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Final Reflection Essay

Looking back on my learning journey for the semester, my most valuable takeaway was that the experience of learning a language can be enjoyable and far more effective than the ways I have learned in the past. In the process of learning Spanish through middle school, high school, and college, I rarely found myself getting excited about my progress. I was interested in learning about culture, and I wanted to be comfortable making casual conversation in the target language but getting tested relentlessly on grammar and vocabulary made me fall out of love with the process of learning a language.

 

My experience with Dutch was much different and more positive. Instead of stressing about the exact vocabulary and grammatical words, I felt I could take my time and absorb the information as it came. The freedom to use topics that I already enjoy, like soccer, to learn a target language was a significant motivator. I found that consistency was the most important factor in becoming more comfortable with Dutch. In past experiences, I would avoid my target language until the night before a big test or quiz, then spend the night studying to get a good grade. Because my studies with Dutch were self-directed, I was much more motivated to devote time to learning daily. Whether it be 10 minutes or an hour a day, when I began immersing myself in the target language a little bit each day, I found my progress to increase greatly.

 

At the beginning of my learning journey, I was a bit too optimistic with the progress I was going to make throughout the semester. I planned on focusing my efforts on speaking and listening, and I wanted to be comfortable reading Dutch. Writing was never my priority, but I thought I would be able to write at a beginner level. At the end of the semester, I did not accomplish all the goals I set for myself. I am improving daily with speaking and listening, but I am not sure how long I could keep a casual conversation in Dutch. I can speak and write basic phrases, but nothing complex. When listening, I can pick out phrases and words that I know, but I easily zone out and miss details. However, I am not disappointed; I am very proud of my progress. Because I am enjoying the process, I know I am much more likely to continue my journey of leaning my target language, and that is very motivating. I hope to continue my journey of understanding how I learn best as I continue learning Dutch.

 

The content provided throughout the course were more beneficial than I expected. Understanding how sounds are formed helped me understand why I was struggling with certain sounds in Dutch, and it gave me confidence to keep trying. Learning about the structure of languages- syntax, morphemes, words etc. made me consider how my target language was structured and helped me identify patterns. SDLAP 105 taught me a lot about myself this semester. Thank you for a great semester!

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Post reflection paper #2

I have personally learned a lot about myself as a language learner and cultural explorer throughout the duration of the semester. I believe the most important thing is my discovery of my passion for language learning. Before taking this course, I never really knew the extent of my interest in language learning. As of now, I have only studied western romance languages, but now I have so much more interest in middle eastern languages which is why I am excited about learning Turkish next semester. If I have the opportunity in the future, I would also like to learn Arabic and Russian. This semester I chose to focus on Brazilian Portuguese. The biggest challenge that I continue to face is my auditory skills. It is very difficult to understand native Brazilian Portuguese speakers because of how fast and how they do not separate their words when they speak. This is the case because I am not a native Portuguese speaker, therefore it will take time for me to train my ear to understand native Portuguese speakers. Also, the phonetic inventory of Portuguese is slightly different than that of English and Spanish. As of now, the way I go about training my ear is by listening to a lot of Portuguese interviews. I am a big fan of MMA, and there are so many Brazilian MMA fighters who only speak Portuguese. I constantly listen to their interviews so that I become more familiar with their dialect. So far, I have really enjoyed the process of learning Portuguese because of my Spanish background. My old Portuguese teacher told me that if you know Spanish, then you already know about 65% of Portuguese which is very true. My reading and writing skills in Portuguese are almost as good as they are in Spanish because of my Spanish background. To continue my Portuguese studies, I will continue to study my textbook and listen to Portuguese interviews. Something that I currently do is practice speaking out loud to myself in Portuguese which somewhat helps me stay fresh. Also, I am very hopeful that I receive the critical language scholarship to study Portuguese in Florianopolis, Brazil. One of the most useful tools for me this semester was the speech accent archive. I absolutely loved listening to the different accents. It very much helps me with understanding the phonetic inventory of a language and how it differs from the English phonetic inventory. There was also another resource that we used in which you spoke into the computer in any language and it would tell you how accurate your pronunciation was. I forgot the name of this resource but I would love to use it in the future. I would just love to learn more about the different Portuguese dialects around the world and what makes them specific to that region. I would also like to learn about the different dialects of Brazil and how they differ from each other. My old Portuguese professor and I talked about how you can tell the difference between the northern region speakers and the southern region speakers. He also talked about how you can tell the difference between the speakers within one city. It is very interesting stuff.

