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I conjugated all of these verbs in my free time and countless others. Here is a section of that. 

Artifact 3

Please follow the links to see my documented learning tasks.

Artifact Front Page

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As I already stated, I am learning about what youth do for fun in Iran and Afghanistan for my cultural product. I chose to surf the Internet for more information on this topic and came across a  New York Times article. The link follows:  In Iran, They Want Fun, Fun, Fun. Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist, is well educated and has traveled to four continents.  Well, I expected something different from his article and was highly disappointed.

Kristof opens the article by stressing that Iranians are not the "religious fanatics"  that we take them to be in the United States. That opening prepared me for the overgeneralized article that was sure to follow. He goes on to tell readers that half of the Iranian population is under 25 and they seek fun just like anyone else in that age range. Then, he throws a big curve ball when he tells tales of a 23-year-old Iranian man he spoke with.This guy, as described by Kristof, drank alcohol and was on drugs until recently.Both of  which are illegal and if I am not mistaken, alcohol is just completely against the religion. This bothered me because "fine" readers know that every human is not perfect, so if this one guy did participate in illegal activities, we can understand his case. The problem came when Kristof followed up that story by saying "Iranian officials suggested that perhaps 10 percent of the population has used drugs." Maybe this just my journalistic background, but who are these "officials." If Kristof was going to provide such stunning facts, he better have a reputable source listed and  not a vague term like "officials." 

Kristof gets even worse as he talks about prostitution in Tehran and how he saw men in flashy cars pick up the women. Yet again, something so disrespectful to the culture should come equipped with cold hard facts. Kristof should have at least given the number of times he has seen this occur, if truly at all. 

"My road trip across Iran leaves me convinced that change will come here, too, if we just have the patience not to disrupt the subterranean forces at work: rising education, an expanding middle class, growing economic frustration, erosion of the government monopoly on information. My hunch is that if there is no war between Iran and the West — which would probably strengthen the regime — hard-liners will go the way of Mao, and Iran will end up looking something like Turkey."

That is the problem. Why is he striving to change a country that he has no roots in and no true reasoning for this change? Then, he throws out suggestions for what would make it better and hopes it will soon resemble Turkey. Iran is its own country for a reason and that is the problem with the world. Worry about yourself and do no assume your way of doing things is what is right for everyone else: it's not. 

Kristof had an article full of B.S. and I hope other readers did not take his rant seriously. 

This week, Mirwais taught us the imperfect (past continuous) form of conjugating a verb. It is conjugated exactly the same as the past tense, which is regular, but with the prefix "mi-" added. So if you wanted to say that you lived in a dorm while at college, you would say "man dar khobgah zendegi mikardam." I thought it was interesting how the imperfect is completely regular in Farsi. In the language I had previously studied, French, the imperfect tense (imparfait) can be irregular and frustrating. 

During weeks 9 and 10, I worked with transforming verbs into the present tense. The interesting thing about Dari is that most verbs in the present tense are irregular. For instance, take the verb حوردن (khordan) which means to eat. In the past tense you would only alter the suffix of the verb to match the noun (i.e., I, you, we, s/he, they). So a sentence would like something below: 

I ate good food yesterday. - .نن دروز خوب غزا خوردم. (Maan derose khob reza khordum.)

The ending changes from ن- to م- because the action is performed by the noun I. 

Yet when using the present tense, the verb changes completely because it is irregular:

I am eating good food. - .من خوب غزا مىخورم. (Maan khob reza mekhorum.) 

As you can see above, the prefix -مى is added before the verb and the letter د (which produces a "d" sound) is removed.

I also learned some new vocabulary from a short story that Mirwais asked us to translate into English.

Some of the words I learned were:

university - دانشگل

future - آىنده

village - قرىه

begin - شروع

travel - سفر

slowly - آهسته

This reading was rather intriguing and interested me to find more articles on languages that are currently on the verge of "dying". I remember my ESL teacher in the 4th grade who my family has a close relationship with always told us to preserve our language. No matter what new languages we learn, we must never forget our own. She always told me to do some reading in Mongolian and speak it at home all the time. My little sister was born here so technically she is bilingual but now she has difficulty speaking and understanding Mongolian because she spends the majority of her time in school conversing in English. When she comes home she barely speaks Mongolian and if does it's always really basic conversations. We try to teach her as much as we can but of course it's never enough. One by one we are losing people who speak a native language. This is why it is imperative that we try our best to preserve languages. Languages carry so much history and knowledge therefore it should be kept alive. It's important to not lose our roots and to pass our language on to as many people as possible.

