Blogs

          My cultural artifact for this week was a Korean Netflix drama called Record of Youth starring Park Bogum, Park Sodam, and Byeon Wooseok. Somyung recommended this drama to me because she thought it was something I would find interest in since I was a huge fan of Park Bogum from a lot of other K-dramas. Park Bogum was previously in Love in the Moonlight, Reply 1988, and The Encounter. This is why I was really excited to give this Korean Drama a try. Record of Youth tells the story of young individuals who are working very hard to achieve their dreams and passions. It shows a lot of scenes regarding the uncertainty and pressure the youth feel when they are struggling to navigate their journey towards their future. For instance, Park Bogum is a model who is not as popular and successful in the beginning. His parents greatly disapprove of his occupation, especially his father who thinks he is wasting his time and money, and believe Bogum will not succeed since he has failed many auditions in the past. There is a scene where his father actually slaps him on his face which shocked me a lot. Compared to the U.S. culture, I think Korea has a much stricter level on how much parents control their children’s lives - occupation, social life, academics, e.t.c  

          The drama then goes on to explain the story of Sodam who is a makeup artist also struggling to make ends meet. Despite all her struggles, she is a positive individual who is very optimistic about life and is overall a very good person. While working for a high-status client, she ends up making it into a prestigious makeup shop as the youngest member on the team, but runs into a lot of jealousy and hate from the older makeup artists. Coincidentally, Sodam and Bogum end up crossing paths at an event with Sodam being assigned as Bogum’s makeup artist for a fashion show. Before even meeting Bogum, Sodam has been a huge fan of him, but she hid her excitement when she met him in person and worked professionally to get her job done. She did not want to reveal to him that she was a fan because she didn’t want to ruin her fantasy of him as her idol she looked up to. After, the two end up getting to know each other and get into a relationship. The drama goes on to follow them on their journey to both find their passion and career. I thought this drama was very interesting and I related a lot with the topics they were struggling with - job search, self-identity, self-worth, the uncertainty of where of what I want to do and who I want to be, and e.t.c. Additionally, the drama was very easy to watch, listen to, and understand since the language they used was very simple and conversational. I understood 99% of what they were saying and the vocabulary used in this show was extremely easy to decipher. 

     Awhile back, former President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un had a contentious and tense period where threats were thrown back and forth because North Korea was developing dangerous nuclear weapons. North Korea trying to develop a nuclear program may be alarming. The reasons for why it may not be a surprise can be supported by examining history itself.  

     The Korean peninsula is divided on the infamous 38^th parallel that separates North Korea from South Korea. Kim Il-Sung was leader of the North while Syngman Rhee was leader of the South. The border on the 38^th parallel was meant to be a temporary division that the Soviet Union and USA agreed upon to slowly get rid of Japan’s presence. This division was never meant to be what it has become today –– that is a strong divide between North and South Korea and deepening the broken relationship. On June 1950, the North was advised by the Soviet Union to attach the South, and by doing so alarmed the USA and the United Nations (Millet 2021). Troops were sent to aid South Korean’s military pushing the North Korean army back to the 38^th parallel, and eventually capturing Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital in 1951 (Millet 2021). Just as the USA and UN troops were about to succeed, the Republic of China military aided the North Korean army and pushed USA and UN troops back to the 38^th parallel. There were negotiations on both sides, but the negotiations did not provide any relief to the contentious relationship between the North and the South. Therefore, the 38^th parallel remain as a physical border between North Korea and South Korea and this is known as the DMZ (demilitarized zone).

      The devastating part of the Korean war was the mass casualties that resulted on both sides that included 36,500 American soldiers and hundreds of thousands of soldiers from North, South Korea, and other forces (Recchiuti 2021). More than half a century later, the relationship between the North and the South continues to be tense and fierce with no signs that peace talks will mend the relationship. Most wars have some resolution whether that be peace agreements or an obvious victory. The Korean war, on the other hand, never ended. There was a stalemate between the North and the South, and the frightening thought is that the war could possibly continue if North Korea launches a surprise attack like it did on June 1950.

     More than half a century later, North and South Koreans traditions and cultures diverged from when they were once a collective entity. There are still similarities between the two countries, but certain words and traditions have change because there was no mingling of two cultures for a long period of time. For an example, the word ice cream in South Korean is 아이스크림 while North Koreans refer to it as 얼음과자. Even though the language is slightly different, both countries speak Korean. Unifying North and South Korea seems unlikely, but it is hopeful that without unification, there can be lasting peace between the two countries.