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Language Learning Journal #3

Starting from week 8, Vivian and I agreed that I should start doing some reading and writing exercises. This week, we did some writing practices along with conversations. Vivian chose some emojis and pictures that were easy to recognize and commonly used in our daily life, and I needed to recognize them and then write down the Korean word for them. I was very proud of and surprised by myself that I was able to recognize most of them and write them down correctly. While we went over the word, Vivian would also point out some similar words, either in pronunciation or meaning. Even though I knew most of the words in speaking, some words are confusing in writing since they can be connected to the next word in the sentence or have a sound at the bottom that is very light when pronounced. I learned a lot from this exercise and I found it very fun to do.

For week 9, I worked on a worksheet made by Vivian, where I need to watch a video in Korean and write down my answers to her questions. It was a video from the channel Korean Englishman where they invited 김수미 (Soo-mi Kim) to teach them how to make kimchi. 김수미 is a Korean actress who debuted 50 years ago and has a very prolific career. In this video, she showed Josh and Joe how to make kimchi and made ramen with kimchi for them. I was able to understand most of what they are saying, and the video was so interesting that I want to try making kimchi myself too. When writing on the worksheet, I was able to write out mostly what I wanted to say, but there were some spelling mistakes, again, because of the connected sounds. Vivian fixed the mistakes for me and then I tried rewriting the whole sentence again. I love how we were able to practice listening, speaking, and writing in this one practice.

For week 10’s class, Vivian assigned a list of English songs to me and asked me to choose one to translate into Korean. I tried to do so but found all of them hard, so Vivian did the practice with me in class. We listened to the song first, and then we tried to translate it by half a sentence. I found that there were many verbs, especially verbs in phrases, that I didn’t know, which made the translation especially hard to do. Vivian was very patient when I was stuck, but I had to say it was a struggle for both of us. After translating a verse, I re-read our translation again, and it gave me a sense of accomplishment. We translated a verse and a chorus together, and I took notes of all the vocabulary that I need to learn. It was a hard but fulfilling practice.

For week 11, we started to do more practice on reading. This week, we read a news article together that is about the YouTube channel, Korean Englishman. We’ve watched some videos of theirs as practice before so I was familiar with the person on it, but I didn’t know there was a controversy about them too. For practice, we read the article line by line and translated the lines to English. At the end of each paragraph, I need to summarize the paragraph. I couldn’t read very fast, but I could understand the content after Vivian read it at a normal speed. Vivian encouraged me to do more readings so that my reading speed will be faster, so I’m thinking to spend more time on reading practices next semester.

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Cultural Post #2 - Street Food

During this Thanksgiving break, I traveled to Washington, DC with my friend and hung out with Jenna. We went to a big Korean market together and had 떡볶이 (tteokbokki) and 감자 핫도그 (potato hotdog) in the market. 떡볶이 is spicy rice cakes that are white and short. The ones we had were cooked in a long shape and then cut into small pieces when served. In the Korean dramas I've watched, they were cooked with the spicy red sauce only, but the one I had was served with beef, noodle dumplings,어묵(Korean fish cake), veggies, and an egg in a big pot and was a portion for two. I like it so much even though it was a little bit spicy for me.

 r/SeoulFood - Tteokbokki with a massive fried squid and beef brisket toppings!

I also had 감자 핫도그 (potato hotdog). It was a fried hot dog covered with crispy diced potatoes and a little bit of sugar. It tastes very good with the crispy potatoes on the outside and soft hotdog inside. I also tried dipping it in the 떡볶이 pot as Jenna recommended, and it was even better. The sweetness of the sugar cover makes it taste less spicy with the sauce than the 떡볶이 and is very flavored. When I searched on YouTube, I found that there are also ones that are filled with cheese, and those seem to be really popular.

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My very first impression of street food in South Korea came from K-dramas, where the teenage students would have some street food with their friends on their way home. This time when I researched about it, I found that there are so many different kinds of street food. Besides 떡볶이 and 감자 핫도그, they also have 튀김 (fried), 김밥 (kimbap), 붕어빵 (fish-shaped pastry), and so on. I watched a lot of videos of them and I found that a majority of the shops are located at 시장 (traditional street market), where there are a lot of food shops on the street and people can order some when walking by and then hold the food while they keep walking. This setting explains why most of the street food is made in small portions and thus easy to hold. The shops are also really small, sometimes they are just kitchens on wheels, so they can move around and change locations more easily. I found this very interesting to know, and I really want to try more kinds of it next time I travel to South Korea.

