In this artifact, Azmain and I present a conversation that includes greetings and introduction.
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I have thoroughly enjoyed learning Hindi this semester. Although it has proven to be a challenging experience, it has been an enjoyable one. When I first started the semester off, I could barely say a single word in Hindi. I had often listened to Bollywood songs in Hindi but could never understand the meaning.
I think creating a learning plan during the first few weeks of the semester really helped me to structure my learning sessions well. I decided what it was that I wanted to learn in these next few weeks and what would be the most useful to me. There was so much that I wanted to learn, but then I realized I had a time constraint. So, I narrowed down the topics I really wanted to focus on, and what I would be able to utilize after this semester. Also, creating a list of goals allowed me to be aware of what I learned and what I still needed to learn.
During my meetings with my language partner, I usually start by reviewing information I learned the previous week, and then start learning a new topic. I started the semester off by learning the sounds of letters. I then learned how to introduce myself and talk about my family. Later, I learned to describe my interests and myself. So, if I were to meet someone or have small talk I would be able to say my name, where I am from, how many siblings I have, and my interests. Recently I have learned how to order food if I go to a restaurant. There is a distinction between formal and informal language. If we are speaking to our siblings or friends, we can use the pronoun “tum.” However, if we are speaking to elders, new people, etc, we use the pronoun “aap,” which is more formal. Body language is also important when communicating with people from India. For example, Indians tend to bob their head a lot in response to a yes or no question. Learning about body language and culture from my language partner allowed me to better understand communication.
Whenever I learn new vocabulary, I sound out the letters and repeat the word several times. This helps me practice the pronunciation as well as help store the word in my memory. I try to make flashcards as well for new words. In addition, I downloaded an app. on my phone for learning Hindi words. It’s a quick way for me to practice learning words when I don’t always have my notes on me. I also practice speaking with my friends who know Hindi. In addition, I watch Bollywood movies as well as listen to Bollywood music to help my speaking and comprehension skills. Sometimes, I am able to pick up random words in the songs or movies that I have previously learned. During one of my language lessons, when I was learning body parts, my language partner would play a popular Bollywood song, and have me point out words that I recognized. It was a very fun and effective way for me to review the vocabulary. Recently, I have been learning how to structure sentences. For example, in Hindi, the verb always comes at the end.
I realize I tend to forget words or concepts I learned if I do not practice them in someway a day or so after my language session. Also, setting a time to practice Hindi everyday has helped me stick to a routine and proved to be quite effective. Earlier in the semester, I would not study on my own as much. Later, I realized I need to be more self-motivated if I want to learn everything on my learning plan. I have found watching mini YouTube tutorial lessons has helped me review material I learn during my sessions. It is also a fun, interactive way to learn, as there are many children’s videos. For the remainder of the semester, I want to continue to learn the rest of what I anticipated on my learning plan as well as achieve all my goals. I want to be able to practice speaking a few phrases at a time. I want to try more discussion back-and-forth with my language partner and actually practice having conversations. After this class is over, I hope to continue practicing Hindi, by interacting with my peers, watching movies, etc. This class has allowed me to further explore my language learning abilities and has provided me helpful techniques that I will continue to utilize.
Christy Buranaamorn
Dr. Grove
SDLC 105
April 1, 2014
SDLC Reflection Paper #2
As of April 1, 2014, it has been about 11 weeks since I started my project of learning Korean back in mid-January. I believe that my progress in learning the Korean language has evolved and developed a great deal. When I first began this journey with my peers and teachers, I was a blank slate completely. My previous background knowledge was solely comprised of the random Korean dramas I had seen and my newfound interest in Korean pop music. I had never tried to learn how to read or write in the Korean language. Therefore I knew right away that I desired a solid strategy or game plan on how to learn all of this in a consistent and efficient manner. This is where the Learning Plan really came into play. Creating a Learning Plan was a fantastic way for me to narrow down the topics and concepts that I wished to learn. As of February 5, 2014, I had learned the basics of being able to read the Korean alphabet (hangul), how to create small and basic words, and solidified my knowledge of common Korean phrases from dramas and TV shows. I created my list of goals and tasks which I have been trying to check off one-by-one. Of course, this is a lengthy process and I am not expecting to learn how to speak Korean like a native in a few months. But my thoughts truly feel more organized with this learning plan in mind.
