Blogs

Answering questions about identity:

BeckyChen_3rdArtifact.mp3

**NOTE: I accidentally switched the tasks between Artifacts 2 and 3. See 'My Second Artifact' if you want to hear me introducing myself and my family.

Rough translation: (polite form)

A: Hello.

B: Hello. 

A: I'm Chul-Soo Lee. What is your name?

B: I'm Becky Chen. 

A: I'm French. What nationality are you?

B: I'm American.

A: Where are you from?

B: I'm from China.

A: I'm 34 years old. How old are you?

B: I'm 21 years old. 

A: I'm a designer. What do you do?

B: I'm a student.

URL: http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12651754&width=575&height=323&chsm=01126f05b3fc197d8cf3313aa3c28f10

URL:http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12651563&width=575&height=323&chsm=c0995b897ecba1a95a527d5d3fd266ce

URL: http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12393513&width=575&height=323&chsm=dab9dd86f7e8a3628d29b8606252eb96

   Studying Korean in this semester is a very interesting and challenging experience since it is an autonomous self-directed language learning process. I set up the language-learning goal and planned the learning process by myself. At the beginning, it was hard to start since I didn’t know how to learn a new language by myself so that I began with watching Korean TV shows and dramas to get the language sense of Korean. After one class in the Studio Center, we know there is a lot of resources could be used for studying such as Korean textbooks, Voki radio, Youtube teaching lectures and so forth. They are very useful and helpful for the future study. So I utilized those resources for practicing speaking and listening and gradually improved my Korean.

  The experience is not only limited in the study of Korean language. It also provides a good chance to learn other cultures. I did develop my skills as an observer of other cultures, especially from preparing the presentations in the semester. Researching the history and background information about the language is beneficial to understand the development of the language and how it shaped until today. I enjoyed the culture presentation. My culture presentation is about the Korean traditional wedding. From research, I know the main idea of the traditional wedding was derived from traditional Confucian values. But nowadays, western modern wedding are more popular for young people. I find this is interesting that the Confucian values encountered the western Christian values. It is actually a culture development and collision. So my culture presentation is like a bridge connecting the previous traditional culture and the new values in Korea.

  It is also interesting to know the language families and language structures in the world. We talked about it in the class for Indo-European language tree that showed those languages are highly related to each other. For Korean, it was hard to find a language tree for it but we know from several students’ presentation, the formation of Korean is related to traditional Chinese and also some influences from Japanese. The countries that most of people speak Korean should be definitely South Korea and North Korea. And some of Chinese speak Korean as their mother tongue in China since they are a special minority. Therefore, it is hard to have a language tree for Korean language since the history of Korean is that long and involved some other countries.

  As a language learner and culture explorer, I gain the ability to study a new language while understanding its culture at the same time. I enjoyed this process and it helps to build my ability of understanding, analysis and imagination. In the whole process, I think the most difficult part is to read and write. Because we don’t have instructors who really teaches the language, sometimes it is hard to ask native speakers about questions when I did reading. It is challenging but interesting. In the future, I will keep studying Korean and travel to South Korea sometimes and have a further expression about the culture. 

My learning goals for this week are to learn some popular slangs, expressions, and idioms in Korean. Sometimes I pick up some Korean slangs through Korean dramas and tv shows, but many language expressions are changing and evolving in Korea, especially words used by younger generations. I plan to accomplish this goal by looking up popular Korean slangs and expressions that are commonly used today in Korea. I found many YouTube videos with popular Korean phrases as well as websites with Korean idioms and their meanings. When I first moved to the U.S., I was not familiar with American idioms until I was in high school. Sayings like "it's raining cats and dogs," "stop beating around the bush," etc. did not make sense to me at all. I had a hard time understanding and using English expressions, but I hope I can learn some popular expressions in Korean. 

This website had a lot of modern Korean slang words, but not many expressions. I've read through all 101 of them and found some of them pretty funny and creative, because many of them are just shortened versions of the actual word or phrase (similar to acronyms like Y.O.L.O).

https://www.90daykorean.com/korean-slang/

I've also learned some through YouTube videos: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpsUD8GIgVc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWE1MhGIz7Y

I want to be able to talk about food and ordering things from a restaurant. I also would like to learn vocabulary that may be used at a market. As always, the internet and my language partner will be used to accomplish this goal.