Millett, Allan R.. "Korean War". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Jun. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/Korean-War. Accessed 3 October 2021.

Recchiuti, J.L., “The Korean War”. Khan Academy, 2021, https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1950s-america/a/the-korean-war.

In Korean culture, there are many general and dining etiquette rules that the general public follows. As a Korean-American who grew up following both Korean and American etiquettes, I sometimes get mixed up. I also don’t know every single etiquette rule, and I thought it would be interesting to learn more about the etiquettes in Korean culture. 

Knowing and following Korean table manners is very important because it shows your respect towards those who prepared the food and to the Korean culture in general. One of the most common and important rule is to tell the person who prepared the food or the head of the household that you will eat well. The phrase said before eating the meal is “잘먹겠습니다" (jalmeokgesseumnida). When you are done with the meal, you have to say “잘먹었습니다" (jalmeokeosseumnida) which means “Thank you I ate well.” Another common rule is to wait for the oldest to eat first. However, the oldest person in the room could also tell you to eat first, and that is when you could eat before them. Another rule is to not extend your reach too far across the table. It’s best to try not to extend your arms so far into the table that your elbows past the edge of the table. If you want food that is too far away from you, it’s best to ask someone else to pass that dish to you instead. Finally, it’s important to know which utensils to use for the dishes. Koreans mainly use spoons and chopsticks, the spoons are for the rice and soups while the chopsticks are used for everything else. One superstition regarding chopsticks is that they should not be stuck into your rice bowls as it is known to bring bad luck. This is because when the chopsticks are stuck in the rice bowls sticking up, it looks similar to the incense sticks that are stuck in the ground at Korean funeral sites. 

Aside from dining etiquettes, there are also general etiquettes to follow which will show that you respect Korean culture. Because Korean culture really emphasizes hierarchy, either by social or age, it is important to follow the etiquettes to show that you respect them. For example, when shaking hands, it is important to shake hands with both hands instead of just one. When greeting an older person, it is also important to bow to around 45 degrees to show your respect for the elder. Some people also tend to bow when shaking hands with someone older. It is also important to pour a drink with two hands. If the person is younger than you, it is okay to pour with one hand.

Body language is also very important in Korean culture. Koreans do not like to be touched by someone they are not close with or if they are not their family. Comparing it to the American culture, it is very different because many people tend to hug each other even when they are not too close.It is also considered rude to cross your legs or completely stretch your legs out in  front of you. Another body language is to never point with your index finger, but use your palms instead. 

The reason for all of the Korean etiquette is because the Confucian culture was once dominant in South Korea. The main idea of confucianism is the importance of having a good moral character, and this affects the world through the idea of cosmic harmony. It also emphasizes the respect for ancestors, age, and seniority. These beliefs from the Confucian culture have continuously been influencing Korean culture, albeit to a lesser extent than in the past as the society is always advancing. 

https://www.britannica.com/place/South-Korea/Cultural-institutions 

https://www.90daykorean.com/korean-table-manners/ 

https://theculturetrip.com/asia/south-korea/articles/a-guide-to-korean-table-manners/

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

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-VOcbqb95AgOmnck1ScoGAaHs7xY04W6hYfPqft1l6I/edit?usp=sharing

Spelling is related to how the letters of a word are put in order while sound is how the word is phonetically pronounced. Sometimes, the same letter can have different phonetical pronunciations based on the context. When comparing Spanish and Portuguese, the vowels in Spanish each have only one phonetical pronunciation. In Portuguese, vowels can have up to 3 different phonetical pronunciations. The nasal sound in Portuguese does not really exist in the English language. In the words coração (“heart”) and nações (“nations”) the letters ã and õ contain the tilde above them which forces a nasal pronunciation. Another example is the word pão (bread) vs the word pau (wood). If you do not pronounce pão nasally, then people will think you are trying to say wood. The nasal pronunciation is very important. Then most important thing in mastering these phonetical pronunciations is constant practice with native Portuguese speakers.

For my first interactions with Brazilian culture and my language partner, I engaged with some prominent Brazilian cartoons and films. The first piece of media was a well known and popular cartoon called “Turma da Mônica”. I decided to read a bit into the history of the series and discovered it originated from a newspaper comic strip called “Folha da Manhã” in 1959. Since then it has been adapted into other media like movies, although I saw a cartoon marathon instead. 

