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I thought the presentations were great, and a great way to show insight on various cultures. I learned a great deal about the South Korean's Lunar New Year, South Korean's superstitions and the age hierarchy that dominates its social customs, and a unique insight into the Greek culture with regards to its mindset.

South Korea's culture proves to be wholly rich. I learned about their Lunar New Year and its association with a reverence for their elders. The holiday lasts three days, and the day before New Year's day, the extended family travels to their home town, usually outside a major city, to get together. The day of New Years,  the family dresses in traditional clothing; and the kids bow down before their elders reciting a blessing. The males and the female perform the bow differently. Moreover, the food, and games they play, are unique to the New Year. The meal is served with a variety of "tapas" with the main dish constituting a rice-based soup. 

South Korea's superstitions too availed me an opportunity to learn about their minute -- as every culture has them, and thus readily make available an insight into their history and how they respond to circumstances. Two superstitions that struck me were the number "4," and the good like affixed to the thought of a pig. The number "4" sounds a lot like the Mandarin word for death. This shows that there is a certain amount of cultural / lingual cross-fertilization between the two cultures. As a result, buildings use a "f" to denote the fourth floor. Likewise, in the U.S., buildings usually skip the number "13" in their elevators. Dreaming of pigs I thought was interesting. When businesses open, the employer and employees and their friends gather around and roast a pig, but with a caveat: stuffing money into its snout. So, dreaming of a pig, allegedly, will bring you good luck.

In addition to discussing the resources (see above), outline how you have begun to work on your first language tasks.

• For my Task 2, topic 1 (Dining norms), I watched a youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMIfFQCEwpk. This video refreshes my memory of the way of ordering -- its dynamics -- and the pace of ordering. Also, the back and forth served as a good reminder of the Israeli "template" for conversation.

• Moreover, Mango conversations, Chapter 6 Food and Dining, lesson 41 is useful in obtaining pertinent vocabulary / a healthy reminder. It also gives me a good platform to work on my past tense verbs for dining. For example, in Hebrew, the past tense for to eat is "achal." However, it does not include with it "do," "does," or "did." So, What did Danny eat? --- Ma achal Danny? I am also learning the feminine past tense. Usually, you would add a "t" sound to the masculine verb. For example, "Achal" becomes "Achalat." And the noun "portion" in its plural form gets and "noht" ending because it is feminine. So, Mana -- portion -- become Manoht for portions.

Based on the presentations I watched in class, I learned many things about Korean culture that I did not know about prior, despite my experience growing up in a Korean family. Though I am familiar with some of the Korean skincare products, aegyo, and dramas, it was interesting to hear more detailed information about such presentations such as the history of these trends. I did not know the specific skincare process many Korean women go through and I found it intriguing how men and women are heavily invested in skincare since skin is a way of how Koreans can think of each other in terms of health and personality. It was also very intriguing to learn that the light-hearted blood types trend has a much darker history that is connected to discrimination and prejudice. 

Majority of my classmates presentations were on Korean culture, ranging from things like Korean skincare to the new year traditions. I was born and spent my early childhood in Korea so I was already aware of all the presented things but it was very interesting to see people make presentations based on my culture. Also, there were presentations on Hebrew culture, Greek culture and Turkey culture. All of which provided information that I was not aware of before. It was a very educational time for me; I was able to learn a lot about little details of different cultures that I would never have been able to learn about unless I was in this class listening to the presentations.

Goals: I want to be able to say basic greeting phrases. I also want to be able to write the alphabet down without having to look at a source.

Resources/activities : I will be using a lot of youtube videos and google search to get the alphabet down and the basic greeting/ conversational phrases down. I also want to practice a bit with Hadee, my language partner.

I want to have Hadee, my language partner, and my other Pakistani friends evaluate my progress and if I am doing things correctly. Also, I can make up a small quiz for myself.

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My classmates’ presentations were all very interesting and informing. The informing part came from the facts that they shared; the interesting part was how they presented those facts. I could sense their interpretation and interest in the culture by the certain facts they chose to emphasize and through their actions, gestures, tone, and other subtle ways they gave the information.

I often hear that Germany is known for their beer culture, and well I guess that wasn’t a stereotype. But, I didn’t think that there was another level of sophistication beyond that. The fact that German Carnival is a nationally recognized event dedicated to dancing, alcohol, and other festivities shows that it isn’t all about drinking but rather the social aspects. They’ve even started educating foreigners about cultural norms during the carnival, which means it’s such a big deal that it’s making foreigners curious. And, that’s a good sign because it’s promoting diversity.