In learning my target language, I naturally gravitated towards learning about cultural concepts in South Korea firstly. This relates to the importance of understanding Korean traditions, customs, and general way of life. It was also significant to learn about the norm in Korea in relation to the volume of speaking, tonation, pronunciation, and enunciation. Being able to recognize direct and indirect communication is key in order to understand what yes and what no means based on the cultural context. Also, the idea of personal space is another major cultural concept, which I wanted to delve into and learn more about. The last thing that I would want to do is unintentionally disrespect someone in Korea when this slip-up could have been prevented through careful research and simply practicing! After looking at these concepts, I wanted to focus more on the details and facts. I began to practice everyday conversations with my language partner Sun and my fellow Korean-learners. We have learned how to order food, how to say hello/goodbye, and how to count from one to ten, to name a few examples. We have also looked at how to create more complex words, phrases, and sentences.
I am a very interactive as well as visual learner. Therefore Sun was the perfect language partner. She would create practice sheets for class and have the students practice how to write and speak in Korean. She even gave us a challenge to translate specific Korean sentences into romanized Korean in order to see if we can read hangul. There was also a prize for whoever finished the challenge the quickest and had the most accurate responses. This was an educational as well as fun way to learn Korean. Practicing with my peers outside of class has also been very helpful. In regards to what has not worked, I find that my attempts to create order and discipline in my Korean language had failed immensely in the beginning. At first, I thought that I would spontaneously want to study and practice Korean at sporadic times during the day. Yet I have realized that I need to set aside a specific time to practice or else I will completely skip my learning time. This would only set me a step back on my journey to learn Korean. Studying can also involve watching YouTube videos or watching a Korean drama. I do not need to limit myself in the ways in which I can study. People learn languages in different ways and this course has helped me to see that I need interaction with others to learn as well as discipline in myself. For the future, I want to continue my learning plan and learn how to tell time and learn more numbers. After graduation, I want to try the 30-day challenge, as we spoke about in our last class, to see if I can stick to my goals and continue to learn more Korean. One does not necessarily need other people to learn something new; I want to progress even when this self-directed learning course will unfortunately end. This course has provided great tools for me to continue on my Korean learning journey.
The reading on cultural competence was interesting and the ideas were similar to my approach to the Korean language. It is important to learn the vocabulary, but it is also important to be educated in the "social, culture, and cognitive characteristics of communication."
Grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociolinguistic competence, and strategic competence are all important to the functional aspects of communication. The last two, sociolinguistic and strategic competence, I believe , should have more emphasis. This way, we will better understand the "rules" that govern our conversations. The section discussing conversation analysis brings up questions such as the rules to initiate, terminate, and avoid topics -- interrupt, correct, and seek clarification.
If one learns social cues, this may come in handy, especially because Korean is a contextual language. Words are understood based on the situation, so sometimes it may be unwise to take words literally. Misinterpretation and miscommunication may result.
For example, when an elder offers a gift of food, denying the gift should not be taken lightly. When you deny a gift, it is seen more as a rejection and act of disrespect. These cues pass on to the language. Koreans may not always be direct in their language. "Yes" is not necessarily "yes," and Koreans try to avoid saying "no." Therefore, it is important to try and avoid asking "yes" or "no" questions. When asking if someone can meet at the start of the week, it is better to ask, "When is the earliest you can meet?" rather than, "Can you meet on Monday?"
It is important to learn the ins and outs of the Korean language culture in order to avoid awkward encounters with others.
Attached is Reflection Paper #2.
Fatima Al-Bassam
SDLC 105
April 1st, 2014
Reflection Paper
As a senior looking for classes to take, finding a course that would both interest me and challenge me was a bit difficult. As I was looking through the lists of possible electives I can take, it occurred to me that I can finally learn Urdu. Urdu has always been on top of my list. My father and aunts were born in India and spent a big part of their childhood there. Consequently, Indian culture has been a big part of my childhood and I grew up listening to my father occasionally having whole conversations in Urdu.