The cartoon was very funny and I can see why the series is so successful with children and teenagers in Brazil. All of the stories were not interconnected and started with a new plot in each episode. However, there were some missing links that I missed at the beginning of the episodes because I did not know who the characters were. “Cascão” for example is a young boy who refuses to shower and “Cebolinha” is another boy who has a very heavy lisp. In addition to trying to learn more about the characters, while I was watching the cartoon the first thing I struggled with was the amount of slang and shortening of words the characters produced. My language partner actually told me to look out for speech and grammatical errors that the characters produce since the comic is supposed to mimic the language behavior of children, as that is the target audience. As a whole, I learned a lot of different slang and some shortening of words that Brazilians produce, so I will continue watching some videos here and there to brush up on my informal vocabulary. 

The second piece of media my language partner recommended was a comedy called ‘Minha Mãe É Uma Peça”. This film included famous actor and comedian “Paulo Gustavo”, who I learned passed away from COVID earlier this year. He was very much a cultural icon and my language partner mentioned “basically all of Brazil cried when he passed away”.

 Knowing this while watching the movie made it much more engaging and I enjoyed the performance put on. The movie is actually a representation of his life as a child, although he plays the role of the mother in this film. The plot is about the mother being upset after hearing a phone call from her children in which they bash her as a mother figure and the way she continuously babies them. The mother then departs from their home and spends some time hidden away at her aunt’s house reminiscing about her children’s younger days when they still needed her for everything. The movie is then a compilation of funny moments and interactions with the children as they grew up in a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Language-wise, I again struggled with the amount of slang used throughout the film. It also did not help that the movie had no subtitles, but I managed to understand 90% of what was being said and followed along with the storyline quite easily. Overall, the film provided great insight into the day to day cultural life of a middle class Brazilian family. It also introduced me to some of the common expectations for children in Brazil and some of the humor that comes along with it. 

I am currently reviewing the basic Korean grammar by using the book "Korean Grammar in Use - Beginner." I will finish this review this Tuesday, and then I will start reviewing the intermediate-level Korean grammar with "Korean Grammar in Use - Intermediate." The grammar rule I think I needed to revise the most was "Verb- 자마자." V-자마자 indicates that something occurs immediately after the end of some event or action. I used to place 다가 every time, but 다가 means that an action is happening while another one is in course. 자마자 can be translated to "as soon as" in English. So 집에 오자마자 잤어 means "I slept as soon as I went home" while 집에 오다가 잤어 means "I slept while going home."

Every week, I watch 10 minutes of 남자친구 (Encounter), a K-drama about a CEO and her life. I watch it on Viki website, using the learn-mode option. The learn-mode allows people to watch the drama with 2 subtitles at the same time: the first one is Korean and the second one can be any language they have subtitles for. We can click on the Korean words to know their specific meaning and, in this way, we can learn new words and how to use them in a sentence. 

I have already watched this K-Drama before, and that's why I selected it as the drama I want to watch while studying. The story revolves around Cha Soo Hyun, the owner of a hotel chain whose life is disrupted by reporters. Her father is a politician, and she married a guy from a powerful family to help her father in his career. The story starts when she is already divorced and goes to Cuba to close a deal and build a hotel in Cuba. Her ex-husband's family is still a burden to her life, and she lives a life hiding from reporters and not being happy. Everything changes when she meets a man in Cuba. He is younger than her and has a different way of dealing with the upcoming problems.

Next Sunday, my Korean professor and I will go to the Lord Jesus Korean Church to watch an English Ministry service. There, I will talk to them and ask about their events. I want to practice my ability to communicate with people older than me in Korean, so I will try to approach someone and have a simple conversation. After it, we will walk in Richmond city and maybe go to some cool place to eat and chat. I will search for Korean restaurants. I will try to speak Korean during this whole time with my professor. These days, she introduced me to a Youtube channel called "영국남자 - Korean Englishman." This channel was created by two English men and talks about different aspects of Korean culture. I am also currently watching the K-drama "Hometown Cha Cha Cha," and we will talk about it next Friday. Last class, she brought some news for me to read and circulate the words I did not understand. I will try to use Italki to have some lessons this week. I have never tried to use this app before.

        I met with my Korean teacher 雅子老师 for one hour each week, and we practiced speaking common phrases such as greetings and introductions. This week I learned how to sing the “Three Little Bears” in Korean! I was surprised by how well I could pronounce the words because some vowels still give me some trouble, but my teacher said I did wonderful. The song is simple and fitting for beginners because the lyrics are composed of phrases and pronouns such as Father bear, Mother bear, and Baby bear. After a few practices runs, I wondered whether I truly knew what I was saying, or I am simply remembering how to say the words/lyrics.