One of the goals in my learning plan was to learn more vocabulary related to what I am studying at school. I am a business administration major with a concentration in finance, and I am also minoring in philosophy. Therefore, I thought it would be nice to highlight some of the new vocabulary I learned. I typed some of the words I have learned below (note that in parenthesis I have attempted to write the words to depict how they would be pronounced).

vocabulary - لوات (loghat)

Business / Finance Vocabulary:

firm / company / business - شرکت (sherkat)

business operation - مامله (mamela)

work - کار (kar)

cash - نقت (nakht)

trade / commerce - تجارت (tejaarat)

exchange - مادله (mobadela)

trader - تاجر (tajer) , سوداگر (sawdager)

transaction - مغامله (momela)

profit - فاىده (fayda)

economy - اقتساد (eqtesad)

purchase - خرىدن (kharidan), مىخرم (mehkharom)

advertisement - اعلان تجارتى (elaneh tejarati)

industry - صنهت (sonat)

income - درامد (daramad)

stockholder - ساحب سهم (saheb sahm)

to acquire - گرفتن (gereftan), میگیرم (meegyrom)

bank - بانک (bahnk)

office - دفتر (daftar)

contract - قرارداد (qarardaad)

commercial - تجارتى (tejaarati)

Philosophy Vocabulary:

philosophy - فلسفه (philosophy)

life - زندگى (zendagi)

thought - فکر (feker)

human - انسان (ensan)

existence - وجود (wojuud)

brain - مگهز (maghaz)

reality - حقیقت (haqiqat)

body - جان (jan)

soul - روح (roh)

wisdom - عقل (aqel)

reason - دلیل (dalil)

Goal of the week: to learn vocabulary associated with the kitchen

This week I was particularly keen to learn about vocabulary associated with the kitchen and food because food and eating is such a major component of Gujarati culture. Eating brings a family together and a community together. It is important to note that most Gujaratis are vegetarians as the Jain religion has had a profound impact on Gujarati culture and the nature of Gujaratis to abstain from hurting anything. I really enjoyed this section and I will also enjoy eating lots of Gujarati food when I go to London this winter break. Wembley is London's Gujarati capital. Wembley's main religion is Hinduism, although there is a sizable Gujarati Muslim community and a small Sikh community. It will be interesting to talk the knowledge that I have learned from my language partners here in the US, back to Gujaratis in London, UK this winter break. I am eager to if there are any dialect differences.

wadki

chaapu

chamchi

thaari

tel

paalo

pani

naastho

                                                                                                          (Obviously this is not a Gujarati naastho. An example of a Gujarati breakfast would be roti and milk for breakfast)

jumvanu

dude

mithai

For this week’s cultural post, I will take a look at the flags of the two countries in which Persian is spoken: Iran and Afghanistan. I wanted to explore the meaning behind each flag and every color/symbol on it.
Iran’s flag was adopted on July 29, 1980, which is pretty recent for a country so rich in history. The flag is green, white and red with Farsi writing and an image representing the five pillars of Islam. Green is said to represent Islam. Islam is the monotheistic religion, whose followers are referred to as Muslims, and the Qur’an is the book of the religion. Muslims look to Allah for guidance in the path of leading a fulfilling life. The white in the flag represents “peace,” which made me wonder when white became the color symbolizing serenity and why? I will have to look that up on my own, but it is definitely of interest to me. The red represents courage, which I respect. Often time, red is associated with anger, hostility or physical aggression. I appreciate it standing for something else this time.
There is a symbol in the center of the flag said to represent the five pillars of Islam. The five pillars are listed below with brief descriptions.
1. The Shahada: the declaration of faith and the acknowledgement of Allah and Muhammad as his chief messenger.
2. Salat: the five daily prayers associated with Islam
3. Zakat: charitable giving/ selflessness to give to others to reduce inequality if one is able
4. Fasting : three types ( ritual, for repentance and ascetic)
5. Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca should be completed by all at least once in his/her lifetime
There is also red and green script on the flag, appearing 22 times to be exact. It says Allah Akhbar, which means there are no words to describe how great Allah is.
Now, I will learn what the Afghanistan flag means.
Afghanistan adopted its flag in January 2004, which is even more recent. The flag features three equal lines of red, black and green. There is a white symbol on the red, center bar; it is the coat of arms. It also features a line saying “There is Allah and his prophet is Muhammad; Allah is great.”
The Islamic faith evident in each fact shows how important religion is to people in both countries.