 

Sources:

[한글/ENG] trying KOREAN STREET FOOD! | korea mukbang vlog | 한국 먹방 브이로그 - YouTube

최고의 한국 길거리 음식 및 시장 가이드- IVisitKorea

만득이 핫도그 만들기 : 네이버 블로그 (naver.com)

감자핫도그(feat.명랑) | 뉴스트림 (newstream.kr)

Tteokbokki with a massive fried squid and beef brisket toppings! : SeoulFood (reddit.com)

KOREAN STREET FOOD - Gwangjang Market Street Food Tour in Seoul South Korea | BEST Spicy Korean Food - YouTube

보기만 해도 군침이 싹~도는! 길거리 음식 BEST 몰아보기 1부 / The best collection of delicious Korean street food Part 1 - YouTube

 

 

 

 

 

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Cultural Post #1 - Street Woman Fighter

Recently, a show called 스트릿 우먼 파이터 (Street Woman Fighter, often abbreviated as SWF or 스우파 in Korean) is becoming a big issue in South Korea. The show invited 8 crews of female dancers and ran competitions among them. For freestyle dance battles, one of the dancers calls out another one, and they dance to a random song together. Then the rest of the dancers will vote and rank the crews. They also have a lot of collaborations with singers and idols, where the crews either dance with the idols or choreograph for the singer’s song and perform. A part of the competition was to choreograph for a new song by the singer Jessi, and the choreography chosen by Jessi will be used as the choreography for the song forever and performed in her music video. As a fan of Jessi and dancing, I found it very interesting to see different styles of dances for the same song. The music video is very well made, and because of the high quality of the choreography, it has now become a trend on Tik Tok in South Korea.

Even before I watched the show, I love dancing and enjoy watching different kinds of dance performances. Even though I knew that there are a lot of excellent dancers in South Korea, there were not many ways for me to know about their stories and their lives. I did not know how they choreograph, how the crew works, and what they actually do for life, etc. After the show ended, I watched a lot of interviews and variety shows of the crew leaders. I am so glad to see that their stories are now heard by the public. Before the show, some of the dancers were known as the back dancer of an idol, but now they are more known as “dancers” themselves.

There are also a lot more opportunities now for them to introduce their dance and choreography skills to the rest of the world. For example, from a variety show named 아는 형님 (Knowing brothers), I learned that Lee Jung is the choreographer for a lot of K-pop idols, such as ITZY and TWICE. I love the dances and the performances so much, but I was never aware that she was the choreographer. They also mentioned in another interview that there is no such thing as copyright for dance in South Korea since it is very hard to identify if the moves are copied from another dance. Therefore, unlike songwriters, even though their dance got well-known and was performed by different groups a thousand times, the choreographers are paid the same amount. I believe it is now a starting point where they now have the opportunities to share their stories and thoughts on things like these.

Sources:

(ENG) "뽐낼 건 뽐내야지" 춤 알려달랬더니 숭한 것만 잔뜩 알려주고 간 스우파 리더 쌤들ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ / [문명특급 EP.221-1] - YouTube

(ENG) 전국민이 다 춘 헤이마마 춤, 이 정도면 노제 씨 한강뷰 아파트 한 채는 마련하셨겠지? (순수한 궁금증) / [문명특급 EP.222-2] - YouTube

Jessi (제시) - Cold Blooded (with 스트릿 우먼 파이터 (SWF)) MV - YouTube

[EN]믓찐 언니들 YGX x 제시가 만났다 토크도 춤처럼 완급조절이 가능한 일?! 본업왕잘 갓벽 YGX의 대꿀잼 인터뷰!《제시의 쇼!터뷰》 EP.76 by 모비딕 Mobidic - YouTube

[ENGSUB] Knowing Bros Ep 307 Part 4 - YouTube

 

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111 - Cultural Artifact #4

For my cultural artifact, I decided to focus on two news articles and a video about a phenomenon in Indonesia surrounding anak Jaksel. Anak means child and Jaksel is an abbreviation of South Jakarta (Jakarta Selatan). This phenomenon refers to the trend of kids/teens from South Jakarta using a mix of English and Bahasa Indonesia in their everyday speech. For example, a sentence could be spoken in mostly Bahasa, but include common English phrases such as “literally,” “basically,” “you know,” and many more. A few reasons listed in the article include the desire to stand out, force of habit, and experience of study abroad.

