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I think my first artifact went pretty well. The content was"Hello my name is Sissi. Nice to meet you. I like spicy fried rice cake ( Tteokbokk) and Korean mixed rice with meat (Bibimbap). I sent this to my Korean friends and they gave me some advice on tones. I  think this is a really good way for us to improve spoken Korean because it actually sounded differently when you speak to yourself and in the video. I always thought that my pronunciation was quite good but until I listened to the video did I realize that my tones could still be improved. 

In terms of the goals and tasks. I reviewed my notebook everyday and exchanged newly gained knowledge with my roommates. While doing Skype with my boyfriend who is Korean, I also asked him questions that I did not understand in Korean learning as well as some interesting Korean customs like drinking and bowing. I think I am now on the right track and need to insist doing so in the next following weeks.

Unfortunately, there are no resources for Greek available on reserve or at the Global Studio, but I have begun working on my language tasks in several ways. First, I have begun reading a Greek book named "Η ΑΠΟΦΑΣΗ ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΕΠΕΚΤΑΣΗ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ ΚΥΡΙΑΡΧΙΑΣ ΣΤΗ ΜΙΚΡΑ ΑΣΙΑ" meaning "The Decision for the Expansion of Greek Dominion Over Asia Minor." The book is a tough read that uses difficult, 'proper' Greek to discuss political and military decisions and events that led to the Greek invasion of Asia Minor in 1919. Second, I have begun meeting with my language partner and we have been discussing my written summaries (in Greek) of chapters to fix spelling, grammar, and stylistic issues. Third, I have begun watching daily Greek news thanks to EPT (pronounced ERT) Greek news channel and its live web stream.

Korea has its own cultural etiquette in business world and daily life, separate and distinct from western countries. In corporate culture,"Yes" is not necessarily “yes.” Koreans avoid saying "no." So people try to phrase questions in a manner that doesn't require a "yes" or "no" answer. For example, instead of saying "Could we sign the agreement by next Friday?” people would say "When is the earliest date that we could expect to sign this agreement?" Also, building trust and relationships is vital to establishing a successful business relationship in Korea. This requires patience. Koreans prefer to do business with people they know. Therefore, the first meeting is to establish trust, and business should not be discussed.

In the case of body language, direct eye contact between junior and senior business people should be avoided, because this is seen as impolite or even as a challenge. And always pass and receive objects with your right hand (supported by the left hand at the wrist or forearm) or with two hands to show respects. 

There is also a special highlight for women in the cultural etiquette that Korean women behave differently from Western women. For instance, Korean women usually nod slightly and will not shake hands with Western men, while western women may offer their hand to a Korean man. Besides, foreign women may have difficulty doing business in Korea, because Korean men generally prefer to negotiate with men although women are becoming more accepted in the Korean business place. Last but not least, Korean women would wait for Korean men to make the first move instead of "lady first" in Western culture.

The most important thing for me to know about the structure of the Greek language is the importance of breaking down complicated, college-level language. Much of high-level modern Greek vocabulary is heavily based on smaller ancient Greek words and prefixes so if I can break down words I can easily understand their meaning. For example, the word "προσφυγες" can be broken down to "προσ" and "φυγες." The first word means towards, while the latter means to flee. From this one can deduce that the word means to flee towards a certain place, which is close to the true definition of "προσφυγες" which means refugees. Of course, there are many exceptions that I will simply have to learn through memorization, but this is a handy tool.

My goals for week 4 and 5 include reviewing the characters and sentences I learnt in the past weeks, and try to learn more new characters and culture knowledges. In order to meet these goals, I will read my notebook everyday before I go to bed to make sure that I do not forget the previous knowledges I have gained. Also talking to others about what you learnt is very helpful to memorization. Since my roommate is learning Korean as well, I will discuss the new characters and pronunciations I have learnt with her. In addition, I will continue watching the Korean Englishmen YouTube programs to learn Korean food culture and customs. Finally, I will use artifact to record my speaking Korean and send it to my Korean friends. This is a great way for me to develop better pronunciations and gain confidence of speaking Korean.

The Greek language is an ancient Mediterranean language that holds many similarities in the way it is spoken by its native speakers with other Mediterranean languages and cultures. The accompanying of language with hand movement is one major aspect of Greek linguistic expression. The hands help express information, emotion, attitude, an an array of feelings to the audience that help present a complete view of what the speaker is talking about. Since Greece is a hot-spot for tourism I have been exposed to other Mediterranean peoples and have noticed a similar use of hand movement when speaking, while Northern Europeans or Slavic Europeans seem to refrain from this type of expression. The best way to appreciate this unique form of expression in Greece is driving, according to my grandmother whom I decided to discuss this discussion topic with. She claims that Greeks get angry easily behind the wheel and often you will see drivers in Athens yelling at each other and flailing their arms from their car windows in a variety of ways to express rage.

