Blogs

Part One of First Artifact: Brief Monologue 

I was confident, as I should have been by now, in greeting listeners, stating my name, age and where I am from. I also said that I was a student. I incorporated new words dealing with clothing and shopping that I learned in the beginning of the semester. I also said that I have a big family as a way to try to be more descriptive. Furthermore; I told my parent's names, which I could not put into a sentence before. My accent sounds much more believable now in my opinion, but a native speaker may disagree. I feel more fluent in my speaking ability because I am more confident in what I am saying. I think I could improve the sentence about my family being large by using less formal words ( whatever those may be). I search for words in dictionaries and do not know how relevant they are in regards to a typical Dari conversation. What I truly want to work on is expanding my vocabulary. I have a lot of personality, so using basic words to describe things that are interesting will not do. That is a goal of mine for this semester.

Parts Two, Three and Four : Alphabet, Numbers and Days of the Week

Alphabet: It took me  a very long time to memorize the alphabet in order. I used to say all the letters and just count in my head until I got to the final one. Now, I have made sense of it. I am very proud of this as it is the groundwork for language learning. I still struggle with saying a few of the letters, but think I tackled them all in this recording. I have trouble saying " ق غ" in most cases. The goal is to be able to say both of them with as much confidence as I use in the remainder of the alphabet.

Numbers: I cannot count past 40 because I do not know how to say 50,60,70,80,90, etc. Learning numbers is not in my learning plan, but it is necessary so I will try to weave it in. 

Days of the Week: I am still unsure on how to pronounce these perfectly. I think I am just saying them with an American accent and Friday is the trickiest. I  still do recognize the days in conversations.

I will work on improving all my issues by asking questions to native speakers about pronunciation, saying the words aloud and researching the language.

FinalLearningAssessment_LailaHart.docx

I filled in information on the original chart and added an overall assessment at the top.

Thank you,

Laila Hart

SUMMARY: I had planned the entire semester to present on what young adults in Afghanistan and Iran did during their free time. That plan got changed as I found that the forms of recreation were very similar to that of the U.S. and that made me lose some interest. I quickly found another topic: cultural celebrations. I know that religion is very important in the Middle East and wanted to explore a few of the big traditions. This, in turn, helped me learn more about traditional culture than an exploration of what people do for fun would have. I explored four events : Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Adha, Buzkashi and Nawruz. My presentation featured an oral trip through each tradition fused with relevant videos and two discussion questions throughout to engage  the audience. I ended the activity with a brief, fun quiz.

Find Links to the Presentation Below: 

Cultural Presentation

Cultural Presentation Activity

LINKS USED FOR PRESENTATION

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/16/eid-al-fitr-2012-celebration_n_1792570.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKDAUGq-a8

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

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/religion/islam/eid_haj.shtml

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pvv8wAgR2Y

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UB3eA8B4qI

  During this final section of learning, I spent the session talking to Mirwais about the cultural project. My initial goal was to talk about the lives of young adults in Afghanistan and Iran. I wanted to know if the idea of fun was similar to the United States. Going to clubs, restaurants, movies, skating and more are typical ways to blow off steam for young Americans. Prior to meeting with Mirwais, I read a New York Times article about what a young man did in Iran for fun. That example was a bad one, or a less common one I should say, because this man did drugs and drank. 

   Upon speaking with Mirwais, I learned of what he and his friends do for fun in Afghanistan. The activities are as follows: swimming in lakes, climbing mountains, playing sports, watching television at night, shopping and going to restaurants. I was informed that clubs were not a part of life in Afghanistan and that the popularity of hookah is growing. 

       I ultimately decided to change my topic to cultural celebrations because I could not find more information about young adult life from reliable sources. 

       The process was an interesting one nonetheless and I definitely learned more about the culture, which was obviously easier to digest than the language. 

    This time was spent mainly on different verb tenses, specifically the present tense. I had a tiny idea about these verb conjugations being more difficult as I remembered the irregularity of "رفتن" ( meaning : "to come") and its changing to "میروم" (present-tense first person). Once  I was able to figure out the irregularity, I was able to conjugate for the subsequent pronouns.  This task seems like one that takes years to learn as you hear the language, it is easier to gauge what is correct.  The verb meaning "to see" is "didan" (دیدن), but when conjugated in the present tense, a "ب"  after the  "می"  ( present tense prefix). "Budan" is the verb meaning "to be." If I conjugate it in the past tense, it is regular ( i.e. Man budam, tu budi, Mo budame, etc.)  However ; the present tense is very different and spelled "میباشم" ("Mebasham") for the first person. 