The teens shown in the video were asked about their understanding of the term “anak Jaksel” and the use of proper Bahasa Indonesia. One of the interviewees, Vita, described how the mixing of the two languages is not limited to anak Jaksel, but it has become a trend among young people from all over Indonesia. Regarding the proper use of Bahasa Indonesia, all of the interviewees agreed that learning how to speak properly is a necessity as Indonesian citizens who were born and raised in Indonesia, but learning/speaking English does not make them any less Indonesian. Another interviewee from the video compares the use of English to Dutch and relates it to Indonesia’s colonization. Back then, there were some who mixed Dutch and Bahasa Indonesia, though it carried a negative image and was not encouraged.

Even though the phenomenon includes interesting aspects of linguistics such as code-mixing and has garnered an abundance of online jokes, some have voiced concern regarding its socioeconomic implications. There is heavy criticism on how the stereotype of anak Jaksel is not accurate, as the phenomenon mostly refers to the wealthier youth who attend international or private schools and frequently consume western media. Thus, it does not include the lower-class youth who also live in South Jakarta but have very different lifestyles and do not speak using the English/Bahasa mix. Other points of criticism include how the popularity of code-mixing may lead to a loss of Indonesian language and culture in the future.

I was not aware of the phenomenon and image of South Jakarta youth before, but I have been exposed to the mixing of English/Bahasa in the past when speaking to family and I sometimes use it myself as well. With the popularity of social media, spread of western pop culture, and development of English education in schools I think it is natural to want to incorporate English in everyday life. However, I agree that there should be an emphasis on building a strong foundation of Bahasa first, before learning English or making the habit of using English words. There are merits of bilingualism such as the wider spectrum of thought and more ways of expression, though I think it is different in the case of code-mixing. There may be issues that arise from the lack of mastery of both languages and the tendency to only speak in mixed sentences.

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SDLAP 111 Cultural Post #4 Vivian Shon

          For my last cultural post, I came across a video on my YouTube recommendation page called “Korean Language Professor Breaks Down Squid Game’s Subtitles.” Since I am Korean, and I am proficient in my listening skills, I watched the drama without any English subtitles. In fact, I actually turned on the Korean subtitles, so that I could hear as well as read every word the characters were saying. I chose to watch this YouTube video because I thought it would be interesting to hear what other non-Korean speakers thought of the subtitles. I also wanted to see if there was a difference in how we interpreted the meaning of the show and our understanding of the different scenes depending on how the script was translated. According to Professor Joowon Suh, English speakers were definitely missing out on deeper meanings throughout the series because the translations were sanitized to be less vulgar. Squid Game itself is a very harsh, symbolic,  and satirical show that depicts a very dark view of human nature in an ironically childish-looking game zone. The contestants are fighting for their lives as they try everything to win the games against each other. Therefore, there are varying levels of profanity used in the show, however, many of the cuss words are incorrectly translated into English. The reason why this is important to note is that the mistranslation of these cuss words results in a different tone and meaning of the plot. There is a scene where one of the characters gets betrayed by another character, and she says one of the most hateful swear words, however, this is translated into “asshole” which is a very minor cuss word in the English language. 

         Additionally, the professor also mentioned how there were translation differences in the address terms or honorifics. For instance, a character named Ali meets Sangwoo, a posh, well-suited gentleman for the first time, and calls him “사장님.” It was practically impossible to translate a lot of the honorifics because they were so ubiquitous which is why all of the translates use the word “sir” instead. However, the way the characters address each other shows the evolution of their relationship. For example, later on in the episodes, Sangwoo actually asks Ali to not call him “사장님" and actually “형” which means “older brother,” an intimate language side of Korean. This shows that Ali and Sangwoo have gotten closer. This is why the marble scene where Sangwoo betrayed Ali was so heartbreaking because Ali kept calling for Sangwoo as “형.” This meant that Ali considered Sangwoo as family and like an older brother who has protected him throughout the games. In this sense, it is more heartbreaking if you know what “형” and  “사장님" mean. It is these minor linguistic details that truly transform the film from a good one to a great one. However, with subtitles, there are words that just do not exist in another language, so it is very difficult to 100% accurately translate these kinds of films.