I want to be able to talk about my hobbies and passions along with all the introductory phrases I have learned in the past weeks. Same as always my language partner and the internet will be used to learn and practice how to do this. 

Khail (sports)

mujhy khail khail ne ka shock he  (I like to play sports)

Basketball ( basketball)

Volleyball (volleyball)

Mujhy gana gane ka shock he ( I like to sing)

Gana (song) Gane (singing)

Muhjy warzish kane ka shock he (i like to work out )

This week, I want to learn to talk about my friends. I realized that if I can add friends to my repertoire, I will know how to talk about pretty much anyone I know whether it be myself, family members or friends. As always, the internet and my language partner will be used to accomplish this goal. 

Ap ka dost kes country se he (which country is your friend from)

Ap ka dost ka nam kya hai (what is your frineds name )

Mere dost ka nam hadee hai (my friend’s name is hadee)

Vo pakistan se he (hadee is from pakistan)

Mera dost pakistan se he (my friend is from pakistan).

This week, I want to be able to talk about someone aside from myself. I've been focusing on being able to greet and introduce myself to someone but now I want to expand my horizon to be able to talk about my family and introduce them. Same as always, I will be using the internet and my language partner to get this accomplished. 

Baba (informal) abu(formal) father

Mama (informal) ami(formal) mother

Bahen (sister)

Bhai (brother)

Mere abu ka nam jae hai (my fatehr’s name is jae)

Mere ami ka nam sarah hai(my motehrs name is sarah)

Mere bhai ka nam yong hai ( my brothers name is yong)

Mera bahi us fauj me hai (my brother is in the us military)

     My first artifact conversation was very basic but in terms of accent, cultural appropriateness and linguistic accuracy, it is done well. I had just learned how to say hi and bye the proper way (Given the cultural context) and how to introduce myself. It aligned with my goal for week 4 and 5 in some ways. The goal I had for week 4 and 5 was to be able to say basic greeting phrases. I also wanted to be able to write the alphabet down without having to look at a source. The alphabet is taking a lot more effort than I thought it would because it's just so hard to internalize the squiggly curvature that Urdu alphabets have. It just feels so foreign to me. I wasn't able to perfect the alphabet but I did really well with basic greetings:

Asalam alaikum (peace be upon yourself).

Wa alaikum usalam (peace be upon you too).

Ap ka nam kya hai (What is your name)

Mera nam daud hai (my name is david)

Mei korea se hun (i am from korea)

My goal for this week is furthering my basic conversation skills. I want to be able to talk about really basic things in my life like where I go to school, what i study, where I am from and such and possibly be able to talk about my friends as well. I will receive help from the internet and my language buddy, Hadee, to figure things out as the week progresses.

Ap kes school me parte ho(which school do you go to)

Mei university of richmond me parta hum  (i study at university of richmond)

Ap kes country se ho (which country are you from)

Mei korea se hun (i am from korea)

Mei los angeles se hun

Ap konsa subject parte ho( which subject do you study)

Mei computer science parta hun(i study computer science)

     My experience with trying to read and write in Urdu was not without trouble. Urdu's writing system isn't anything like I have tried using before. The "squiggly" curvature to the writings was something that was aesthetically pleasing for me to look at yet horrifying to try to get used to. Some point into the semester, Hadee and I decided that for what I want to do, it is irrational and a little too advanced to try to learn to read and write Urdu. After all, I am a complete beginner and I don't intend to use Urdu for academical reasons. Hadee and I decided that it would be a lot more beneficial for me to focus my efforts and time into learning to speak and understand the language. So instead, I will be talking about my experiences with learning to speak the language. 

     The hardest part was learning to make certain sounds that I was totally not used to making. Taking for example, 

Mera bahi us fauj me hai (my brother is in the us military). The word fauj is a unique sounding word that I have never tried making before so it was hard for me to sound and feel natural saying that word. Another example, Ap ka nam kya hai 

(What is your name). The word kya is also a word that I had a tough time trying to say naturally. According to Hadee, I apparently sound a lot better than most people who just start speaking Urdu. I want to attribute that to the experiences I built up learning English, Chinese, Spanish on top of my first language, Korean. It felt amazing to be complimented by Hadee since I thought I would be totally awful at speaking Urdu. It was an amazing experience trying to learn a whole new language at the age of 21 despite knowing that I would never use it for academical or any serious purposes. It definitely opened my eyes up to a whole new world in terms of linguistics and also the culture of the Urdu speaking countries.