Through my study of Bosnian culture, I have noticed three radically different conceptions of history from the Serbian, Croatian, and Bosniak groups. What these three have in common as a result of this history is a distrust of each other unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Without trust, without the comfort to disclose freely in relationship-building discourse, little hope remains for any people genuinely hoping to negotiate and build a better future for one another—together. These people have sustained and inflicted horrendous pain from on one another. Each is suspicious of one another’s true intentions. The root cause of all of this, I believe, lies in the assumptions and expectations that come from each side’s illogical, concrete, and sadly distorted near fanatical belief in an incomplete version of their shared pasts. The adherence to their respective historical narratives is dogmatic, comparable to Christians’ unmoving belief in the divinity of the Bible and existence of God. This narrative shapes how they perceive, think, feel, and ultimately act towards the other side.

Part of why I love history, part of why I want to be a historian is that I truly believe that conceptions of the past profoundly impact people in the ways that I’ve described above. Historical memory defines the present and future. It is my duty as a prospective historian to destroy cemented narratives that are over simplistic, to clarify the picture in a way that will bring about a better understanding of how and why certain events came to be, why certain people acted the way that they acted, who these people were. To get this story straight, I believe, is the only way human beings by nature can “move on” in the most productive and healthy way. That is not to say one should hide the atrocities of the past, or relieve parties of responsibility. I just think that people run into trouble when they misplace their indignation and praise. Things with such significant implications and consequences deserve thorough interrogation and justification.

This thinkpiece/cultural piece was inspired by a lot of thinking I’ve been doing in regards to my philosophy of history, general philosophy, reflections on the Bosnians I’ve spoken to, my history course work, and some reading I’ve been doing in regards to the disastrous state of Bosnian politics. According to historians Steven Burg and Paul Shoup, Bosnians have adopted a power sharing approach. This means that each ethnic group has its own territory and veto power. A small group of elites determine vital interests of respective groups. It is one of the saddest, most ridiculous system of government I have ever come across in my life. Underlying this “power share” approach, demanded by the three parties, is emblematic of the phenomenon I describe above: total distrust.

I found this article very interesting.  The notion that the historical linguists created a computer program to review the thousands of languages that are spoken and have been spoken in the world is shocking.  In the end I do not believe that the actual region where all languages originate from is important.  However, I do find it very important to know what family the language you are studying comes from.   While studying Spanish I learned that I could easily pick up sentences from other "Romantic" languages.  However, languages such as German did not have many cognates with Spanish, thus I have a hard time understanding German when my father speaks it.   While learning Hebrew, there are many cognates within the languages.  Hebrew is an ancient language, but Modern Hebrew is relatively new.   Many modern day words either have a root stemming from an ancient word or are very similar to English.   Shir has been working with me on recognizing cognates within the language when they stem from an ancient word.  For instance, the word for computer is Maksheva and the word for "to think" is L'makshev.   

I thought the article for this week, "Why Bilinguals are Smarter," was fascinating. I really wish someone had shown this to my parents eighteen years ago! My parents subscribed to the view stated at the beginning of the article, that "a second language [is] an interference, cognitively speaking, that hinder[s] a child’s academic and intellectual development." According to the research in the article, this is actually the opposite of the truth. My parents thought that since I would be growing up in an English-speaking country, it made more sense for me to grow up speaking English perfectly rather than both English and Farsi but not as well. Of course, now they've heard all of the academic opinions on the benefits of bilingualism, and regret not teaching me their native language as a child. By the time they decided to start teaching me, I was in elementary school and resentful of all things Iranian, and refused to learn. I'm glad that I've decided to go back and learn Farsi -- maybe I'll still be able to reap some of the benefits! 

I definitely think that being multilingual, or even just knowing parts of other languages, can help one be more mentally aware of other viewpoints. The more we are exposed to, the more we can learn.

I conducted a thirty minute interview with a native Bosnian. It was a general interview aimed at family, values, and lifestyle. I want to emphasize that my descriptions are general. It is my intention to delve deeper into some of the trends I found

According to her, the family is primarily seen as a unit of economic support. The ideal family is one that is affluent, obedient to the laws of the land, raises children who are married off and able to support their families, holds a great reputation among friends and families. The gender roles in Bosnia could be considered traditional. The father is expected to be the breadwinner and protector of the family. Family reputation is closely correlated to the economic success and general reputation of the man. The mother is expected to cook, clean, and take care of the children. The relationship between mother and father tends to be more of mutual respect than American notions of an affectionate loving couple. Siblings tend to be closest to one another, providing the emotional and moral support that does not typically come from their parents. Children are raised to be well-mannered, obedient, and fit for traditional marriage roles.