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Discussion Post 7

Portuguese belongs to the Indo-European Romance language family. Specifically Western Ibero-Romance. There are a lot of words that show contact with the Arabic world. Words such as Sofá (Al-Suffat) (couch), Bairro (Al-Barri) (neighborhood), Álcool (Al-Kuhul) (alcohol), etc. This is the case because of expansion and trade during the early ages and also because of how close Morocco is to the Iberian peninsula. Portuguese also has vocabulary from germanic, celtic, and slavic origins. These different word origins show the encounters this region has faced over time with other cultures. This is also shows how languages change over time. Through conquest and trade, more and more vocabulary from other languages are perpetually being added to help the language evolve. Linguists track these changes over time by looking at the similarities between different languages, especially those under the same Indo-European umbrella. They also use historical events such as war, conquest, empires, and trade to track the evolution of a language.

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SDLAP 110 - Cultural #4

Brazil is sometimes known for being a laid-back country with much more laid-back and open people compared to a place like the United States. For my last cultural post I tried learning more about Brazilian culture and how they live their day to day lives. Interestingly enough, I found out that Brazilians have a term that can be used to describe their cultural tendencies and behavior. Brazilians call it “O Jeitinho Brasileiro” which can translate to “The Brazilian Way of Living”. Reading Brazilian blogs about the topic, others described it as finding creative or kind solutions to solve everyday problems that arise. This description has led to Brazilians being thought of as some of the happiest people, who are always carefree, welcoming, and thoroughly enjoying themselves.

 While this “Brazilian Way” can certainly be positive, it also comes with a few negative aspects. For one, when I asked my Brazilian language partner to state what “O Jeitinho Brasileiro” means to her, she said “Well I grew up hearing it was always something bad, but then I realized that for rich people it can be more about trickery, corruption and deception, but for the poor it can be about enjoying life and figuring out a way to get by when a problem arises”. This comment was super interesting because it brings the topic of class and wealth to the forefront while recognizing the “Brazilian Way” has both positive and negative connotations and implications for the real world. 

With regard to negative connotations, I found that the “Brazilian Way” was associated with corruption, lack of education, and lack of civility. The image below highlights an example of this negative Brazilian lifestyle, where one coworker asks another colleague  if he is going to participate in the movement against corruption and the colleague’s response is “How much money am I going to earn?”. A more practical example that I read about would be an individual cutting others in a large line at a bank because he is only going to ask a quick question, while the correct thing to do would be to wait in line just like everyone else. However, through “o jeitinho brasileiro” he found a quick way to avoid waiting in line at the disdain of others waiting in line. 

At the same time, a lot of what I read about the “Brazilian Way” was largely positive and is considered to be one of the best characteristics that Brazilians have. The people of Brazil are often well known for being cheerful and relaxed even in the most stressful situations. In terms of positive connotations, the “Brazilian Way” is associated with a light, creative, flexible and optimistic way of leading life and solving situations. 

I enjoyed being able to learn a little more about this cultural aspect of Brazil while being able to have my language partner as someone to almost verify the information I was reading and learning about. It certainly appears that Brazilians appreciate their more casual and laid-back approach to life.  I also believe it can sometimes be the opposite of an American lifestyle that emphasizes a fast-paced work/life environment with very little time to relax or deal with problems and stressful situations in a lighthearted manner.

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Discussion Post 10

If I had received a research grant to study Portuguese, I would first hire a Brazilian language partner with whom I can speak with daily. For me, the hardest part of learning a new language is speaking it which is what I need to practice the most. The first thing I would want to learn is conversational Portuguese. How greet, how to ask for things, etc. I will then keep leveling up. I already know how to read in Portuguese so the next thing I will attack is listening to Portuguese and understanding the accent. This is also where my language partner helps a lot. By practicing speaking and listening with my language partner, I will continue to level up. The last thing I will conquer is my writing. I currently have the idea of keeping a daily journal in Portuguese to practice writing everyday. 

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Discussion Post 9

Writing in Portuguese has been pretty easy with my Spanish background. The syntax between the two languages is pretty much identical. I would definitely say that I prefer writing over typing. It is much easier to write the diacritical marks than having to search and use the ALT codes. I definitely can not remember all of the ALT codes. Because I am using Spanish as my base language for learning Portuguese, I am noticing and comparing the patterns in Portuguese to those that I already have learned in Spanish. One of the first patterns that I have noticed is the affixes. For example, if a word in Spanish ends "ión", in Portuguese it will end in "ão" (generalización = generalização). I tend to keep a daily journal in Portuguese of things that happened that day in order to better my writing abilities.

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