   This task will be best learned by listening to conversations with native speakers ideally.  

Hello,

 This week I was taught the many familial terms in Dari. There are a lot and it gets so much more specific than the English language as you will see. For example, there are specific words for "child of your sister" ( as opposed to niece/nephew) ,  wife's brother, father's brother, etc. It will definitely take me a while to get used to all of this. Below, I have listed many of the words I have learned to build a family tree.

پدر: Father

مادر: Mother

خسر: Wife's Father

خيا شنه: Wife's Sister

کا کا: Father's Brother

ما ما : Mother's Brother

شو هر: Husband

زن: Wife

بچه: Boy/Son

رختر: Girl/Daughter

I also learned about some new phrases for questions, as well as been refreshed on what I already learned in past courses.I was already familiar with "why" ( چرا), " what" (چي) and" who" (کی). I learned that I can add "دیگر" in front of who and what to ask ( who else? and what else?).

I also learned that "با" means "with," which was helpful as I responded. 

  Recently, I have been learning about prepositions, which has been helpful in forming more complex sentences. 

 The word for "preposition" is   حرفرباط.  Please click on the following link to see  the Dari  prepositions and sentences I have written using each.

Prepositions

Sentences using preposition

 The comprehension portion continued as I was given a reading about a little girl who got a dinosaur game as a gift. I was expected to read this out loud, which I did at a much slower pace than  a native speaker understandably. It was hard to understand what was going on considering I do not have an extensive vocabulary. Also, I appreciate the comprehension portion, but it would be nice if my learning  plan was considered as per my many requests. That way, I would actually be interested and engaged with the information I was "assigned" to read. Maybe next week. 

    During the first week of this, I was( refreshed) about verbs. The Dari word for verb is فحل. Below you will find a list of some verbs I learned and I conjugated each one for all six pronouns( من  شما   تو  ما   او  آنها) OR ( "they" "he/she/it" "we" "you(inf.) " "you(formal)" and "I"). Instead of uploading that for each, I will choose a verb and conjugate it for an example.

دویدن : To Run

پحتن : To Cook

خندیدن : To Laugh

چشیدن : To Sip, Taste

لمس کردم : To Feel 

جوابیدن : To Sleep 

دیدن : TO SEE

من    دیدم

تو   دیدی

شما     دیدید

ما     دیدیم

او     دید

آنها    دیدند

We focused on conjugating them in the past tense and there were no irregular verbs that I noted. 

During the second part of this, we learned some adjectives and how to write superlatives in Farsi.If you look below, I will write a set of three sentences and indicate the superlatives.

جدی سریی  دوید.   (ADJECTIVE)

سلیم  سریی تر دویدو  ( Superlative for "better" in this case "faster")

محمد   سریی ترین دوید   (Superlative for "best" in this case "fastest")

  This week during class, we watched " Raz Hai Een Khana" ( "Secrets in/of This House"),  which upon research, I found is Afghanistan's first soap opera. Click here to view The goal of viewing this was to see how much Dari we could comprehend when it was being spoken by natives at an obviously normal pace. We were asked to write down familiar words or phrases we heard while in class. I picked up the following words ( dakhtar-daughter, bood-was, chetor hasted- how are you, Salam Alikum- Formal Greeting, Tashakaar-Thank You, Rafti America- You came to America). I was faily impressed with myself considering the pace of the speed fused with my delay in comprehension. 

     On a cultural level, this showed the communal relationship among Afghan people. The men in the first part of the video spend plenty of time asking how each man is doing, as well as how their families are. The general message I gathered from the portion of the selected episode is that one of the men's daughters is getting married. There is some serious tension that comes from the women and although it is not directly stated, their facial expressions tell it all. 

     We were then told to spend more time on the film and to write down words that we did not know. That was an issue because if I do not know the word apart from hearing it in an episode, then it is hard to decipher. The words blended together, so I was unsure where one word ended and another began. 

   The plus side to the film was just more exposure to the flow of the language.

This was the last time my partner and I met to review everything together. I realized that for next semester's self directed learning, I need to have more conversations with my partner and just to speak more. I focused more on writing and reading that my speaking skills aren't up to par by the end of this semester. I have never done this before and I also learned that I am a very "by the book" person cause that's how I've always learned. I teach myself other subjects as long as there is a set lesson for each day. When it came to having a lot of freedom and to choose whatever I wanted to learn, it made it very difficult on me because I could not organize everything well enough for it to be completely efficient. Next semester, I will try to use the books more and do a lot speaking. 

