smiling in public is less common and can even be construed as disrespectful at certain times. Korean's in general are said to use facial expressions less to convey emotions, and are stereotypically a more reserved people. In that same regard, Korean culture is less oriented around touch than that of the states, and physical intimacy in public is very uncommon, even among family members. On the other end of the spectrum, Korean table manners can be very different from that of the States. In Korea, slurping and burping at the table are actually seen as good things, as they as show that you enjoyed your meal, while in the States this would be incredibly rude. People also often chew with their mouth open and speak with their mouths full, as this shows that they are eating well. 

http://buscomkoreacultural.blogspot.com/2013/05/non-verbal-communication.html

https://trevorrussell.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/nonverbal-communication-in-south-korea/

• Reflect on your experiences as a language learner.  What did you enjoy?  What did you dislike?  Think about the FIRE model and the surveys you have just completed.  What kind of learner are you?  What kinds of language learning activities suit your learning style?  How do you think you should expand your learning activities?

State your learning goals for this week and how you went about accomplishing these goals.

This week my goal was to learn basic survival Korean, as well as to grasp the fundamentals of the Korean alphabet. To accomplish the first goal I spent a lot of time on U-Talk going through activities, and utilized other websites like the three minute Korean videos and doing activities on the GLOSS website. To help with learning the Korean alphabet I used a combination of this website I found and working through some modules on the Korean Headstart program. I believe these methods were helpful in building an understanding of the Korean language and that used in combination these different resources can provide me with an effective way of learning Korean. 

When we turn on the radio, we may usually hear some sort of American pop music. We may listen to it because of its catchy tune or beautiful lyrics, but America is not the only country to have this type of music. Korea also has their version of pop music, which is commonly known as “Kpop.” These singers are usually arranged into different groups that fall under a variety of large entertainments, such as SM, YG, and JYP. These groups can range from 2,4, and even 12 members. One of my favorite girl kpop groups is Girl’s Generation, which consists of 8 members and are most famous for their song, “Gee.” Some recent songs by them include “Party” and  “Mr.Mr.,” if you’d like to try out their music.

A distinction from American pop culture and Korean pop culture is that there is a lot of coordination between the latter’s singing and dance choreography, where the singer’s dances usually illustrate a picture for the audience that reflect the lyrics. Although there is dancing in American pop songs too, I noticed that they usually focus more on the singing aspect, rather than the performance. Since I have an interest in dancing, I have attempted to learn kpop dances before and some of the songs are quite difficult. As a result, I am always amazed at how Korean singers are able to both sing and dance so well together.

One of my learning goals for last week was to learn the names of family relationships on my father’s and mother’s side because it was Chinese New Year this weekend. I conducted research about this topic by finding charts and diagrams that display these connection. Then, my learning partner and I went over these relationships together by drawing it out on a whiteboard. I learned that it was very easy to make these connections messy because even if the root word was the same, there were different names for the first part of the word, which indicated if it’s on the father’s or mother’s side. I thought it was interesting that there are so many different names for the same type of relatives in Korean, when compared to English, For example, you can only say aunt or uncle in English, but in Korean, there are ways to denote age by saying younger aunt (jak-eun umma) or older uncle (kkeun appa).

It got especially confusing when you had to account for marriages because there were different names that you call your aunt’s husband and uncle’s wife. Although it was confusing at first, it was very fun to draw these diagrams to learn about these different connections.My goal for learning these names is to better understand the relationships between my family members and also to apply this to my own family with my future husband because I need to know how to properly addess his side of the family!

We've spent the week reviewing the past week's learning goals and going over the alphabet's sounds again. To practice this, I quizzed myself a little bit and kept up with the vocabulary practice that I've been doing via Mango and Duolingo. This will help me with my vocabulary in class and I will be able to bookmark interesting facts about Turkey in my browser using Diigo, so that I can look back when we have to do our presentations at the end of the semester.

In the culture(s) where 'your' language is spoken, are there significant differences in the language when you are talking to family rather than strangers?  older people rather than younger?  men rather than women?

In Korea, there are a lot of differences when talk to elder people, strangers and younger. When talk to elder people and strangers, the most polite and respective form is required. If not, they will feel offensive and sometimes angry. Also, there is a different way to talk with a friend or with an elder. When talk to elder, like I mentioned before, the most polite form is needed. Yet, when talking to a close friend or younger, just use the informal form will be fine. About talking to the men or women, I think there are no significant differences.

In addition, in Korea, whether to use formal form or informal form depends on the age and the relationship between each other as well. If there is an age difference between two people but they are very close, informal form can be used. Yet, if the same age people who are not very close, they will use formal form instead of the informal one. Thus, from my observation, using formal form or informal form depends on how close the two speakers are more than on the age differences.

Formality is one of the key highlights in the Korean language. With its various levels of formality, it adds to the complexity of the language. The honorifics of the Korean language has strong ties with its culture. There are three different levels of formality in Korean. The first one being the most polite and formal (deferential), then the standard polite form, and lastly the informal form. It is necessary to address people who are older in a different way than you do if speaking to a friend. The deferential form is used when talking to people who are older and have authority over you. The standard polite form is used when talking to an older person who has an equal status as you are. And lastly, the informal form is used when speaking casually to a friend. Since the Korean culture really emphasizes honorifics, it is very important to stress my learning process into the area of formality in the Korean language.

After reading the article, I learned that it would be better for me to learn Korean in creating sentences instead of memorizing word by word. This refers to the topic of collocations that the article pointed out. We need to understand the context of each word so that when we put them together into a sentence, it would be appropriate. Often, language learners isolate their focus on memorizing vocabularies without knowing the context of each word. Thus, when those words are put together to form a sentence, it might not make sense or sound odd. So, for my learning process, I will put more attention into forming sentences since I want to learn basic conversational Korean.  

My learning goal for this week was just to expand my vocabulary, more importantly my vocabulary about soccer. I went about this by using duolingo to expand my vocabulary. I also watched a soccer game commentated in Portuguese. I struggled to understand anything the commentators were talking about, except I could tell when the teams scored goals, and which player the commentators were talking about, since I knew all the names of the players, and goal in Portuguese is also gol.

Within both the Portuguese and Brazilian culture games and play are big part of the culture. Both have an emphasis on laughter and family. This can very clearly be seen by the Afro-Brazilian culture which has many dances and games that can regularly be seen on the streets of Brazil. Of these many games and dances one is Capoeira. Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian mock fighting dance. It can also be seen as a game as usually there is a winner and a loser. It was invented as a game among'st slaves who used the game to practice there martial arts to revolt against their masters. Eventually the game was actually banned by Brazil once the masters caught on to the fact that the game was being used to practice their fighting skills. Capoeira is a very physically demanding dance and I have been practicing it in my Capoiera class.