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Learning a totally different language is kind of difficult things. These articles just helped my understand how to start or prepare to learn different languages. It was also hard and dry readings so I think I can understand what it means 100 percent but It was informative and quite new to me.

Actually I liked the part that explains about the relationship between the language and our brain. I just saying something, while my brain is also doing a lot. As a Korean, I am not a fluent English speaker and of course not even speaker of Turkish. I think if I will practice regularly I could be much more fluent from now. But I think it is really hard for me to be a fluent Turkish speaker. Learning about the differences between the gramma of the different languages made me realize that Turkish is no easy things. According to the reading, different language speakers hear things differently due to the structures, semantics, etc. Fortunately, my goal is not to be a fluent Turkish speaker, but just learn some expression for traveling. Anyway it was really helpful readings for starting learning new languages. 

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I found that the culture shock video resounded with many aspects of my life. Coming from India although their were linguistic barriers, it was interesting to see the manner in which culture and tradition extends from the language to the people in America. The level of independence and privacy was an aspect which took me by surprise, as Americans tended to live more solitary and independent lives as compared to Indians. 

Watching the video was quite surprising as it brought up a different kind of culture shock. Being in an environment that is vastly different than the University was back then, I can not imagine the kind of scenarios described in the video. 

My first memory of culture shock would be the time when I moved from Korea to America at the age of 5. Although I don't remember too much about what I thought back then or the specific things that took me by shock, but I do remember not enjoying my first couple years in America. I do remember begging my mom not to send me to kindergarten because I felt uncomfortable and felt isolated in a classroom full of American students. Being surrounded by children who have completely different lifestyles and a vastly different culture made me dread going to kindergarten and often I cried and made up excuses to not go. 

One of the more recent culture shocks that I can remember would be my transition from California to the University of Richmond. It wasn't too big a culture shock, but there were a number of things that stood out. The east coast felt a lot more business oriented and things seemed a bit fast-paced as to the laid back vibe that I had gotten used to back in California. Everyone here was always busy doing something, whether it was studying in the library or integrating themselves into the community as quickly as possible. And at first I was taken aback at the culture of the east coast because it was something I had never been exposed to. Also a big thing was the diversity of the campus, or lack thereof. Coming from a high school where half the population was asian, it was a culture shock to be coming to a school where the population is roughly 90% Caucasian, and the minorities making up the rest. It was a very different culture and because there was already a culture difference between my asian heritage and the majority of the school, the distance was divided that much further. However, it is interesting to see how this kind of culture shock has transformed me. Comparing myself to the teenager I was before coming to Richmond, I see a lot of different changes in terms of behavior when meeting someone new, or just different little things. When I even look at my friends who are attending schools back in California, I see a lot of differences in terms of what we do and how we go about doing things. 

I was not very surprised when I watched the Culture Shock video. Coming from the West Coast to the East Coast, I felt some of the things that surprised the international students in the video. The subtle small things that were different like the way people talked, or the culture here at UR was very surprising to me. However, the academic aspect of their culture shock was different from that of mine. When I came to this University, I was pleasantly surprised that it was very similar to the academic life I had back home. However, I did make the mistake of taking three different reading based classes, which made me think that UR assigns lots and lots of reading. 

My culture shock coming to University of Richmond was different. I grew up in California with significantly more diversity then Richmond in general. I grew up around mostly Asian Americans and one can even go through all of high school without befriending a single American person. Coming to this campus was a huge eye opener for me. I realized that I lived in a very diverse place and that the rest of America was not like California. I did have a big culture shock because of the difference of culture here, but I learned to adapt to the culture and began to get comfortable here. At first I did feel out of place because of the difference in the way people talked and the way people acted, but after I found my group of friends, I became more comfortable with this place.

The goal of week 4 is to apply what I have been learning with my language partners through forms of communication such as texting. I plan on communicating with my parents through text messages and I could receive immediate feedback from them on how I am doing. This could help me practice my skills on communicating clearly what I want to say in Korean and make sure that I am doing it right. 

My goal for week 5 will be to watch Korean programs without subtitles and understand the general idea of what is being conveyed. I have been using a source that my language partners and I have been using that provides educational videos on a variety of Korean language topics. These videos are taught entirely in Korean with English subtitles and I hope that constantly listening to and learning different aspects of the language will provide me assistance in my goal of the week. I can evaluate that I was successful if I understood the Korean program clearly. If I did not understand at all, I failed.

Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet. The letters are completely different from Latin script, and each letter is pronounced with its own specific sound. One of the good things about Ukrainian for a learner of the language is the fact that the language is largely phonetic, which means after you learn the alphabet and the pronunciation rules, there is no reason why you will struggle to spell a word that you hear. Ukrainian uses a ь (soft sign) which influences the sound of the letter preceding it, making its sound soft. Written Ukrainian looks a lot different than printed Ukrainian, and everyone writes in cursive. That meant that I had to learn which cursive letters corresponded to which printed letters. Luckily for me, Ukrainian and Russian cursive is pretty much the same, so I didn't have to relearn very much. However, I remember when I first learned how to write Russian cursive, and that was a frustrating process because the cursive is sometimes very different from the actual printed letters.

This week, I wanted to learn how to match personal and possessive pronouns with the correct gender of the words. There are a lot of rules about this in Ukrainian, and it is not as straight forward as in Russian. It took me a lot of practice to start to get the hang of these rules, but once I did, things got a little easier. I also wanted to learn the pronunciation rules of letters within words. In Ukrainian, the way letters are pronounced can be influenced by the other letters around them. Because Ukrainian uses a similar alphabet to Russian, I assumed that the pronunciation rules would be the same. However, after trying to have a short dialogue with my language partner, I discovered that my pronunciation was completely wrong. Ukrainian has an entirely different set of rules about how the letters influence each other, so learning those rules was also a goal this week. To do this, I referred to a Ukrainian grammar book and several different websites with pronunciation examples.

• 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.

(a): Evaluation

I chose to use a letter as my first artifact because it highlights but one of my goals: writing. Further artifacts will showcase speaking (conversation) and listening skills.
I thought I did well on my first artifact. One of my learning tasks it to be able to understand a simple letter as well as to write one. In the letter, I focused on the structure as well as the core. For the structure, I learned basic phrases to begin and end the letter. Next, I incorporated greeting phrases such as "How are you doing?" and "I hope you are doing well." Because the person to whom I wrote recently graduated from college, I wrote "Congratulations for graduating from university." I also told the person that I was learning Bahasa Indonesia. Lastly, I told the person that I wish to meet her within the year. The, I concluded with a common ending phrase.

(b): Assessment

My learning goals for weeks 4 and 5 were to wrap up on greetings and to begin Identity-related topics such as self-identification and identifying those of others, primarily friends and family members.

For greetings, I did two units sourced from the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Education. And for Identity, I finished a unit from Let's learn Indonesian, and begun a unit from the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Education. On top of that, I  watched numerous videos on the internet. Some related to the topics at hand, but others talked about culture and vernal life in Indonesia. This allowed me to work on my listening and interpreting skills.

From the written material, I covered: Listening -- to understand conversations that involve greetings, goodbyes, apologies, and thank you's; Speaking -- to speak using greetings, goodbyes, apologies, and thank you's; Reading -- to understand a simple email, to understand greetings and farewell expressions in an email, and to understand the structure of emails in Bahasa Indonesia; and Writing -- to write a simple, informal email. 

Moreover, for self-introduction, I covered: Listening -- To understand a monologue of others' self-introductions, to understand conversations that involve self-introduction; and, for survival language, to practice listening to a conversation that is mixed with Bahasa Indonesian and English; Reading -- to understand an Indonesian ID card; and Writing -- to write some descriptions of people / places.

Lastly, I have begun working on identifying family members -- family tree. My objectives for this task were: Identify the names of family members; give and ask for identity information; and introduce family members.

I found the Korean presentations regarding the food phenomenon extremely interesting. I found that it helped give me information about the Korean culture in a wide variety of ways. It exposed the audience to the way Koreans have isolated themselves and the importance of a social meal. I thought that the manner in which it had contextual links to aspect of Korean society was especially relevant to our discussion on linguistics and culture.