I only have one classmate who studies French in my class, and I think she did a really good job in introducing French cheese culture. Food is really a big part of French culture and she chose a small pointcut of the whole picture. She talked about the history,development as well as production of cheese. After listening to her presentation, I learnt a great deal of the cheese culture, not only the many different kinds of cheese and their names, but also French people's attitude about food and life. As she mentioned, most of French people would consider their country as an agricultural country and themselves from farming areas including those from Paris. I totally agree with this point based on my personal experience. I have met many French people who live in Paris, however when introducing themselves they would always talk about their original hometown like a small village near Paris instead of just saying "I am from Paris". It is the same thing in China, another big agricultural country in the world. Although both off my parents and I were born and raised in Shanghai, I would always add that my grandparents are originally from Sichuan, a west province in China. This reflects how people see themselves based on the culture environment.  Another thing she mentioned in the presentation is that nowadays teachers and parents are encouraging kids to eat more cheese to prevent them eating fast food. Although there are a lot of fat in cheese as well, this action could also be seen as to prevent the national food culture. It would be horrible if the new generation of the country only eat KFC and Burger King instead of the traditional handmade cheese. Therefore the preservation and support for cheese making factories  are very important. 

In Korean the structure of sentence differ to English sentences, for example the phrase "Chal Chinaessooyo" literally means "Well have you been getting on?" which is the opposite from English. In general the structure of the Korean sentences is broken down as "subject - object - verb". 

Although the grammar is not that difficult, a reference grammar can definitely be helpful especially for us beginners. I am going to learn some basic grammars by reading grammar books online and ask my Korean friends for help. I will document every new grammar I learn in my notebook so that I can review them easily.

Since the Korean grammar structure is quite different from English, I am going to do a comparison for each new grammar to help me memorize and understand. For example, in Korean unlike English, the subject of the sentences is optional like "I", then the "in order section" is next, which is then followed by "the place you are going".

Also there are a few words that you may add to the end of verb stems at the end of sentences, these include "yo" which makes sentences polite, and "ro" which means "in order to". 

For someone new to the Korean writing system, it may look to be an ideographic system like Chinese. However, the Korean writing system is in fact a phonetic system (just like English) with simple letters to represent each of its various phonemes or sounds. What makes Korean seem ideographic is its convention of grouping its letters into square, syllabic blocks. These syllabic blocks are then combined to form words.

The Koreans borrowed a huge number of Chinese words, gave Korean readings and/or meanings to some of the Chinese characters and also invented about 150 new characters, most of which are rare or used mainly for personal or place names.

Below are some additional features of the Korean writing system:

• The Korean alphabet is made up of 24 letters or jamo. These 24 letters consist of 14 consonants and 10 vowels.
  
• The symbols used to write the consonants g/k, n, s, m and ng are meant to be abstract pictures of the speech organs used to produce their sounds.
  
• "Korean can be written in vertical columns running from top to bottom and right to left, or in horizontal lines running from left to right". 
  

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http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=12403011&height=267&width=200

In my opinion most of the presentations that my classmates held were successful. All of them covered a specific aspect of a culture. We definitely learned a lot about the Korean culture. I have never really studied Asian cultures and I found it very interesting to learn some of the customs and traditions or daily life routines: from very fundamental behavioral rules, such as filial piety, over holiday celebration, to cosmetics. The students managed to bring the Korean culture closer to me and give me a better understanding of the values of that society. It was interesting to see that Koreans still have a lot of respect to the elders and that there is still a hierarchy. Fun fact was really that staying young is a big deal for them. Even men use a lot of cosmetics. Furthermore, Korean dramas seem to be very popular. I used to watch Spanish and Turkish drama, which might be similar to them based on the scenes they include. That presentation has definitely awaken my interest to watch Korean dramas too. I also enjoyed the Ataturk presentation. I already knew some of the things that were mentioned, but I did not know that every office in Turkey had to have Ataturk’s portrait. That really tells a lot about the culture. It is also important as a foreigner visiting the country to be aware of the importance this man has for the entire society. Moreover, I did not know that the McDonald’s in Israel processes their food in a special way and that Israelis cannot eat diary and meat together.  In general, all students gave their best to present an aspect of a culture. 