Coming from an Asian background, I could draw many parallels between Korean culture and my Chinese culture as I listened to the presentations. But I’d say the popular culture is something very unique in Korea. South Korea is well-known for their skincare products, pop music, and TV dramas, and it seems (to me at least) to be one of the most modernized Asian countries that doesn’t give in too much to western influence. In other words, they have interpreted the modern times in their own way and that’s reflected in their cultural products (i.e. art, fashion, music, etc.).

I’ve always been a fan of folktales and Greek mythology, so hearing about Pakistani myths was fun. I like when the main character is the villain, because then the story is less predictable and the villain gets to be portrayed as someone with human qualities. Plus, I don’t like having happy endings all the time.

For the third week, my goal was to learn more conversational topics in Korean, like talking about the weather. To achieve this goal, it was helpful for me to find videos on Youtube to understand what the phrases sound like. It was also really helpful for me to meet with my language partner, because he was able to give me a better idea of what people would normally say in conversation, as well as what comes off as formal or informal. 

I really enjoyed the presentations last week. All the presenters did great jobs on showing the cultures of their learning languages. For example, I learned from the presentations about Korean that there were many festivals in Korea, different kinds of cosmetic and facial products and Korean dramas. In addition, I also learned the fairy stories and McDonald from other language learners. It is a great experience to listen to the presentations and was able to know cultures from different languages. Knowing the cultures and backgrounds of a language is useful for a learner to better understand the language and become more interested to learn. 

I think it would be really helpful to know the general grammar of the language, like if it is a SVO or SOV type language, as well as some common pronouns and whatnot. This information should be relatively straightforward to find out over the Internet, but it would also be helpful to find a book that teaches basic Korean grammar. Reference grammars can definitely help, because they can be used to develop an understanding of how the language should sound and be structured. 

I really enjoyed the presentations last week. It was interesting to see what everyone decided to focus on in their language, and I liked how some people talked about general things, like Omar talking about food culture in Israel, while others talked about more specific topics like the makeup industry, Korean dramas, and Pakistani fairy tales. I think that finding something you find interesting about a culture is the most important step to motivating yourself to learn a language, so researching for the presentation has been very helpful. 

I believe the first step of learning the structure of the Korean language is to learn Hangul. That way I can properly learn the pronunciation of words, which can be difficult to accomplish when referring to romanization because of the variation in spellings that can alter the pronunciation slightly. As for grammatical structure, I think I’ll have to abide by textbooks and online lesson videos. I haven’t heard of ‘reference grammar’ so I looked this up: apparently, it is designed to teach someone specific details about the language, whereas ‘pedagogical grammar,’ the type of grammar teaching I’m used to, is designed to teach someone how to use a language. In textbooks, pedagogical grammar is organized in a way such that it’s easy for the learner to use and has shorter chapters that contain brief grammatical explanations, whereas reference grammar has more detailed and technical explanations with examples of every point it mentions. Overall, pedagogical grammar is open for learners of all levels while reference grammar is written for people who see language as a universal phenomenon and want to assimilate the target language into its pre-existing template for human language.  

For my purposes, I don’t think reference grammar is my primary concern right now. I’m aiming for practicality: I want to learn the most useful parts of the language first so that I can communicate in that language. The fancy stuff is on standby until I've accomplished this primary goal. Also, learning about idiosyncrasies of the languages is meaningless if I don’t know how to use the basic stuff first. Besides, I have a feeling that these ‘specific details’ that reference grammar teaches will involve a lot of "why this grammatical structure came about" and other explanations about the technicalities of the language that I'm sure will help me understand the grammar better but won’t really apply until I’m more advanced. 

For Korean, I need to know whether they use an SVO (subject-verb-object) or SOV (subject-object-verb) style. It is important to understand the sentence structure of the language in order to properly speak or write it. I would learn from the online sources for instance YouTube videos and Google examples or instruction on Korean syntax. Then, reinforce and practice structure of Korean with my Korean friends and tutor. A reference grammar would be helpful in initially practicing the structure of Korean because it can serve as a guideline or source of corrections for me in speaking Korean. I think sources like BYKI and Mango would be useful in explaining and demonstrating the structure of the Korean language.

I enjoyed all the presentations from my peers. I learned a variety of interesting stuff from a range of cultures for instance German festivals and  kosher fast food in Israel to mythology in Urdu and important Turkish leader (Mustafa). As a Korean learner, I was more drawn into the presentations on South Korean culture. It was interesting to learn about Korean cosmetic products for male and female regarding skin care. The presenter demonstrated different products used by Koreans. This Korean aspect is different from American culture, in terms of males using skin care products. It is something I notice from my Korean roommates. Another presenter discussed Korean New Years which is was fascinating because it is based on Lunar/Harvest time which is similar to China. She taught us how to say “Happy New Year’s” in Korean which is helpful for Korean learners. One presenter talked about Korean drama, specifically the different genres and plots. She mentioned the importance of Korean drama (television or movies) in the Korean culture and mentality, along with mentioning some popular actors and actresses. Lastly, I learned about aegyo in Korean culture, which means “cuteness”. This is something I noticed from some of my Korean friends. So it was interesting to learn a bit about it through the presentation.