For week4 first, I review some expressions I learned before. To practice some expressions such as greeting and introducing myself, I and my language partner did some short role play. The goal of the week is greeting and introduce myself and basic conversation in situation where I meet somebody for the first time. I learned how to say in Turkish, nice to meet you, my name, how are you..etc. To practice more, using snapchat and facetime, I actually make some practice to greet my language partner's friends. It was kind of awkward but fun. I made it without mistakes.

For week5 also reviewd some expressions I learned before. This week my goal is to know kind of some basic Turkish words. I learned some question in Turkish such as "What is this", "Is this a table?". To practice the questions and aswer, I memorize some basic stuffs and practice using some words. Sometimes I leaned some expression from my language partner, this time she just taught me really famous Turkish song. Although I did not learn every part of the song, but just main lyrics and melody, it was jun experience.

To evaluate my goal, I first ask for my language partner to make some evaluation for my conversation with her and her friends. I did it without any big mistakes though it was not a complicated conversation. When she asked about some sentence in English, I can translate it into Turkish right away. Now I can express in Turkish how to greet each other, introduce myself, and make some question like "What is this" and answer about it. 

In our first presentation, I really enjoyed the interesting and informative presentation. They presented really well, and I can get lot of things of cultures especially about South Korea. It is much more interesting for me, because I am Korean who lived there whole my life. Listening some Korean American or international student who is even not a Korean at all, is kind of new experience for me. It was fun. Actually I think I am quite familiar the topics they presented, but I also can get something new about it.  

Mukbang is kind of very trendy one not an old traditional things in Korea now, so I was surprised to see the subjects. Actually personal broadcasting industry is getting bigger and bigger in Korea and one of the most famous one is about foods. I saw some video and it looks a little bit fool but fun. I do not enjoy that kind of broadcasting when I was in there, but some of my friends really liked to watch when they were really hungry. They said it is quite a good help to watch somebody eating when they are hungry..I still cannot agree with that but many many people now are watching it, so I think it is one of the evidence of that.

The cemetery presentation also impressive. Surely there are kind of strict hierarchy among Koreans, and we respect elderly people. For me I never been to the cemetery before, and I really want to visit there some day after I go back to Korea. The presenter said every Korean really respect the sacrifice who died for Korean War, and I agree with that. However, I think it is not as much as American respect the soldiers and sacrifice. Like most of Korean, I also did my military service for 2 years, and I actually worked in U.S Army in Seoul. What that I feel working there is that these American people really respect soldiers and the people died during their service. They treated US soldier very well and I heard about the well fare system for soldier which is really good. When I ate in the dining facilities, I always saw some short TV program to cherish the memory of deceased person. I think Korean also should learn this kind of behavior and thinking. The presentation reminded me of my old days in the Army.

They also presented about drinking culture in Korea. It was really furn and everything they showed us are 100 % true. Sometimes I do not like the strict drinking atmosphere, but I think it is also one of the ways that make people more closer each other. I like their role playing explanation. And now I really missed my old friends and some drinking food and traditional drinks!

About Basque presentation, it was really informative. I do not have much information about the region so it was a little hard to understand for me but still good to know the information I never knew before. There are complicated dialects there which is similar to Korea. I also lived southern part of Korea we also used kind of same but different languages. It is impressive that Basque is kind of small area but they also have several different languages. 

For weeks 4, I will learn how to explain situations such as "the train is leaving right now." I will learn this task through a Korean lecture website that is run by The Cyber University of Korea. This website was introduced to me and is used as a main lecture by my language partner. I will learn how to formulate sentences that are used to describe various situations and expand my vocabulary on words that relate to accidents and disasters.

For week 5, I will learn how to give someone complements. I will also learn how to accept complements in a humble way in Korean. This will give me a chance to expand my vocabulary for hobbies and work. This lecture is also provided by The Cyber University of Korea. 

After I listen to the lectures, I will go over the lecture and expand on the lecture with my language partner. We practice the concepts and drill on the concepts with other classmates. I will evaluate my success based on my performance in the classroom. Since the language partner gives us many opportunities to participate, I will know which questions I know the answers to and which questions I don't. Since other classmates in my class are on similar levels in regards to skill in Korean, I will also use their performance to evaluate myself.

Watching the presentations taught me about cultures that are specific and unique to that culture. Even coming from a Korean background, I was not familiar with the importance of blood type in the culture. Tia and Timaj did a good job explaining the importance and comparing it to the zodiac symbol made it clear for people. The history of the use of blood types to explain one's personality was also very interesting and not common knowledge for even Koreans. 