In the past, educators and researchers saw a second language as a hindrance to a child's academic and intellectual development. There are evidences for interference caused in bilingual brains; in a bilingual's brain, both language systems are active even when he is using only one language, thus one system interferes with the other. However, this so-called interference actually benefits the bilingual's brain. It provides the brain with an internal conflict to solve, giving the mind a work out to strengthen its capacities. There are many other evidences that support that knowing two languages benefits one's mental capacity tremendously. 

     Speaking from my experiences, I would like to say that I completely agree that being bilingual has helped me academically and intellectually. It is hard to come up with a measure or a standard for an improvement in intellectual capacity but I truly feel that I've become smarter. I started seriously learning English in 6th grade when my family moved to the United States. It was a tough journey but every step of the way, I could feel myself becoming more insightful, analytical, and descriptive in the language I use. There are phrases and descriptive words that exist in one language but not in the other. To me, it makes perfect sense that someone who can use multiple languages tends to be more perceptive and creative than one who does not because of the sheer exposure to unique phrases and or words that describe a unique sensation. One important thing to note is I don't think its valid to say that bilinguals are smarter than monolinguals; I believe that being a bilingual and going through the process of becoming bilingual makes you a smarter person than you would have been if you avoided the challenge and stayed monolingual. I don't think an intellectual comparison between a bilingual and monolingual is a valid thing.

At the beginning of the semester I set myself clear but yet realistic goals. I wanted to improve my writing skills and enrich my vocabulary in German. I am learning and improving German for years now, I lived in Germany as a little child and I studied abroad in Germany, yet I still have to practice it every day. It is very easy to forget a language. By that I mean, speaking and writing the language. Certainly, I do not really have problems understanding, but when it comes to speaking and writing, namely expressing myself, I am aware of my lack of vocabulary.

I have been a language learner and cultural explorer since I was born. Growing up in Germany in a Bosnian family forced me to learn two languages simultaneously. Because I did not attend kindergarten nor school in Germany and I spoke only Bosnian to my family at home, my Bosnian excelled while my German stagnated. Ever since my family moved back to Bosnia I had the task to keep my German alive. At the same time I wanted to keep improving my German skills and go from “baby” to academic language. And I have done that by taking German classes and learning by myself. During this semester I learned more about the ways a language can be learned and the methods that work the best for me personally.By reading all the assigned articles I understood the concept of processing words and learning grammar. I also learned how we give a meaning to a word and sentence. Least but not last, I understood the significance and the benefits of speaking more than one language when learning a new one. For example, I never realized the influence English has on my German skills and vice versa. Now that I know that English and German belong to the same language group - Germanic languages, I always try to relate those two languages and their rules when inquiring new words. Learning more about the German culture enabled me to understand culture and tradition related words, which do not have a translation into Bosnian, English or other languages. Additionally, I found it useful to learn about the history of the German language, because I have never bother to learn it before, and knowing it gives more sense to the current German sentence structure and vocabulary.

I used different techniques to improve my German language skills. I mostly enjoyed watching German shows and listening to podcasts and writing summaries and reflection papers after that. That helped me to learn new words from context, using new vocabulary and rephrasing content in my own words. Moreover, it helped me practice indirect speech, which I always had trouble with. I did not really have difficulties in learning new nouns. I just made sure that I would actually use them and make sense of their meaning. The difficult part was learning new irregular verbs, because I had to learn the infinite tense as well as the other tenses. Praeteritum was the most difficult tense for me to learn, because it is rather used in written text than in speech.

Overall, I found all the articles that we were assigned very interesting. They gave me a better insight into the learning process and how languages function. I mostly enjoyed the “Communicative Competence” chapter and the  “Are bilinguals really smarter” article, because they directly reflected on my learning habits and unconscious learning methods.

Just this past week, I learned a few words regarding sports. I am a big fan of sports. I play in the volleyball club at University of Richmond and it is a big part of my life as I love playing it; I wanted t be able to talk about it in Urdu. I also love watching basketball in my leisure time so I wanted to talk about it as well.

Khail (sports)

mujhy khail khail ne ka shock he  (I like to play sports)

Basketball ( basketball)

Volleyball (volleyball)

I also played with different ways of saying these things that I forgot to record. I learned them through the internet along wit my language buddy, Hadee. 