Given my background, I was very excited to start my learning journey this semester. I developed a learning plan for myself and found various materials both online and in the Global Studio to help me reach my goals. The first few weeks went as smoothly as possible. Everything went according to plan and I was always on top of everything. However, as soon as my workload for my other classes started to increase, my motivation to learn Urdu started to decrease.
Looking back, I might have been a bit too optimistic about my learning journey. I never expected it to be this difficult. Learning a whole language on my own is something completely new to me. Though I already speak three languages, Arabic, English and Spanish, all of them were acquired in a conventional setting. Motivating myself to sit down and spend some time on something that does not have a deadline while I had a lot of other pending work was a struggle I did not foresee.
I went through periods of standstill in my journey. These periods increased during the height of my workload, midterm week. Right before Spring Break, I decided that I have to change my way of learning. I was not happy with where I was. I have had some accomplishments of course. By that time, I could read and write easily in Urdu, ask questions about a person’s day and identity and have a very basic conversation, but these were not enough.
When I met with Dr. Sharon that week, I mentioned how difficult it was to motivate myself to learn while there's so much to do for my other classes. Her suggestions were extremely helpful. So far, I've been incorporating them into my learning plan. One of the most helpful ones was to schedule 15 minutes of learning Urdu in between my other work. This serves as a nice break from my normal business school workload and a way to motivate myself to learn more Urdu. I also increased my revision of past lessons and started incorporating Urdu into my everyday life. One thing that has helped me to learn more is listening to Urdu radio while I work on other things.
I hope to continue my work and reach some more goals till the end of this semester. This has been a challenging and interesting experience so far. I’m glad I chose this as my last elective of my college career.
This week I discovered the beauty of "Speaking Swedish with Confidence". I am nearly half way through the CD and it has been a huge help. I haven't had the time to go over and memorize the new words and grammar and pronunciation tips I have learned but just knowing them is a big help. The CD is kind of annoying to listen to sometimes but I think having concrete rules is something that helps me a lot. To be honest I kind of feel way too overwhelmed with the video translations, listening to the CD and then on top of that trying to memorize the rules. Im not awful at learning languages but nor am I a prodigy. I think I need to break things down into smaller sections and not try to do everything at once. Like watch on clip, listen to two conversation and memorize 10 words or something like that. Because at the rate im going at it feels like I am doing the work but not getting anything out of it. I felt a lot like that last semester with the vocab. but when I broke it down, things got easier. So I will try that. I am still trying to come up with some sort of cultural project, I have spoken about it with everyone and their mother but nothing really seems to click. I think I am going to put some more thought into and if I can't figure out something go with some previous ideas. Although one I think that could kind of be cool is comparing Swedish to the nordic languages. Like Swedish to danish. Because I know there are some words in Swedish that mean one thing but in Danish mean another. But I am not quite sure how that would translate into a cultural project, I feel like its more a language project. hmm I still have to to decide.