American families tend to be so busy, that family time sometimes needs to be set aside if it's every going to happen. In Bosnia, families apparently have so much leisure, that family time simply happens. Guests pass in and out all day for tea and cookies. There is chat, leisure, and plenty of gossip and cigarette smoking. Life there is very "chill." Time comes and goes. This reminds me a little bit of life in the American country.

Below are two questions I'll ask some other Bosnians?

Where does this traditional family model for success come from? I know the American version comes from Victorian models...

What is this preoccupation with reputation? This is so pervasive in Asian cultures too.

What is the difference between Bosnian village people and Bosnian city people?

“Tribe Revives Language on Verge of Extinction”

“School was also once the enemy of tribal languages. Government boarding schools, where generations of Indian children were sent, aimed to stamp out native ways and tongues. Now, the language is taught through the sixth grade at the public charter school in Siletz, and the tribe aims to have a teaching program in place in the next few years to meet Oregon’s high school language requirements, allowing Siletz, in a place it originated, to be taught as a foreign language.”

I am very happy that they’ve managed to save their language. There are very few things in this world that invoke my fury like that of imperialism and paternalism. The ways in which those in power impose unsubstantiated assumptions and standards to judge human nature harbor tragic consequences on the victimized civilization. Who has the right to deem certain customs “savage”’ or “civilized”? Something really damaging happens to a people, to a language, when they are made to believe that their way of life, their beliefs, their pleasures, and their languages are inferior or barbaric. If they conform to these absurd standards, they must destroy the parts of their identity that are central and unique in hopes of becoming more “normal.” Unfortunately, such a dream, while undesirable (though made to be desirable by those in power,) is near unattainable. One from a different culture can never be good enough to be “normal” until everything that you are and hold dear is transformed into something “normal,” something docile and predictable.

In some ways, this story demonstrates these effects blatantly. Had it not been for the heroics of Siletz tribe members, an essential part of a people would have been destroyed. What’s more insidious about this process of normalization is that these methods actually aim at the unique qualities that are actually the source of that other culture’s power. Uniqueness, difference, allows a people to break free from categories and identifiers. They challenge “authoritative” claims to knowledge and categories. They challenge traditional those in powers’ justifications to stay in power and impose this power in the ways that keep others subordinate.

Goal for the Week:

Vocabulary Midterm

Converse and Comprehension

Result:

Review Vocabulary

Film: Noz

Dialogue

Method:

Unfortunately, we did not have the midterm this week. It was a hectic week for the both of us, and we weren’t able to meet as frequently. We’ve decided to put the midterm and vocabulary on the backburner for now. Instead, we worked on a dialogue. I anticipated questions that curious Bosnians might ask me were I to be in the country at that very moment. Questions include the following: how are you today, why did you choose to study Bosnian, what about Bosnian culture excites you, what do you plan to do with your Bosnian, how did you end up at the University of Richmond, and so on. Milica helped me to construct professional and impressive answers. This is a way to build vocabulary and become “automatic” in answering a body of information I want to be able to convey and that I will very likely be asked.

We also watched a film called Noz, which means knife in English. It was the first film I saw of the Bosnian Serb perspective of Orthodox and Muslim relations. The opening scenes aptly characterize the sentiment. While a Serbian family was celebrating their Christmas pre-WWII, an especially holy day, Muslims barged into their houses seeking to take their land. It is believed in this film that the Muslims entered on this particular day because they knew that the opposition would be unarmed. In front of the entire family, the Muslims raped and killed their women (they filmed this), burned the house, and burned the father of the household in the Orthodox Church. Most insidiously, they took the baby son, and sought to raise him as a Muslim. For Muslims and Serbs, according to the film, to be converted and set against “one’s own kind” is the most damaging blow to the opposition. Following this event was cyclical impulsive, angry retaliation, further offensiveness, cruelty, regret, and an unhappy ending.

I watched the film with two Bosnian Serbs, who said that this film is a decent synopsis of Serbian views of what really went on during the Bosnian War. It wasn’t that they were the aggressors; it was that they were protecting themselves from Muslim aggression and dominance. Having this other perspective provides a much better picture of why both sides really harbor a strong sense of resentment and distrust for the other. I think both sides are really irritated at the fact that their “opposition” refuses to feel their pain and take responsibility for their blatantly cruel actions. Without this responsibility, there can be no forgiveness. With each side in pain, vying for revenge how is one to trust the other side and move forward?

This week we worked on asking and answering questions. We learned question words like "chee" (what), chera (why), chand (how many), kee (who), and digar (else). Using these words, Mirwais taught us how to ask questions, like "what do you like to do?", and "how much was your car?" He had us practice dialogues with each other, seeing how long we could ask each other questions and answer them. 