       This week I learned a few verbs such as the “is” and “to go” that are commonly used in sentences. Depending on the situation (formal vs. informal), there are also characters that are added at the end of the sentence that contain no meaning but is just there for the sake of it. For an example, “임니다” or “습니다” are often put at the end of the sentence in a formal setting. While for some it may be difficult to understand the reasoning behind this, I compare it to Cantonese where there are words or sounds at the end of the phrase or sentence that contain no actual meaning. However, in formal writing such as in books or essays those filler words would not be included.

      My Korean teacher gave me a short introduction to Korean grammar, and I will admit was somewhat overwhelming. There are a lot of changes in the pronunciation of some words when they are next to a vowel or consonant. I am not too concerned with grammar now, but my priorities are to quickly recognize the characters and string together the sounds that make up the character. For an example, I can read the words “boy” and “girl” with ease because I have been exposed to them through Duolingo countless times, but new words take a lot longer. My concern isn’t about learning a new word, practicing it over and over, and the next time I can recognize it quicker. I hope to see a word I don’t know and sound out the vowels/consonants faster. It’s amazing to me how crucial an alphabet system is to learn a new language because it is the building blocks to words and a system to use when I come across new words. For an example, Duolingo gave me a new word to learn “아이스크림” (ae-seu-keu-lim) and I may not recognize what it is. However, once I sound out each character, I realized it was “ice cream”. Knowing English allowed me to learn words in Korean even though I don’t know how it is written in Korean.

        My goals for the upcoming week is to complete and master Basic 1 and Vocab 1 levels on Duolingo and start learning basic sentence structure. Duolingo has been one of my favorite study tools to use because the lessons are quick and entertaining. Additionally, from this whole language learning journey, Duolingo has been the best service I used to learn new vocabulary words.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RAi1Evp1NjsMK_dpb_ODPtZrkSk0cxq8mc3acLgQ7Kg/edit?usp=sharing

Last week, Julie and I continued to work on my reading/translating skills through articles. Last week, she assigned three articles about the Indonesian food tempeh. For the first article, I read it aloud to her during our meeting and translated it paragraph by paragraph. Even though I generally feel comfortable speaking Bahasa, it was quite a challenge for me to translate each sentence because there were always one or two words I did not know. This made me realize that most of the time, I only get the “big picture” when reading (formal) Indonesian articles and due to the gaps in my vocabulary, I miss some of the finer details. In order to fill those gaps, I have been taking notes on any new words I come across so I can remember them. One thing I noticed was that a lot of the words I did not know were actually formal synonyms of words I already knew. For example, I know that ‘kata’ or ‘bilang’ means ‘say’, though a more formal version I learned through the article is ‘mengatakan’. It is not a word commonly used in conversation, which is why I rarely hear it. I also realized since I am far more used to the informal versions of words, it becomes harder for me to internalize the formal versions, so it is definitely something I want to work harder on. Thus, I appreciate Julie’s approach to introducing new vocabulary words through formal articles because it is an effective way to learn proper vocabulary. She assigned the remaining two articles as homework, so I essentially did the same thing (read it myself and took notes on any new words).

This week, Julie showed me an Indonesian news site called VOA Indonesia that she wants me to use regularly. The site includes videos, daily podcasts, and article on a variety of topics which is a helpful resource to get exposure to the language every day. She emphasized how news sites can especially be helpful to language learning because not only is it relevant to our own lives, but it can become a routine habit and almost a “passive” way to improve reading skills. This is something I am familiar with because I also study Japanese and regularly read news in Japanese for class and practice. We read one article about recycling and another video about an Indonesian student who became a successful software engineer. Similar to last week, I was able to follow and understand the main point of each but missed a few details due to unfamiliar words.

Also, I got to meet Julie for the first time in person this week at UR’s Indonesian cultural fair. As I may have mentioned in a previous entry, Julie was out of town for the first half of September, so our meetings were conducted virtually. However, she returned in time for the fair and we were able to finally meet in person. The fair itself was amazing- in all my time as a student here I had never attended a cultural event solely dedicated to Indonesia. I felt very comfortable there and was able to connect with the local Indonesia community.

This month, I read episodes of the webtoon that I chose, which is Park Eun Hyuk’s “Random chat” (랜덤채팅의 그녀!). 랜덤채팅의 그녀 is about Jun-woo, an outcast at his high school, who enjoys spending his time on his phone, randomly chatting with strangers. Almost every conversation is odd and meaningless until he talks with a girl who is his age. Because it’s a meaningless conversation, Jun-woo lies about his identity and says he is a lot older than he is. Coincidentally, he finds out that the girl is his classmate. 