Turkey is very famous for hookah also known as shisha/nargila in Turkish. Even though hookah is thought to have originated in India, it is mostly smoked in Turkey. First time I tried hookah in my life was when I went to Turkey in 2010 to visit my friend. I was so surprised to see that almost every single bar/restaurant/coffee shop offered hookah. People have hookah in their homes and apartments and it is a common thing to smoke for both genders. Initially I thought that only guys would smoke it, but I was honestly surprised that women in Turkey smoke it as much. I went out with my Turkish friend that I was visiting and we ordered hookah. At first I was a little bit afraid of smoking it because I had never smoked it again and I did not know what to expect. When smoking hookah, you can choose any flavor you want, you can choose apple, strawberry or any other fruit or even a combination of fruits. I remember we ordered apple flavor. I thought it was going to be strong and that it is similar to cigarettes, but I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it. It was so smooth and light and relaxing. Then I realized why Turkish people like it so much. It is very relaxing, and Turkish people usually drink tea or coffee while smoking hookah and also play a very famous game Havla. People usually smoke it at night. They spend so much time smoking it, they sit for hours and hours talking to their friends and playing games. It is not like in the US where you can be at one place for a bit and then have to leave, these places in Turkey let you stay there for hours even if you get only one drink per night. When you get hookah you can smoke it for hours because the flavor does not vanish so quickly. It is also very cheap to smoke hookah in Turkey, it is more expensive here in Richmond. I was in Turkey during Ramadan, Muslim’s holy month when people are not allowed to eat/drink/smoke anything from the sunrise to sunset. That is why people did not smoke during the day, but as soon as the sun went down, and people had dinner they would start smoking hookah. I tried hookah in Bursa and I asked my friend if hookah is popular in all parts of Turkey or only in Bursa, she told me that it is really popular throughout the entire country, and especially in Istanbul and Bursa. Maybe because those cities are so crowded so it seems that people there actually smoke the most. Then I tried hookah when I went back home and when I came to Richmond, but I can tell that hookah differs, and that I tried the best hookah in Bursa. I do not know if they have specific flavors in Turkey, or is it because I tried it for the first time but I remember that that time, I tried the best hookah ever. I only regret not drinking Turkish tea at the same time to completely emerge myself in Turkish culture, I am not actually a big fan of Turkish tea because I find it too sweet, but to my mind hookah is one of the best things I tried in Turkey and I am looking forward to trying it again when I visit Turkey again.
To my mind Turkish culture is one of the most interesting cultures in the world. Not only do they have wonderful food, amazing tea, hookah bars that they are proud of, they are also very creative. One of the recent news that hit the world was the tunnel created by Turks that links two continents Asia and Europe. Because of its specific location, basically the country is located on two continents; Turkey has access to the sea, and different countries on both continents. Every day, about 2 million residents cross between the two continents. There is a ferry that transports people and their cars and buses back and forth but it takes a lot of time so it is not efficient. What Turkey did was it created a 8.5 miles long underwater tunnel that passes under the Bosphorus Strait. This tunnel links the two continents and now it takes only 4 minutes to get from one continent to another. They called this tunnel Marmaray Project because of the Sea of Marmara and word “Ray” which means “rail” in Turkish. It is basically a rail under the water that links two continents. This is a huge project for not only Turkey but all people and businesses that need to make crossing between the continents. This project will improve economy of Turkey and bring profits while at the same time decrease costs. People will not have to waste their time waiting for ferry to transport them from one continent to another and spend a lot of time traveling, in only 4 minutes, people will be able to reach another continent. This sounds like science fiction to me, creating such a huge tunnel underwater and connecting two continents.
Also what is interesting is while digging the sea, this project uncovered about 40 thousand artifacts about Turkey’s history that goes back 8,500 years and this was very helpful for archaeologists and because of these findings, the project was unfortunately delayed for four years.
Turkish culture is such that they constantly improve and Turkish people are very determinant and efficient in their work. This project was very expensive but in the long run, Turkey is going to benefit from this project. This project connects people, nations and countries and will definitely bring financial capital to Turkey.
I am looking forward to hearing about new plans that Turkey plans to undertake that will help people improve their lives, save their time that they can utilize in better ways.
The last two weeks have been very hard for me and I feel like I am going through the same difficulties that I went through when I was learning “-mis, -mus” tense. Namely, these two weeks my plan is to learn how to report to someone what another person told you, for example how to say “the doctor told Mike to exercise more regularly”. Changing from the original sentence to reporting sentence in Turkish can be extremely challenging and Miss Hanife noticed that I have difficulties with this tense. So we spend one entire session working just on this tense, making up examples and practicing it as much as possible. At first I thought that I was never going to understand it and I was so frustrated why I cannot understand it. However, by the end of our session, I felt more comfortable and thought that I should just pay extra attention to specific parts of the sentence and thus I will be able to correctly form sentences.
We also focused on reading and pronunciation. I feel comfortable reading in Turkish even though if I do not understand all the vocabulary in the text. Miss Hanife says that my pronunciation is correct but I have some difficulties pronouncing two Turkish letters. I can pronounce them correctly when I read them individually, but sometimes when both of those letters are in the same word then I get confused and even I can tell that I do not pronounce them correctly.
