Blogs

This week Emily and I worked through my workbook some more and talked about some TV shows that we watched.  We watched Arthur.    We are still trying to find some website where we can watch Hebrew children's cartoons.  It isn't working right now.   We have only found Arthur.  I have watched two episodes this week.   I am still having trouble catching everything but I seem to be getting a bit better.  :)

This week Emily and I worked on the parts of the body :) :)   Head - ראש      Shoulders -  כתפיים     Knees - ברך   Toes - אצבעות רגלים  

New words:    

Identity.m4a

  Identify a topic for your culture project and your learning goals for your topic.

Music is my life and i cant live without it. My favorite aspect about Pakistani culture is its music. The music basically connected me with the culture and language. Of course, Music is extremely important into any culture. Life without music is impossible for many. I love music and listening to Pakistani Music makes me to feel a deeper side of the world. Its just beautiful. Although, i dont understand it that much but still i am not able to stop listening to it because it feels very special and wonderful. Actually, listening to Pakistani music makes me improve my language ability and makes more enthusiastic toward to everything of country.

  A hearhtouchhing Pakistani song

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Topic of your choice: How do people greet each other in Pakistan?

• Greetings are  often between members of the same sex in Pakistan; however, when dealing with people in the middle class, greetings may be across sex lines.
• Men shake hands with each other. Once a relationship is developed, they may hug as well as shake hands.
• Women generally hug and kiss. Pakistanis take their time during greetings and ask about the person's health, family, and business success.
• Pakistani names often include a name that denotes a person's class, tribe, occupation, or other status indicator.
• They may also include two names that have a specific meaning when used together, and the meaning is lost if the names are separated. . It is best to ask a person how they wish to be addressed.
• In general, this is not a culture where first names are commonly used, except among close friends.

Pakistan is an Islamic country, so the below video shows a typical Islamic greetings and introduction! od

Formality and Informality in Target Language:

Urdu in its less formalized.If a word is of Persian or Arabic origin, the level of speech is considered to be more formal and grand in Urdu. In addition, if Persian or Arabic  grammar constructs, such as the izafat, are used in Urdu, the level of speech is also considered more formal and grand.And usually the degree of formality and informality is signaled by other consonant clusters, by derivative suffixes, borrowed encephalitic and certain types of function words.

More information about Formality and Informality of Urdu Language

Since I was a kid, I had a very special interest in learning different languages.  I loved learning Urdu since my childhood because we have lots of TV series in Urdu back home and watched lots of Bollywood movies which I loved them all. I am sure that I am going to love learning Urdu this semester. I just need to stay patient and try to find good ways of learning it such as watching short movies, videos, reading picture text, and practicing my writing. I am going to work very hard to spend a good amount of time to practice, study, and most importantly to work with my language partner which is going to be a great help toward my learning of Urdu language. I love Indian and Urdu songs. It will be awesome that I can translate them by myself one day. Urdu is such a beautiful and sweet language. Its songs give you all the great emotions of being happy, relaxed, or go crazy. I am very excited and can’t wait to learn how to talk and understand Urdu by the end of this semester.

A very sweet Urdu song with nice words

Culture Shock Film:

The Culture shock was very interesting and informative . The video was about how international students felt coming to America. As an international student coming to the United States, i knew what it really meant because i have gone through the same things.when I arrived in Richmond. The campus seemed huge because universities are not usually as big as Richmond in my home country. The week of orientation was just overwhelming and something that I did not even imagine because there were too much to learn. In the first few weeks, i was just kept thinking that it is impossible to be here because everything was different, the food, environment, language, system of school, and even small things. When i got the syllabus in the class rooms, i was just shocked about the amount of work that we had to do in the classes. After watching the movie, i felt that everyone will feel the same way when they go to a new place. So pretty much, i have felt the same as the students who have been interviewed in the Video and as the professors talked and explained the situation of international students. I am glad that the International Department has made this video in order to show and educated many about going to a new place. It is also like a good advice for those who want to go and experience aboard and how to deal there.

My language partner and i met this week. We worked on pronunciation of the words, making short sentences, reading of short sentences, and practiced the usage of propositions. The usage of propositions very complected and different in Urdu language. So i had to practice them alot in order to learn them. I also tried to read and translate some  sentences with my language partner. Having a language partner is very helpful because helps me a lot to understand so many new things that i have no clue about their explanation. We also talked about food and learned some basic conversation about food such as how to ask for food. I also learned some names of the food in general. In addition, i tried to learn new vocabulary as always and have learned some new ones.