I chose this because it has a little bit of everything that I was looking for. It not only had an advanced vocabulary, but it also had the texting language in there. The plotline was very interesting and fun to read, so I am having a lot of fun reading this webtoon. For each episode I read, I write a detailed summary of what happened in the episode. I mainly focus on the plot and character development, and I send my summary to Rachel. Rachel then edits and corrects my grammar, spelling, and mistakes and answers any questions I wrote out for her. We then meet up and discuss my mistakes, and she teaches me how I could improve with the next summary and what I could fix. 

One thing that Rachel noticed in my writing skills is that I have difficulty making my sentences flow and connect with each other. I tend to put a lot of declarative sentences one after the other, but when it is all put together, it can sound really choppy. I put Rachel’s suggestions into mind when writing, and I have been working on making my sentences flow more smoothly. Another issue is that I tend to go back and forth from present to past tense. She told me that since I am used to only speaking in Korean, I use both present and past tense in my writing. This is because when speaking, using both tenses usually makes sense and is easy to understand. However, when writing, I need to be more cautious about which tense to use in order for my summary to flow and make sense. The last issue I have to work on is using connecting sentences and clauses. This will also help me improve my writing to flow better in the future. Overall, my language partner told me that I have been doing well and am improving in terms of sentence flow. 

Because this webtoon has texting language in it, I have been learning a lot about the texting style in Korean. I do not text anyone in Korean, so I have no idea what the slang is, and reading the text messages in this webtoon has been teaching me some common texting words. I was confused about what ㅉㅉ meant, and I learned that it is equivalent to English’s shaking my head (smh). I also learned that 에베베베 was onomatopoeic and it is just meaningless and random noise to text. 

Overall, I have learned a lot and feel like my writing is improving more in the way that I hoped to improve it. I also really like how this webtoon is also teaching me the informal way of texting because I don’t want to sound too formal when I text my family or friends back in Korea. I am excited to continue reading this webtoon and writing summaries about it, which will help my writing and reading skills improve. I am also excited to go to a Korean restaurant with my language partner and put my Korean into use outside of talking with my parents and language partner.

My plan for learning Italian this semester mainly focuses on practical use of the language like speaking and listening since I believe that is how I started off with all the languages I have learned. That requires daily conversation with a native speaker and inputs from TV shows or music. However, prior to that, I allow at least month of review on grammar and syntax in Italian since as the formal aspect of the language, those are crucial for successful language learning. 

Weekly, I'll spend at least 5 hours on practicing speaking, listening, and talking to a native speaker. I find it effective to speak the language that I am learning when I wake up in the morning because that is when my brain has full capacity before any other inputs from different subjects. Later on before sleep I think it is important to memorize vocabs to make my expressions more accurate and capable of handling different subjects in the conversations.

In general, i will focus on grammar first in order to be precise and then move on to speaking.

My most previous language learning experience mainly focused on Latin and Italian. As far as I can remember, I chose Latin because of my interests in both Spanish and Italian and I believed that learning Latin will help me build a solid foundation for acquiring those languages later on. I started off with Dr. Gunkel who I learned a lot from when it comes to linguistics. I liked the fact that the class was mainly about grammar and syntax. It helps me look at languages as if they were organism being examined through a microscope in science classes. I am majoring in computer science which a lot of the time resembles learning a new language. It is incredible to see how the learning process overlaps. 

In the beginning, I had great deal amount of trouble just reading Latin since it makes absolutely no sense to me. However, I had the experience of learning English when I was younger so I know it takes time and your understanding and ability grows exponentially. As a result, I was not dismayed or anything but just simply consistent on taking Latin as one of my daily inputs. I would try to think in Latin and read Latin even though sometimes it makes no sense. And that's where the beauty of studying a language. Proficiency and fluency rely more on consistency and approach. I would spend hours in the library just to memorize the paradigms every day and mark the endings of each words. After about a month and a half, read and write in Latin becomes somewhat easy for me in the intro level. 

I also liked the fact that Dr. Gunkel went on to the content in the intermediate level which brings more challenges but it seems like they were there for a reason since it kept me out of comfort which could have a negative impact. As for intermediate Latin and Italian, the usage was more about practice. One of the projects we had to do was presentation in Latin about a celebrity. I had no idea that you can put so many modern phrases and expressions into Latin which is one of the oldest and least used language for most people. It was really challenging but it made me realize when it comes to expression, Latin can be just as expressive as any other language. That really helps me when I learned MIPS in CS which is the assembly code that only has 20 instructions. It is strict but powerful at the same time just like Latin.