We also watched another episode of the Afghan drama "Raaz Hai een Khana" (Secrets in the House) and I tried to see if I could understand it. While I couldn't understand everything, I did get the main idea of what was happening.

Weeks 10 and 11:

Going along with the goals on my learning plan and the language tasks stated on the SDLC 110 Calendar, I learned about food and different phrases involving food. The word food in Korean is "umshik". I learned phrases such as "Did you eat yet?""What do you want to eat?" and "I want to eat ____." In addition, I learned simple words like breakfast (achim), lunch (jomshim) and dinner (jonyok). Along with Brigid's reenforcement of new words and phrases, I used an app on my iPad called "Learn Korean" which helped teach me how to pronounce each word dealing with different types of food. It has the English and Korean version of each word and when I click on the word it speaks it to me.

As for language task 8, I chose to watch a scene from my favorite Korean drama called "Dream high" and try to understand more of what was being said. Brigid and I chose a scene where these two girls are auditioning to get into a prestigious art school. Both girls sang a song together and my job was to try to understand the song. To prepare for this, I read the lyrics of the song and translated words that I was not familiar with. We found the video on youtube and watched the clip together. This was rather a difficult task because the song lyrics were hard to understand and keep up with but it was still a good experience. This helped to realize what I needed to work on. When they were singing it just seemed like all the words were blending in together which made it harder for to distinguish what the words were. One important phrase I learned from this song was to say "I have a dream" and "I believe in that dream". I thought these two phrases were useful to know in the future: "Nan kikum yi yitseo yo" and "Ge kkum ul midoyo." 

Overall, in the past two weeks along with the help of my partner and language learning apps, I completed these two language tasks.

Attached is a screen shot of the app I was using just to give you an idea of what I was talking about and my third artifact of introduction of myself and my family. I wrote out a description of each family member in Korean to show my progress learning how to write.

Artifact #3

To reflect on culture shock, I will talk about my experience of coming to America in November 2001 right after the devastating 9/11 event occurred. As you all know, I am from Mongolia and I came to the U.S when I was 11. Before this, I have never been out of the country or been exposed to anyone of a different race. Coming to America and transitioning was definitely a challenge. I did not speak the language so I could not communicate with anyone other than my parents. I remember one specific thing that everybody I walked past kept either waving at me or greeting me. I thought this was the weirdest thing because we all know to not talk to a stranger. I thought to myself, I do not know these people so why are they saying hello to me? Also, people holding the door open for others was also a shock to me. I guess in Mongolia, everybody minded their own and went about their business without having a care for the people surrounding them. This took a lot of getting used to but it was very manageable. Once I started school here in the 4th grade, it was an even bigger culture shock because everybody looked different and dressed differently. Teachers were very trustworthy, kind, and caring. Schooling in Mongolia was not like that so this caught me really off guard. In the end, I came to appreciate everything this country had to offer me. My life would have been very different if I had not immigrated here. 

Goal of the week: conjugate new verbs

Since I have mastered new verbs, I wanted to learn to conjugate some and begin to use them in  conversation with a Gujarati friend of mine (who is not my language partner) on campus. My language partners and I met twice this week to go over conjugations. I included pictures because they have been such a large part of my learning experience. Whenever I make notecards, I have a picture on one side, and the conjugated verbs on the other. That is how I learn the language. Much like children learn a language directly from associated images of their environment around them as toddlers. I don't want to get bogged down in English-Gujarati translation so this is the most efficient method for me.

to get up - uthwanu

• hu uthwu chu (I get up, wake up)
• thu uthwe che (you get up)
• thume utwoh cho (you formal get up)
• te uthwe che (he/she gets up)
• apne uthye chiye (we get up)

to walk- chalwanu

• hu chalu chu (I walk)
• thu chale che (you walk)
• thume chalo cho (you formal walk)
• te chale che (he/she walks)
• apne chalye chiye (we walk)

to talk- bolwanu

• hu bolu chu (I talk)
• thu bole che (you talk)
• thume bolo cho (you formal talk)
• te bole che (he/she talks)
• apne bolye chiye (we talk)

to cry- rudhwanu

• hu chalu chu (I cry)
• thu chale che (you cry)
• thume chalo cho (you formal cry)
• te chale che (he/she cry)
• apne chalye chiye (we cry)

to read- vaachwanu

• hu vaachu chu (I read)
• thu vache che (you read)
• thume vacho cho (you formal read)
• te vache che (he/she read)
• apne vachye chiye (we read)