The mukbang phenomena that is going across Korea right now was also another interesting topic that was explored by Jeffrey and Corinna. They explained that the reason for its popularity is due to the high percentage of single households in Korea. Many lonely individuals want to share a meal with someone and mukbang gives them a companion to eat with. I was particularly interested about the different personalities and broadcasting styles of the different broadcast jockeys and the potential earnings they can get. 

The cemetery presentation by Jinhoo was interesting due to the importance of death in the Korean culture. In my culture, we honor our passed ancestors with a ceremony to celebrate their life. Knowing this, Jinhoo's presentation gave me a more insightful outlook on death in general and its importance in the Korean culture. Every different presentation explains the different behaviors and traditions that each culture has.

The Basque presentation was interesting to me because of the way the presenter related her presentation to cake. The different dialects that are included in Basque was easy to relate to due to Korean's many dialects. Although it is not as complex as the Basque dialects, Koreans have different dialects that change based on the location. Her drawings also made her presentation clear and easy to follow. 

Turkish coffee was always something I was familiar about but it was not a topic that I knew much about. Watching the presentation, I was able to learn the history of Turkish coffee and what it represented about Turkish people. Knowing the history and the customs gave me a slight peek inside the Turkish people lives and their values.

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One of the most interesting presentations was Korean Muk-bang. I've always heard about this phenomenon, but found it entertaining yet interesting that it's such a prominent aspect of Korean culture. It was pointed out that one of the reasons it's so popular is because a lot of young Korean people are single and feel as though they are having a meal with the person they are watching, which I began to reflect upon. There are a wide variety of people who participate in Muk-bang ranging from really thin to chubbier men and women. Since Korea is a country so focused on appearance, it makes me wonder if the appearance of the person doing Muk-bang makes a difference in its popularity, or if it's solely based on the entertainment aspect (or maybe both?). 

The structure of the Korean language is SOV (subject object verb). For example, if I were to say "My name is Timaj" in romanization, it would be "che (my) irim-i (name) timaj (object) imnida (is)." The verb it-da means to exist, but in this instance, we are using it to introduce ourselves. We can also use it to say "there is" after being asked "What's in the room?" 

I think a reference grammar would be useful for the Korean language because often times, it doesn't directly translate in a way that makes sense in English. Because of this, it may be difficult for English speaking learners to understand why a certain verb is being used. For instance, in the example I used above, it wouldn't make sense in English to say "My name exists Timaj." However, that is the literal translation. Ultimately, I don't think a reference book is necessary, but it may be helper for some learners who want to know the explanations and translations of certain sentence structures. 

My goals and tasks for week 4 and 5 include talking about places where people do things during the day, and talking about dates and days of the week. By the end of week 4, I hope to be able to ask people where they are going, and what they will be doing there. I will practice this by constructing practice sentences asking questions such as "What time do you go to the gym?" or "What time do you go to sleep?" Repeating this same sentence structure using different words and asking different things will help me both expand my vocabulary while also getting a feel for the sentence structure. I will evaluate my success by judging my ability to spontaneously ask questions while being confident in my speaking skills (ie not stuttering or hesitating). 

The main resource I am using is Quick Korean, a website that provides free 30 minute lecture style classes on each topic in levels ranging from 1 to 4. I will also be using some apps that will help me practice during my "dead time" such as mango languages, and talk to me in Korean podcasts. 

For week 5, I hope to be able to ask questions regarding the day of the week. These questions include "What did you do on Thursday?" or "What day is the concert?" I will use the same practice and evaluating patterns as above, and test myself in that way until I am confident in my speaking abilities. 

My learning goal for this week includes learning how to tell time and stating what I did for that day and at what time I did. I practiced this with my language partner by taking verbs and constructing sentences after asking each other "What did you do at noon?" or "What did you do at 2:00pm?" or "What time do you go to the gym?" 

In order to accomplish this goal, I first had to learn how to count. After learning the two different number systems, I decide which system to use for the hour and which to use for the minute. After this, it was simply a matter of substituting the numbers into the sentence structure or pattern and practicing constructing various sentences.