We also work on another grammar and that is learning how to say how two actions happened at the same time or one immediately after another, for example “My sister took her coat and left house”. Basically both sentences happened one after another and in Turkish there is a specific tense for such actions. There are so many tenses in Turkish that I get confused when I want to form a sentence because it takes me a lot of time in my head to figure out which form and tense I need to use for a sentence and which endings I need to add to a verb/noun if I want to use that tense. That is why I find it much easier to understand what other people are saying in Turkish rather than me having to speak in Turkish.
Once in every two weeks, Miss Hanife and I have one session in which we read, listen to Turkish songs, read poems etc,. I have an electronic book with short Turkish stories that I read on my own and there are questions after each story that I answer and in case I do not understand something I can always ask Miss Hanife to explain it to me further in details during our sessions.
I am happy with our sessions and my improvement in Turkish. I believe that I have improved a lot since the beginning of the semester and that is not only what I say but for example Miss Hanife was very surprised when she found out that I could understand her explaining something very difficult in Turkish. I understood the main idea of her story, not necessarily every word. Also, my Turkish friends keep telling me that my Turkish is improving and they are going to have a Turkish dinner and they invited me to come as well, that night we will be speaking in Turkish only and as my friend said “No English at all.” Looking forward to improving my Turkish even more.
These two weeks Ms. Hanife and I have worked on a lot of different things. First of all what I found interesting was learning how to use “neither/nor” in a sentence. In Turkish we say “ne…ne”, then either/or we say ya…ya. Then we can also use “maybe…maybe” in Turkish and that is “belki…belki”. I found this particularly important because I remember when I talked to my Turkish friend I wanted to form a sentence that would include neither/nor but I could not because I did not have this knowledge. That is why I was so excited when I learned this material. We started working on gerunds. This is very important in Turkish and in any other language. For example we use it when we want to say “Learning Turkish is fun” that is when we need this gerund structure. Forming gerunds is not particularly hard but it can get confusing when we want to say negative form, at least I get confused. First time I got introduced to this tense I thought it was going to be super easy but in fact I realized that it actually has its complications (just like any other Turkish tense and form). Still, considering that we are covering such important and complex material motivates me even more to work hard.
These two weeks we also did readings, listened to some Turkish songs and read poems. I had to find a Turkish poem read it at home and during our session. I am not very interested in poems and to my mind it is hard for me to understand poems because they are very deep and complex, and that is why Ms. Hanife has a lot of understanding and we try to find easy poems.
I also read several stories in Turkish from the electronic book that Ms. Hanife gave to me just so that I can practice my Turkish. In my free time I like to watch Turkish TV shows and my favorite is Dudaktan Kalbe. Even though I watch it on youtube and I could not find the subtitles, I can tell that I understand a lot of what actors say. My problem with Turkish is that I cannot express myself in Turkish, I can understand a lot of things but when it comes to me speaking I find it difficult and it takes me a lot of time to form a sentence, mostly because I am exposed to so many tenses that I try to be so careful when forming a sentence and adding ending to verbs and nouns. I however believe that further communication with Ms. Hanife and my other Turkish friends will help me overcome this obstacle and I will be able to speak in Turkish faster and use better grammar in forming my sentences.
These two weeks I focused a lot on understanding –mis, -mus grammar. I find it extremely hard, and so far it is the hardest concept to understand. Even though I believe I understand most of it, I am still not 100% comfortable with this tense. It is hard because in Turkish language you can add so many suffixes to a verb that give a completely different meaning to the sentence, for example if you add “yor” to mis, mus tense it means that you are combining present continuous tense and reporting tense. Then, if you add “acak. Ecek” that means that you are combining future tense with reporting. It is interesting because you can play with tenses in Turkish language and every time get a different meaning and that is why foreign students find this language confusing. It is not like in English, you have one form for a tense and it is straightforward, you know exactly what you need to use. In Turkish, you can use several tenses, combine them by adding endings to the verb and get an interesting and confusing combination. Also these two weeks we worked on present simple tense. After the reporting tense, everything seems to easy to me. We already covered some present simple tense last semester, so it was easy for me to comprehend this material completely. This time we covered details, worked on both positive and negative statements as well as forming questions. It is basically same as in English, you use present simple when you do a specific action repeatedly.