In conclusion, I have encountered great difficulties when it comes to language acquisition but none of them made me think about giving up since the nature of language acquisition is consistency and problem solving.

As a beginner in the world of self-instruction, it is very difficult to incorporate all of the different disciplinary perspectives into my journey to learning Portuguese. It would take so much work and research to find the best resources to incorporate all of them. Instead, on my journey, I will focus on just a few disciplines including: applied linguistics, stylistics, sociolinguistics, and anthropological linguistics. For me, the most important discipline is applied linguistics, because I want to focus on speaking and listening, rather than reading and writing. 

         For this week, Somyung and I decided to conduct our weekly meeting at our local Korean church called Richmond Korean Central Presbyterian Church. I hoped to accomplish speaking as much Korean with her as possible especially in a solemn setting, so it would force me to use formal language like 잘 지내셨어요 instead of 잘지냈어? The “요” added at the end of words and phrases turns the informal sentences into formal ones to use for adults and elders. Since I only really use informal language with my parents (because my parents do not want me to use formal language with them), I realized I was using this type of language in places that were not totally appropriate. I also wanted to practice praying in Korean since this is something I never really tried to do. During our small group, Somyung and I got placed in the same Connect Group. Since all of the members were Korean American students, Somyung asked the group if we could all try and speak in Korean. First, we all one by one took turns saying out loud our prayer requests for the week. When it was my turn, I did not expect myself to hesitate much, however, it was very difficult to convey my prayer request because I had to translate religious terms I had never used before. For example, I never knew that Matthew was 마태복음 and prayer request was 기도제목 in Korean. After a few seconds of shuffling around my thoughts, I was finally able to say 이번주 하나님께 저의 기도 제목은요 학교에서 좋은 성적 받고 집중할수있는거에요. In English, this translates to, “my prayer request for this week is to get good grades in school and I also hope God helps me focus.” Another thing we tried to do was to read together with the Korean version of the Bible. For my entire life, I have only read the English versions (which is already hard to read with all of the difficult names and pronunciations). However, I thought this would be a fun challenge to give to myself. When Somyung got me a Korean version and we all started reading it, my tongue started twisting and I mispronounced words way more than I pronounced them correctly. It took almost 5 minutes for me to read a single scripture, so for my next bi-weekly meeting, I hope to have gotten better at reading the Korean Bible and also speaking with formal language. 

          Although I am pretty proficient in my target language, it still gets very frustrating when I try to fix the small mistakes in my technical skills. Sometimes, the progress seems slow because I am trying to improve things on a micro-scale. However, I will still persistently work to try and always improve because I want to get to the level where I can talk like a native speaker. I understand that in order to do that, I have to verbally practice it as much as I can and try to learn from other native speakers like the elders from my church. 

For my cultural artifact, I chose the Indonesian movie Ali & Ratu Ratu Queens. My language partner assigned this movie to me, though I had heard about it a few months ago because it is part of Netflix’s Asian American & Pacific Islander Collection. Though it is an Indonesian movie and fully in Bahasa Indonesia, much of it takes place in New York City so there is some English here and there. For learning purposes, my language partner suggested that I use captions in Bahasa Indonesia rather than English. The movie follows the main character, Ali, who is in search of his mother who moved to New York to follow her dreams of becoming a singer. There was conflict between his mother and late father, so the issues extended to Ali as well. When he arrives in New York, he meets his mother’s former roommate who lives with three other Indonesian ladies. There is also a romantic subplot involving Ali and the daughter of one of the ladies. For the purpose of this cultural artifact journal, I would like to focus on the Indonesian ladies and the daughter.

An aspect of the movie I appreciated was the representation of first- and second-generation Indonesian immigrants in the US. This is something I have never seen portrayed in the media (at least, about Indonesian immigrants specifically). When Ali first meets the ladies, he immediately refers to them as ‘tante’ (aunt) after finding out they are Indonesian. This tendency to act familial with other Indonesian people is something that is common in Indonesian culture. Despite living in New York City, the tantes never let go of their heritage as seen with the style of their apartment and food they ate. Overall, it seems like they did not face heavy pressure to assimilate into western culture. One aspect of assimilation may be their “flashy” styles compared to Ali’s real aunt who lives in Jakarta. Indonesia is home to the largest Muslim population and Ali’s real aunt was no exception as she was shown to always wear a hijab and modest clothing. There was one scene that juxtaposed the differences of her and the tantes living in the US- Ali was on video call with his aunt and she was shocked to see the ladies without a hijab and wearing western clothing. The tantes also embody the “hard working immigrant” image, as they work several jobs such as masseuse, housekeeper, etc. A plot point includes their dream of opening an Indonesian restaurant and its name is wordplay referred to in the title ‘Ratu Ratu Queens’. Ratu ratu means ‘queens’ and the borough they live in is Queens. Throughout the movie, their mannerisms were very natural and reminded me of my own Indonesian tantes.