 South Korea is an intensely conformist society. When faced with hardship or adversity the South Koreans are absolute masters of change and rebuild.  If things aren’t working, they just change them and they have proved adept at doing this very quickly and very effectively. As an example, South Korea is one of the only few asian economies that have fully recovered (and for a long time now) from the 1990's Asian crisis.

South Korea has also re-invented itself as the cultural epicentre of Asian culture.  Korean pop music, or K-pop, has been exported with great success all over the continent (and recently over the world with Psy) and Korean TV dramas are watched from Tokyo to Beijing.  South Korean films are the enormously popular throughout Asia (with the exception of India) and the level of Korea’s cultural influence continues to grow.

This is not to say that South Korea doesn’t face significant challenges.  The inexorable rise of China and the political, cultural and military influence that comes in its wake is something all Asian countries wrestle with. The politicians in Seoul have the ever-present dilemma of how to deal with hard-line communist North Korea.  In addition, South Korea faces increasing competition from lower wage competitors in the region and will need to draw on all its reserves of flexibility and tenacity to stay ahead of the game.

Having said all this, doing business in South Korea can be a challenge and many business visitors find the Korean approach to business just as alien as the one they encounter in other Asian countries.  Major Korean companies are still run along regimented, hierarchical lines and ‘face’ is of greater importance than in almost any other country in Asia.  You really do need to understand how the Koreans think and act if you are to be able to truly capitalise on business opportunities with Korean contacts. By doing your homework on the South Korean business culture and etiquette it helps securing big rewards.

This week due to midterms was a little easier than most weeks, so we had no test or anything. On Monday we had to have a basic conversation of introducing ourselves and talking a little about ourselves. I think one of the hardest parts was not knowing the material but rather speaking it. I mean its good that we meet with Lousie and are able to practice speaking but I still get so nervous when I try. After that we mainly focused on days, months, and time. I still don't understand their time entirely. Sometimes they will use military time but another time they will be like half past 12, I don't think I have ever said that in English so it will be weird trying to change my time to the British way. I think something that will help or hopefully will is this Swedish grammar book that came today, it is supposed to explain a lot of things that google just isn't doing. Our homework for break is to write in a journal everyday of what we did, and if we don't know a word we must look it up. I think it's a good way to keep practicing our Swedish without doing anything too advanced. IMG_20131009_192200336.jpg

Originally I had some pretty ambitious goals. I wanted to be conversational in Hebrew and know how to read and write. Unfortunately it is taking longer to come back to me than expected but I am working at it. I was trying so hard to drive right into it but needed to take a step back and take it one day at a time.

Now I have similar but more realistic goals. I want to be able to read and write with vowels and have basic conversation skills. I think this is very attainable but we will have to see how quickly I can absorb the information. My language partner also made me realize how difficult Hebrew really is and that most people do not even get past one small workbook in a semester. So my goals may still be ambitious but I would rather set higher goals than lower ones.

Culture shock. That was the focus of this weeks class. Watching the video on how international students felt coming to America. It was actually really interesting to me to watch this movie. You would assume there would be a little bit of getting used to but you don't realized how much these students have to deal with. After I watched the movie I asked some of my international friends if they thought they felt culture shock when coming here and a lot of them said no. But then as I went on to describe in the movie a lot of students went though a honeymoon phase of loving it and then became somewhat depressed questioning why they were here, a lot of my friends said that is exactly what they went though. So I think almost everyone going to a new place goes through a bit of culture shock whether they realize it or not. It also made me slightly nervous. I plan on studying in Sweden for a year if not more, and naturally I guess I will go through a period of culture shock. Mind you it might be a bit easier for me because yes they speak Swedish there but almost everyone speaks English as well. But still just the slightest little differences do add up.

Our readings and discussion in class the other day was very thought provoking. It is interesting and (unfortunately) unique thinking about the best way to learn something as a student. Our educational system is very controlled and does not leave a lot of room for the students to make decisions about the best way to approach learning. Being able to make my own learning decisions for this class is so out of the ordinary for me that I am overwhelmed and feel it is hard to get started since the options are endless.

Reading these articles, discussing with Professor Grove, and hearing what my fellow students are doing is helping me figure out my own path I want to take. I want to incorporate all of the information I am learning from the articles to make my learning experience as effective as possible.

A tactic we discussed the other day was to place meaning on all of the words, you will never remember something if it has no meaning to you or meaning in context. This makes me want to learn words that will be useful for what I want to be able to say in Hebrew. I will probably try to aim my Hebrew knowledge towards conversational and touristy Hebrew before moving on to more complicated things. 