Prior to 1446, Korea did not have a writing language of their own. Those who were from the elite class, wrote in hanja, classical Chinese characters in order to record the meaning of the Korean words that were spoken. King Sejong, Sejong the Great, said that using Chinese characters for Korean was “like trying to fit a square handle into a round hole”. King Sejong, who was upset that his citizens could not express their concerns to him, developed 28 new letters, so that his people can learn how to use the letters easily and for daily use. It was initially known as Hunmin Jeongeum (“proper sounds for instructing the people”).

The way in which Korean is written is different from most writing systems, despite it being an alphabet, the letters are not written linearly. They are grouped into syllable blocks. Example is for the word hangul: h-a-n-g-u-l regularly would look like this ㅎㅏㄴㄱㅡㄹ  but instead it is this 한글 [han-gul]. There are 3 different “sets” of consonants:

1. ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅈ (romanised as k, t, p, ch)

2. ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅊ (romanised as k’, t’, p’, ch’)

3. ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ (romanised as kk, tt, pp, ss, tch)

The presentations that my classmates presented in class on Tuesday were interesting because I learned about many aspects of different cultures and languages. I think the most interesting one was about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk that Shayna Webb presented to the class. Atatürk was the first presented of Turkey and he implemented many reforms such as a new written language for Turkish as well as unveiling the mMuslimwomen there. This meant that Muslim women could no longer wear veils to cover up their hair. Atatürk was so revered for what he did during that time and even to this day, people still honor him and he’s still considered the Father of Turkey. This made me think of how Mao Zedong is still in a way revered in China, since he was the founder of the People’s Republic of China. Another presentation that I enjoyed was about filial piety in Korea, presented by Becky Chen. Filial piety has been something that I could relate since I discovered what it was a few years ago because it reminded of the specific duties that children have to do for their parents and their family. This is based on Confucian ideas, which are still practiced all over Asia.  

I think that my first artifact conversation went well. I used my voki character to record my introduction. There were some technical difficulties at first with the mic in my room, so I decided to call the number and record my introduction that way. In my introduction, I said “My name is Sequioa. Nice to meet you. I’m American. I like Korean. I am 21 years old. Thank you.” I think the quality of audio could be improved, but the experience was fun. I have been working on my pronunciation of Hangul thus far. I still need to improve on the reading and writing, but I think that right now it is most important that I have speaking and reading down for when I want to travel.

I have been reviewing the online lessons on Berkeley's Intermediate College Korean site and it was very helpful and fun. The texts and dialogue come with an audio component so I can practice my reading skills and fluency as I practice out loud along with the audio. Each lesson also contains grammar review and practice exercises which have been very helpful, because one of my main goals is to improve my grammar. I will continue using this site since it works well for me and my current level of Korean. Some of the lessons actually seem a bit advanced for me, but has helped me learn a lot new vocabulary words. I'm also keeping up with a lot of language as well as cultural videos on YouTube, which have made learning really fun and easy to understand.  

What I have been working on:

So far, I have been working on religious vocabulary and the seasons. I want to focus on using complete sentences in the near future.

Statement:

I want to be able to recognize more words when I attend the ASL church.

Strategies:

The best way for me to memorize new words in ASL is repetition. Muscle memory plays a large part in learning new words.

Effectiveness:

I think the above method is very effective, as long as I remember to practice the words every day. If I forget a day, I sometimes forget a sign or two.

Building on what I have learned (language):

The more words I learn the closer I will be to putting together full sentences. One of my problems now is I can put together a sentence, but there is normally always one or two words that I don’t know the sign for and I have to either ask or just finger spell it.

Building on what I have learned (strategies):

I need to work more on practicing my ASL every day. No one around me understands ASL, but I think it would be beneficial for me to sign the signs I do know as I’m having normal conversations. This will also help me recognize which words I should learn the signs for. 

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Korean sentences are written in the following order:

Subject – Object – Verb (for example: I hamburger eat)
                                Or
Subject – Adjective (for example: I beautiful)

The subject refers to person/thing/noun/whatever that is acting. The subject does the action of the verb.

The object refers to whatever the verb is acting on. 

Sometimes there is no object because it has simply been omitted from the sentence. For example, “I ate” or “I ate rice” are both correct sentences.

Subjects are also present in sentences with adjectives. However, there is no object in a sentence with an adjective. 

 Every Korean sentence has to end in either a verb (like eat, sleep or walk) or an adjective (like beautiful, pretty, and delicious).

I reference grammar is definitely useful because it is designed to teach someone about the language and to give readers a reference tool for looking up specific details of the language. It is written for individuals who have some understanding of language as a universal phenomenon and who wish to learn how the particular language described fits into universal understandings of human language