My Turkish friends told me that my Turkish is improving significantly and that I must visit them in Turkey and Cyprus. I definitely plan on visiting Turkey again, as I find that country fascinating.
As I will talk in my culture post, Turkey has built a multi billion dollar underwater tunnel that links Europe and Asia and this is a huge thing in the world now. The project is called Turkey’s Marmaray project because of the Sea of Marmara and “Ray” means rail in Turkish. I talked to Ms. Hanife about this project and she is also excited because now two continents are basically connected which makes the life for people there easier because about 2 million residents make the crossing between the continents daily. The tunnel is 13.6 km (8.5 miles) long. I will talk about this more in my cultural post.
Overall I am happy with my current progress, and Ms. Hanife is very helpful and patient with me. There are topics that I have difficulties with more than others, so we both focus a lot on the things that I do not comprehend immediately, and I work a lot on my own on things that I find easier.
This is my artifact 2. This was a huge assignment and Ms. Hanife checked my work. This assignment contained all reading/writing/ vocabulary and grammar. To my mind it was very hard but according to Ms. Hanife I did a great job. There are some corrections, and a few things that Ms. Hanife advised me to pay special attention to. I am happy with my work done, and I hope that my future works will be even better and more correct.
Lejla%20singing%20Turkish%20song%20.mp3
This is me singing a Turkish song, here is the link of the original song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhMgxJA2ZJY Also the singer is originally from Bosnia, but she got married to a Turkish singer and she lives in Turkey now.
These two week we are working on –mis, -mus grammar tense and in my opinion this concept should not be
included in this beginner book but advanced. This is so complex and complicated that I think that I will
never be able to comprehend it completely. Most confusing for me is to understand the purpose of this
tense. Apparently we use this tense when we are reporting or basically when we are gossiping such as,
talking about something that you heard from someone else. For example, I will use this tense if I am
telling you how my friend when he was a child did not like to watch TV. Basically, it was not me who
saw that action (not liking to watch the TV) but I heard it. In case that I saw that action then I would
not be using this tense but would use simple past tense/ past continuous. This tense is also used if you
want to tell a story, for example telling Cinderella story would require usage of this tense. I have never
encountered such a tense and that is why I find it so complicated. I took a look at this tense at home but
could not understand so Ms. Hanife explained it to me in details. Even though I kind of understand the
usage of this tense, I still tend to use rather past tense rather than this complicated tense. I do not do it
on purpose but I do it because I am not used to using such tense. Since this is a very important tense in
Turkish, it is of crucial importance for me to understand it completely and use it in my communication
with my language partner and Turkish friend. In fact, I work with my Turkish friend immediately after my
Turkish class, and after learning this tense I was completely lost and I complained to my Turkish friend
how Turkish is cok zor (very hard) and very complicated, and that I will never be able to understand such
tense. He said that it is complicated to explain as well as learn it, but that with practice I will be able to
comprehend it.
I learn something new about Turkish culture every now and then. When I was in Turkey I went out
with my friend and I tried hookah/nargila for the first time. Hookah is so popular in Turkey and all
restaurants/ bars have hookah, it is almost as popular as Turkish tea. People there usually smoke
hookah at night and drink Turkish tea to relax and spend some time with their friends. They usually
play Havla which is a popular Turkish board game while smoking hookah and drinking tea. My friend
tried to explain to me how to play that game but I did not really understand the rules. Hookah is not
very popular here in Richmond nor in Bosnia. I was however very surprised that all bars and shops
either have hookah or just sell them, even though it is apparently even more dangerous than smoking
cigarettes. What I also noticed is that during my time in Turkey I did not see that many people smoking
cigarettes, it is usually hookah that they smoke. My Turkish friends also say that it is extremely popular
in all parts of Turkey. This is something I found very interesting about Turkish culture.
I am worried about my progress with this –mis, -mus tense. I have to practice a lot and do many
assignments to understand this concept. I believe that with practice I will be able to use it in my daily
language (even when I do not gossip).