As for my self assessment, I think I managed pretty well with completing my goals and tasks. I achieved majority of my goals. I learned the alphabet, numbers, self-introduction, greetings/farewells, days of the week, months, telling time, about family members, daily tasks, writing, reading, and about food/ordering at a restaurant.  In addition I learned a lot about Korean culture through my cultural project and the cultural posts. Some of the obstacles I came across were learning the alphabet, pronunciations (saying the letter L/R), and understanding structure. The alphabet was a bit difficult at first because they put a consonant and a vowel to create one block and it was hard to figure out how to combine them because the letters are characters. I'm used to the cyrillic alphabet since I am taking Russian right now so it was very different. The pronunciation of each alphabet was a little hard because of some of the sounds that the English language lacks. After lots of practice, I got the hang of things. Basically... practice, practice, and more practice was the key to overcoming these obstacles. I thought the number system was interesting because different words were used for counting numbers and for telling time. Everything about the language was fascinating so I could not say anything about what I least liked. For next semester, I would like to learn the grammar and conjugation instead of just full on memorization of phrases. This wasn't the most effective way to go about learning a language. Overall, this experience this semester has taught me a lot and I am excited use the skills I have acquired.

Included is my powerpoint presentation of my cultural project.

Traditional Korean Wedding

Despair.com posts “demotivators.” They seek to motivate through demotivate by “crushing dreams with hard truths.” One of their motivational posts was on tradition. “Just because you’ve always done it that way,” the poster reads, “doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly stupid.” This quote, I don’t think, is meant to be offensive or betray cultural intolerance. It is more I think an important and friendly means to communicate the importance of thoughtful evaluation. In our efforts as independent learners and visitors of culture, I think this is an incredibly useful reminder as to our primary responsibility as accepting, compassionate, and critically thinking global citizens. It adds another dimension to the definition of cultural awareness, of what it means to be culturally competent. For me, this means that we are not overly passive participants or guests in a culture. Acceptance and passivity can be easily misinterpreted as being “worldly” and “open-minded.” I think this is a mistake.

I believe that the ability to be able to constructively and sensitively criticize sources of misery/difficulty, or issues within an existing cultural system is important as a cultural participant. Isn’t this what members of the country do anyway? To some extent, wouldn’t these people invite different ways of spreading the message? Should we not show disapproval for the consequences of certain cultural assumptions, fears, and traditions? Racist, bigoted, and inhumane beliefs that are immorally inhibiting the well-being and lives of others should not be accepted or let go, even if they are of a different culture.

I’ve chosen this topic for reflection for two reasons. First, as a prospective historian, to understand another culture provides new eyes into one’s own culture, and into the other. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I see one of historians’ job to destroy myths and irrational conceptions of the past and understandings of how the present came to be. Second, there were a few cultural presentations that inspired this post, specifically Susan’s presentation about marriages and Layla’s presentation about the tremendous prestige ascribed to doctors. I found myself curious as to how these issues affect individual human experiences, for better or worse, why, and which groups had particularly strong opinions on the matter. This is another layer of cultural understanding I hope to delve into with my own study of Bosnian culture and the effects of the war.

Indeed, to understand a culture, it is important to experience its reality as it is. Of course, the more comprehensive one’s ability to empathize with the society’s celebrations, treasures, and struggles, will make one more able to make better and more careful suggestions for positive social change.

chewCulturalProject

or

https://docs.google.com/a/richmond.edu/file/d/0B46sTCU00X7fY3hYM3kxaGVBOW8/edit

To enhance my ability to understand spoken Bosnian, learn more about current events, and get a better feel for what fluency sounds like, I've decided to turn more attention to "Radio Televizija Bijelina." This is the highest viewer rated radio-television company based in the Republika Srpska. It reports Bosnian news 24 hours per day and seven days per week. Despite my lack of comprehension, I typically watch twenty minutes while looking up words I hear repeatedly and celebrate when I hear words I can pick up on (weather, years, and numbers for instance).