Another character I found interesting was Eva, who is the daughter of Ance (one of the tantes). As a second-generation Indonesian, she was the character I related to the most. I mentioned that there was some use of English in the movie, and most of it was spoken by her. This is because she was born in the US, but raised by her Indonesian mom, so Bahasa Indonesia naturally became her heritage language. Every Indonesian character in the movie speaks to her only in Bahasa so she understands it very well, though she always replies in English. This is something I had never seen in other TV shows or movies, but something I do a lot with my parents if they speak to me in Bahasa.

I am glad to have watched this movie (as I rarely watch Indonesian movies) and this one was especially interesting because it included both Indonesian and Indonesian-American perspectives.

My self-directed Bahasa Indonesia class this semester started a bit late because there were delays with finding a language partner. Sadly, my language partner from last semester was only available for the 2020-21 school year due to the end of her Fulbright Program. Because we got a chance to become friends last semester and she knew a lot about me and my language level, it would have been convenient to continue learning with her, though I am excited to learn with my new language partner, Juliani/Julie. She is currently out of town, so we have been meeting virtually until she comes back on 9/20.

Through our first meeting and some preliminary assignments, Julie has a sense of my Bahasa level as a heritage learner. As such, she wants to focus on refining my Bahasa Indonesia through reading articles, books, and other materials. There will be more of a focus on reading and writing rather than listening and speaking. My first assignments consisted of reading two articles on the pronoun ‘anda’ (you), watching an Indonesian film, and creating a short presentation on a topic of my choice.

She chose the articles on the pronoun ‘you’ because it is seen as the neutral pronoun that can be used with those of a higher and lower status. Of course, in English we only have one ‘you’ pronoun, so I understand why she would want to emphasize this at first. However, through my Japanese studies, I am already familiar with the concept of politeness and hierarchy in language (especially pronouns). For the movie, she had me choose between the comedy-drama Ali & Ratu Ratu Queens or the biographical movie Kartini. As I had already studied Lady Kartini in the previous semester (and watched scenes from the movie), I decided to watch the former. Julie suggested that I watch it either without captions or using the Bahasa Indonesia ones, and I chose to watch it with Bahasa subtitles. However, there were times where I did not understand a scene, so I used English captions sparingly for better context. Lastly, Julie asked me to create a short (only written) presentation about any topic to practice my writing skills. I chose to do it on music and was able to present it to her and receive feedback.

Something I want to work on is improving my formal vocabulary. I noticed this while writing my presentation because I felt that I kept repeating certain transition words or using the informal versions of words. Also, during our latest meeting, she had me read an article aloud and later translate it aloud as well. My biggest issue doing that was not knowing key vocabulary, so I would understand most of the words in a sentence, but not know the most important verb or subject. Thus, I only grasped fragments and ended up not knowing the meaning of the sentence as a whole. For me, it was definitely frustrating to be able to understand 90% of a sentence, but still completely miss the point/meaning.

My prior language experience consisted of three years of middle school Spanish, two years of high school Spanish, and one year of Spanish here at the University of Richmond. One part that I never quite enjoyed about learning Spanish in a standard school format is that it becomes so formulaic. At first, I was excited to learn the language, but as time went on, I got very tired of learning one chapter of vocabulary and one tense at a time to get a good grade on an exam. Eventually, I lost interest and did the bare minimum to get good grades on exams and papers. However, at the higher levels of high school Spanish, once the classroom spoke only Spanish and no English, I found that my interest returned, and I made much more progress. I found myself translating words a lot less and thinking in Spanish. My teachers had always preached to me not to translate in my head, but I never really understood what it meant until I had some level of immersion with the language. Unfortunately, the extended time away from Spanish caused me to forget almost all of it, and my studies at Richmond did not rekindle my motivation. At one point, I also downloaded Duolingo to learn French. My brother-in-law is a native speaker, so I am interested in the language, as it is likely that France will be the first European country that I get the opportunity to visit. I enjoyed the app but never stuck with it long enough to remember anything. I have picked up a couple of phrases from my sister and her husband’s attempts to teach their son French like “À tes souhaits.”