a) For my first artifact conversation, I believe I did fairly well in terms of accuracy in grammar and sentence structure. I think the only main issue was my struggle trying to pronounce certain words correctly, since sometimes my American accent can be very obvious when saying particular words. 

b) As for last week's goals, I believe I learned quite a bit in terms of proper grammar structure. I have been using an app called Hello Talk, which allows me to talk to native Korean speakers who are living in Korea and learn Korean. One friend I made on Hello Talk taught me how to properly use the particles 이 based on the situation. According to my friend Kiseok, I learned that the particle 이 is similar to the particle 은 but if I am listing things or picking between two things then I would use 이. So for example, if I am saying home-food is better than to-go, I would say, "집밥이 진리지", which translates to, "Home-food is the best". If I am not picking between two things, I would instead say, "집밥은 진리지", which means the same thing, but uses a different particle due to the different circumstance. Interestingly enough, I also learned that my Korean name, 진리, which means "truth", is often used by young people to describe something as the "best". 

As for my goal with the numbers system, I did not get as much practice as I wanted but I learned again from speaking to native Koreans on Hello Talk how to properly write time and year in school. My spelling has definitely improved, for I thought hour in Korea was spelled 씨 but it is actually written as 시. Furthermore, I learned how to properly spell year in school correctly. For example, first year is 일학년, the 일 meaning the number 1 and 학년 for the grade or year. 

My classmates presentation were all very interesting. It was nice to to learn about kosher McDonalds in Israel because it shows how a culture can use something that began somewhere else and mold it to fit their own culture. I enjoyed learning abut Korean dramas because i realized how similar they could be to Spanish Telenovelas in regards to all the romance. I also found it interesting that in Turkey people tattoo themselves with a famous figure of their country. I find that strange, but at the same time it shows how the people of Turkey express their pride and nationalism. Finally, I found it funny and also shocking about the steps Korean people take to make their faces look good because I don't even do all those things to take care of my own face. Overall, I think everyone's presentation was awesome and very informative. 

Since I have been listening to a lot of Greek rap music I would like to discuss certain things that I have found interesting with the language used in songs. Greek rap music differs from mainstream American rap in its subject and lyricism. Greek rap is immensely lyrical and songs often are the size of multi-page essays. Words used are often complex and create detailed imagery. The subject also differs in Greek rap. American rap is generally positive in the mood it creates and creates a vibe of excitement through happiness, rage, or sex-appeal. But Greek rap is very melancholic throughout the entire genre. It's focused on struggling, sadness, and trying to fight what life throws at you. As a result, I have been learning a lot of language pertaining to such attitudes and feelings. This might have to do because of Greece's recent economic disaster that has been affecting Greece since 2008 and many rap artists in the country as a result. It also might have to do with the influence of Greek 'country' music on rap, which is also generally melancholic and is the most popular music genre in the country. 

For this week my learning goals are based on continuing to sharpen my pool of vocabulary when having conversations with friends. Thankfully, the book I have been reading has helped me work on my vocabulary when speaking formally on serious topics but I'm still lacking on everyday slang. To work on this I have begun listening to Greek rap which is a gold mine of slang language. I am primarily listening to "12os Pithikos" and "Taf Lathos" since they are very lyrical and use great imagery in their lines.Although using rap seems like a unorthodox way of learning a language I know it works from personal experience. When I was really young and lived in Athens I didn't really understand complex English but in third grade I bought an Eminem CD from a store and after some time English seemed to slowdown when spoken to me to the point where I could understand it well. And so 12 years later I am doing the same thing to master my mother tongue.

I think my first artifact conversation went well. My accent was not completely off, i would say it was actually well said. As for cultural appropriateness and linguistic accuracy I think that I did a good job. I rehearsed with my learning partner before posting my artifact and he mentioned that I was doing very well.

For weeks 4 and 5 i met my learning goals 100 %. I posted my artifact and an evaluation of my artifact. I also kept learning what's next on my leaning plan which is answering questions about my identity.  

In Chinese, there are no significant differences when we talk to different people. But we would normally add "please" or showing more respect when we talk to older people and strangers. In some northern parts of China, people use "nin" instead of "ni" to call older people. As for men and women, we have different characters to differentiate them like "him and her", but they sound exactly the same when we speak it out. All in all, despite small differences in expressing respect and differentiate people, there are no other significant differences in terms of grammar and sentence structure. 

However, while in work, we do tend to use a more formal and professional language than informal ones. For example, we would use auxiliary or mood particles in casual talk, but never in a business language or formal talk.