Another thing we talked about was how to remember words and their spellings. Writing things down is very helpful for me so I will try to do some kinesthetic exercises. Using flash cards is also usually effective but if I am memorizing something without meaning I will not remember it in the long term. I think studying flashcards is useful for a quiz but I forget them right after I take the quiz. In my opinion, flashcards can actually take meaning out of the words you are learning because instead of the goal being to learn a language it turns into memorizing words as quickly as possible; you forget the overarching goal and focus on the smaller tasks which in this case is memorizing the words. Maybe I can combine flashcards with something else to help the words stick in my memory or I can make all of my memorization cumulative.

Something else I am debating is if learning conversational Hebrew would coincide with learning Hebrew from the Torah. This is something I might want to discuss with my rabbi and figure out if I have time for both. 

Target language & cultural diversities

Cultural differences are probably more important that we would think. Every aspect of our life could be different in another culture, the timing, the way people greet each other, the dress code and even having a coffee with someone could have a several meanings depending on the country you are.

One thing the article warns us about are the generalizations; even if some stereotypes are sometimes somewhat true, we should always be careful when using generalizations.

I learned a bit more about the Korean culture talking to some Korean students directly and reading some articles.

In Korea, every time you meet someone formally you will have to bow, and the older the person is, the lower you will have to bow. It is interesting to know that in Korea, the younger people respect a lot older ones and will most of the time listen to because they are wise and experienced. Koreans are always on time, it shows an important sign of respect but also will give you a firm handshake with a smile when they meet you. However, one thing they do not do, as opposed to the Western culture is small talks, if they are genuinely interested about something they will ask you, but rarely they will talk about the weather or ask about the health of your dog. 

If there is something that Swedes absolutely love, it's music. There have been multitudes of popular groups emerging from Sweden in the 20th and 21st centuries: ABBA, Ace of Base, Peter Bjorn and John, The Cardigans, Lykki Li, The Hives, and many more. More recently, however, Swedes seem to be taking over the techno/house music scene. The likes of Icona Pop, Basshunter, Avicii, Alesso, and Swedish House Mafia are all Swedish DJs/artists who are pumping out club hits that are adored all around the world (not just in Ibiza!). Recently my Swedish language partner went to a concert in D.C. to see only one of the members of Swedish House Mafia perform (the group has recently split up). Music is very culturally significant to Swedish people and I get the sense that there is also a lot of pride in home-grown Swedish music from Swedes who live outside of Sweden (they call themselves utlandssvensken, literally Swedish foreigners). It is also interesting to note that like residents of other countries take to American pop music, those who live in Norway and Denmark also look to Sweden for their music icons and hits. All the evidence I have gathered from research and person experience leads me to believe that the music scene is highly active in Sweden and that Swedes both home and abroad take great pride in their musical icons (especially when they gain success outside of Sweden). Below is a sample of music from Sebastian Ingrosso, formerly of Swedish House Mafia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuAtcpFQpMw

Njut! Enjoy!

This was a tough week for the Swedish learners! This was the first week that we really tackled grammar (outside of our lessons) and it's been rough. I found that learning pronouns was not as easy as I thought it would be and that a lot of them are very similar so I ended up mixing a few of them up on our quiz! An interesting feature of the Swedish language is that rather than just having one word for "mine" or "your", there are actually three different words you could use (for each) depending on the noun they are modifying. For instance you could say "mitt namn" for my name or "min mamma" for my mom or "mina föräldrar" for my parents (plural). Although I found learning the differences of these to be challenging I do appreciate that Swedish is a language of specificity and therefore there is no ambiguity as to how many things you are referring to when you say min/mitt vs. mina. 

On a brighter note, we started putting together basic sentences and questions and actually having conversations with one another and I felt as if this was very practical practice! Now that I know the question words, word order in questions, and the most basic tenses of verbs, I can formulate many questions to ask the Swedes I know! I am pleasantly surprised by how quickly we are progressing and am looking forward to the weeks to come.

During weeks five and six I spent a decent amount of time building upon what I was doing in weeks three and four. I have steadily been working towards being able to write short paragraphs by weeks eight and nine. As I mentioned in my previous bi-weekly report, I needed some extra practice  in constructing sentences. Fortunately, I was able to do some work in this area of my language learning as my language partner provided some assignments to help build my writing skills.

However, I also allocated some time to learning some sports vocabulary in preparation for my cultural project on sports in Afghanistan. It was really the first time during the semester that I had to heavily rely on a dictionary to complete my language goals for the week; which was a fun reminder of where I was a few years back during SDLC 105 / 110. Nevertheless, I wrote down the most sports relevant words that I could think of and come across in a Dari dictionary. Likewise, I also consulted with my language partner for some help to make sure I was headed in the right direction. Refer to my second artifact to look at some of the sports vocabulary that I learned during the last two weeks.