After taking the learning style survey, I was surprised to learn that my results showed almost a perfectly even split. My scores were 30% auditory, 35% visual, and 35% tactile. I feel like as I have gotten older, my learning style has gone from primarily auditory to primarily tactile. For example, I’ve gotten more out of internship opportunities where I can implement concepts than textbooks or lectures (unless the lecture is really intriguing). In the strengths assessment, body movement was at the top of the list which makes sense for me. I love to move around, and I often find that it helps me think as well. I like the recommendations that the website provides such as changing the types of tools used to take notes and taking walks as study breaks.

Throughout my years of studying language, I have relied on flashcards quite a bit, but I feel like traditional flashcards are more likely to get me a good grade on a quiz rather than help me learn a language. I’ve chosen to study Dutch because I think the Netherlands has an interesting culture, and I have relatives that speak the language. I would like to try using flashcards with pictures on one side instead of translations. Most, importantly, I want to be as consistent as possible with mostly speaking and listening practice. My main goal is to be able to understand natives and have basic conversations, so I must design my studies around that goal.

Figuring Foreigners Out and Geert Hofstede's analysis are both very interesting. Figuring Foreigners Out pretty much describes a lot of the different cultural dimensions while Geert Hofstede maps those same cultural dimensions around the world. One of the dimensions that I found most interesting to look at was the "individualism vs. collectivism" dimension. Individualist cultures pretty much have a primary focus on the individual. People really only care about themselves and their own survival which can be seen as selfish. In collectivist cultures, the primary focus is the group as a whole. People are friendlier, and care a lot about other people's well-being. When Geert Hofstede maps "individualism vs. collectivism", it is not surprising to see what countries tend to be more individualist or collectivist. The United States, which is arguably the most capitalist nation in the world, was identified as the most individualist which is not surprising. In contrast to that, Cuba, which is one of the most socialist nations in the world, was identified as one of the most collectivist nations in the world. I definitely do agree with these assessments. My target culture of Brazil falls right in the middle of the spectrum which also does not surprise me when analyzing the favela lifestyle vs. the city-dwelling lifestyle.   

       This is the third week of classes and even though the workload is picking up, I can still manage to study Korean at least 20 to 30 minutes a day. During this time, I review the alphabet by doing Duolingo and listening to alphabet songs on Youtube for consonants or vowels that give me a difficult time. I can identify the consonants and vowels and write out phonetically how to say them, but the sounds I produce may not match what those sounds are supposed to be. For an example, the sound of the vowel “으” is not easily replicated in English, so whenever I say the vowel, I have to remind myself that. Some consonants/vowels are easier to pronounce than others such as ㄹ (r/l),ㅏ(a),ㅣ(ee),ㅁ(m),ㅂ(b/p). However, I will say that I can quickly identify and say around 80% of the alphabet correctly. The other 20% would require additional practice and I should be able to master the alphabet by the end of September at the latest.

        I am a commuter student so my trip to the University of Richmond is around 15 to 20 minutes. On some mornings, I have been playing the Spotify podcast called, “Real Life Korean Conversations for Beginners”. This podcast consists of two Korean natives speaking a two-minute dialogue discussing easy topics pertaining to day-to-day life. After the dialogue, they would select key phrases and repeat them slowly for the audience to digest. I found this podcast to be incredibly helpful for review because the pace of the conversation is slow, so I can listen carefully to the phrases. In addition to the podcast, my iTalki session with my Korean teacher has helped me identify my weaknesses and strengths. We started to learn a few honorifics and phrases used for introductions, and I felt incredibly accomplished after each session. For an example. I learned how to say “Hello, I am Liu, Anna. Nice to meet you” (안녕하세요, 저는윤안나입니다. 반갑습니다) . Fortunately, Korean does not have tones compared to Mandarin which makes speaking simplified and easier to do. Additionally, my iTalki teacher assigned me a few short paragraphs to help me practice blending the Korean characters together as a speaking exercise. We will review the assignment next session and learn more honorifics and phrases pertaining to day-to-day conversations.

        Somyung and I met on Tuesday and we went over the alphabet together. This session with Somyung allowed me to realize that I can identify the consonants and vowels but my pronunciation is somewhat off for the consonants that sound alike. For an example, ㅈ(j),ㅊ(ch),ㅉ(jj) sound alike and differ only by the softness or hardness of the produced sounds. Another set of consonants that I am having a difficult time with is ㄲ(gg),ㄱ(g/k),ㅋ(k).

        With the variety of resources I identified for my language acquisition journey, I feel that I am on track to achieve all my goals for the semester or even more. The feeling of excitement when I said a phrase correctly or when I pass a level on Duolingo pushes me to continue and learn more.