Next semester, I hope to use this channel more. While I recognize a few words here and there, I'm still not able to summarize, in English, what I think is going on. This will be a future learning goal. Here is the link: http://www.rtvbn.com/

Here is also the link the prestigious and popular Sarajevo-based newspaper I attempt to read: http://www.oslobodjenje.ba/

In the beginning of the year, within the first two weeks, one of my learning tasks was to order food from a restaurant. Milica and I went to the Balkan restaurant. I was able to order a meal and ask for the location of the restaurant in Bosnian. We ordered waters, a cevapi, and split some burek. It was quite good, but as my language partner assured me, no where near the quality of home cooked Bosnian cuisine. Bosnians' ability to cook food I discovered, is a particular point of pride. This was the first time I'd used the language outside of my social network. It was interesting to watch the intrigued and warm faces. The waitress was welcomed my efforts and replied in Bosnian. This was one an encouraging episode of the language learning experience. Next semester, we plan to visit the Bosnian market in Richmond. Here is the link to the menu: http://www.balkanrichmond.com/Menu.html

Hi Sharon,  I just saw that I had this saved as a draft and it never got posted.  SO sorry!

For my fourth artifact I wrote out the verb conjugations for many of the verbs that I worked with.  Such as:  to love, to study, to think, to ask, to write, to eat, to go, to see, to buy, to sing, to try, and to want. I wrote the conjugations for singular masculine (the tense I use to refer to myself and other males), and singular feminine.  I didn't include the plural because Shir and I didn't have a strong emphasis on it.  However, next semester I will be working on the plural conjugations of these verbs and many more.

For week 14, we talked about the present continuous tense. Mirwais said there is no distinction between the present and present continuous in Afghan Farsi, while in Iranian Farsi, a speaker might add a word like "allon" or "hala" (which mean "now") to indicate that something is happening in the present continuous tense. We watched another episode of the Afghan drama that we had been viewing. We also took a quiz on what we had learned for the past few weeks, which took up our second meeting of the week.

We also met for one day on the last week, week 15. Here, we reviewed what we had learned in the last semester and what would be on the final. Mirwais also taught us the name for some fruits (meeveh) and vegetables (sabzeh). 

I am attaching my learning plan with the self-evaluation box filled out.

SDLC 110 Learning Plan Farsi Self-Evaluated

Attached below is a copy of my learning plan with the self-assessment column filled:

SDLC 111 Learning Plan (with Self-Assessment)

The picture above is the Hebrew alphabet in Script.  I have been working on learning and becoming proficient at writing the alphabet in Script.  

Below (upside down) is my monologue in Hebrew print and Hebrew script.  I wrote the monologue first in print to stay proficient and print and then in script.  I am still getting some letters confused, but the more I work with script the better I shall become. 

http://youtu.be/DhY0-IIh-Pk

   So what I did was answer a bunch of questions (that give a short biography of myself) and then ask those questions.  

As I have mentioned in previous, I believe that one of the best aspects of the self-directed language courses is that you not only expose yourself to a language but also to the culture and people that speak it. Admittedly, being the son of two Afghans, I already had exposure to Afghan culture and the Dari language well before I stared taking the self-directed Dari course. However, that is not to say that this last semester was not a learning experience, in fact it was a tremendous one. Working with my language partner Mirwais, who is in his mid-20s and came to teach Dari at Richmond--from Afghanistan--as a Fulbright Scholar, offered me perspective on the current state of Afghanistan. Unlike the media, Mirwais was able to offer an unfiltered view of life in Afghanistan and where the nation stands today. 

In addition, I learned a lot more about Afghan culture and society through my own research; my cultural project was especially informative in this regard. For my cultural project, I delved into the topics of Islam, extremism and modernism in Afghanistan. I gained a lot of insight into how Islam grew as a religion in Afghanistan--which took much longer than I would have guessed--and how it has shaped the nation. I also developed an understanding for the contrast between rural and urban parts of Afghanistan; this contrast was evident in modernism and religion. From 1940s to early 70s, Afghanistan was a relatively modern nation and views on Islam were not as strict as they are today. On the other hand, much of Afghanistan's modernism was found in urban areas, as opposed to rural regions. 

This semester, I also examined how Afghanistan moved away from its modern culture. Ultimately, I concluded that war coupled with extremism is what pushed the nation off the bright path it was on during its era of modernity. From the Soviet invasion to multiple, consecutive civil wars, the turmoil-filled situation in Afghanistan allowed the Taliban, an extremist insurgent group, come to power. The Taliban emphasized a strict adherence to Islam and Sharia law that was never present in Afghanistan, and also denounced by Muslim scholars across the world. Unfortunately, the Taliban's terror tactics allowed the group to have a presence that still resonates in Afghanistan today. 

Truthfully, I learned a lot more about Afghan culture and its history during the past several months. I am now better able to understand why Afghan culture is the way it is today and how it has deviated from its past.