Outside of this week, I've learned so many words that I can't really give a number count. Most of the words I learned are through Hadee and the internet.  

Some of the things I have recorded are (in phrases but can be broken down into words I learned) :

Asalam alaikum (peace be upon yourself).

Wa alaikum usalam (peace be upon you too).

Ap ka nam kya hai (What is your name)

Mera nam daud hai (my name is david)

Ap kes school me parte ho(which school do you go to)

Mei university of richmond me parta hum  (i study at university of richmond)

Ap kes country se ho (which country are you from)

Mei korea se hun (i am from korea)

Mei los angeles se hun

Ap konsa subject parte ho( which subject do you study)

Mei computer science parta hun(i study computer science)

Ap ka dost kes country se he (which country is your friend from)

Ap ka dost ka nam kya hai (what is your frineds name )

Mere dost ka nam hadee hai (my friend’s name is hadee)

Vo pakistan se he (hadee is from pakistan)

Mera dost pakistan se he (my friend is from pakistan).

Mere abu ka nam jae hai (my fatehr’s name is jae)

Mere ami ka nam sarah hai(my motehrs name is sarah)

Mere bhai ka nam yong hai ( my brothers name is yong)

Mera bahi us fauj me hai (my brother is in the us military)

Baba (informal) abu(formal) father

Mama (informal) ami(formal) mother

Bahen (sister)

Bhai (brother)

Bari (old)

choti(young)

Throughout my childhood, I had the opportunity to learn how to write and read in Korean from my mother. As I have gotten older, I think my writing and reading has become a bit slower because I do not regularly write and read in Korean. Recently, I have been starting to read and write more because of my upcoming trip to South Korea this summer. Reading is obviously more important in my upcoming trip because I will need to read when going to various places in Busan. I think the hardest part about reading is understanding all the vocabulary. Due to my limited exposure to a vast amount of Korean dialect, sometimes its hard for me to interpret what certain words mean. As I continue to practice my reading and writing, I also recognize that I need to expand my vocabulary. Vocabulary may be even more important than the ability to write and read to interpret what is going on in an Korean environment.

"Are Bilinguals Really Smarter?" and "Why Bilinguals are Smarter."

I can see how knowing two languages can help your brain acquire more functions. When I came to the U.S. and was trying learning English, I had to first think of the word or sentence in Korean I and then translate it into English, which I can see how it would work your brain more. In addition to learning another language, I think bilinguals can gain exposure to different cultures and customs as well.

However, I don't think one is "smarter" just because he or she is bilangual, for where it will significantly benefit you in society for it is very subjective. Maybe you'd be able to solve puzzles faster, but I haven't been able to see how it really benefits in society for it depends on each individual's goal or career. However, I definitely realize that being bilingual can help you in society because it is a skill you can bring into the workforce. When I interned at a health clinic, I met a Japanese therapist who spoke Japanese, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French fluently. She had a very diverse group of clients and was paid more for every additional language she spoke with English. 

I personally thought it was interesting that one of the articles mentioned how people used to believe that teaching a child a new language can delay their development because it can confuse them. I never thought it that way, but it's interesting to see how people's opinions on being bilingual have changed over the years.

I have learned  ten new words in Korean this week.  This new words are all about clothes. "nambang" means shirt, "jamba" means jacket and "koteu" means coat. I looked up online and found the vocabulary card, which include 13 kinds of clothes and their Korean names. I have saved this picture in my phone and always read it when I forget any word. After getting familiar with these words, I also try to do the online shopping in Korea's stores and to tell if I can understand the descriptions in Korean. 

After reading articles and watching the interview, I keep thinking about this question:what exactly is lost when an endangered language dies? I assume that we will lose cultural identities and the richness and diversity of humanity's linguistic heritage. It is hard to image the bad influence caused by a language dies. People always use languages to differentiate groups and  describe and interact with the world, and thus forms an essential part of that group's identity. If a languages, it means an important part of culture lost in this group. I believe knowledge is coded in language and when the language dies, inherent wisdom will lost. For example, in my hometown, the new generation usually do not know how to speak the traditional dialect. Sometimes when listening to the elders, we found that we could not understand or do not know some traditional values, ideas or cultures due to the lack of ability to speak this dialect.