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This is my combined reflection for weeks 6 and 7:

My goals for these two weeks were to complete language tasks three and four as stated on the calendar. By the end of week seven, I should be able to ask and answer questions about identity like where are you from, what do you do, and what are you studying? etc. Also, I need to be able to talk about my family members and identify each member. This fits into my learning plan because these are also stated in my learning plan as part of my goals. 

I met with my partner and we wrote out a script together that included and questions and answers and then we practiced saying it. After I learned the new vocabulary and prononciation of the words, we took turns in asking and answering questions so that way I have experience in both. For example, to ask "what is your name?" I would say "이름이 뭐예요?" (Irumun muo yae yo?) When we learned about the family members, I first learned to identify each person like mother, father, brother, sister and so on. Then we pretended that we were looking at family picture and tried to write a sentence describing each person. We said simple things like talking as if we were pointing at the picture and said "This is my mother and her name is ____. We are from Mongolia" etc.

This repetition and the explanation of the structure helped a lot in making these tasks easier to learn which made these lessons more efficient. Writing it out in Korean also helped me build more onto my reading skills. I was forced to read the sentences in order to get the pronunciation correct and then I was able to translate the sentences with her assistance. Overall, these past two weeks have been very effective in completing my goals from the learning plan.

Artifact #2. Asking and answering questions about identity

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1dS4xTRbXhs   (answering)

Attached, you will find the link to my first artifact. It is  a brief version of some things I learned in previous semesters mixed with a little bit that I learned during the first three weeks. 

First Artifact Part 1

After that, you will hear a few other items that I learned in previous semesters ( i.e. the alphabet, numbers, days of the week).

First Artifact Part 2 Alphabet

First Artifact Part 3 Numbers

First Artifact Part 4 Days of the Week

Goal: Learn verb tenses

This week, I meet with my language partners twice. Both meetings focused heavily on learning basic verb tenses and phrases. I was excited to learn how to say basic sentences that describe my day to day life. 

To start, I became familiar with the most commonly used structure. (PERSON + NOUN + VERB)

So for example, if I wanted to say (I am eating)I would say: Hu cow chu

Hu means (I)

cow means (to eat: I form)

chu means is

This basic structure helped me to learn even more sentences.

Then I focused on breaking down the verb tenses.

Cow may mean to eat in the I form.

But cai means to eat in the you form.

Caye means to eat in the we form. 

The basic endings then are ow, ai, aye. This is very similar to my spanish learning

Also, the endings of chu would change to (che) for you, (cho) for you formal, and (chiye) for we.

It is something that must be memorized, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly.

As a result here are some example sentences:

Hu cow chu: I'm eating

Tu cai che: You're eating

Tume cow cho: You're eating (formal)

Hume caye chiye: We're eating

Hu bhunu chu: I'm studying

Thu bhune che: You're studying

Tume bhunu cho: You're studying (formal)

Hume bhunye chiye: We're studying

I was so excited to learn this. Now the process is getting it down by memory.

The Korean language is considered a part of the altaic language. It is unrelated to Chinese and is similar to but distinct from Japanese. Historically, Koreans used the Hanja which were characters borrowed from the Chinese alphabet. Unfortunately, only the people from a higher social status and the government were educated and were able to use this writing system. Because of this, there were too many people who were illiterate so they created a new simple alphabet system called Hangul which is widely used now. There are several different dialects depending on what region you live in but mainly every Korean speaks and writes using this system. It was such an easy writing system that illiteracy was reduced heavily in a short period of time. I think it's important to know the history behind a language and how it came about to be what it is now. It definitely helps the new language learner to understand the language better if they are informed about such details and facts. I read that this new language system back then was so simple that if one wanted, he or she could learn it overnight. This motivated me and pushed me to try to learn the language better and more time efficiently. So far, it's been fun learning new words and about the language's history and culture. I am looking forward to the rest of the semester to learn more.

I will use various artifacts to document my learning. I have already uploaded an artifact that documents my writing ability in the Persian alphabet, by writing all of the 32 letters in their 4 forms. For the rest of my artifacts, I will use Vokis to record my voice, as they seem to fit the prompts well (introducing yourself, greetings, answering questions, etc). For the last artifact, the one of my choice, I will create a birthday card for a relative, most likely my aunt. My mother and I make birthday cards a lot for our relatives and she always writes them in Farsi and I sign my name. For once, I'd like to be able to write one myself!

I think it is detrimental to use artifacts as a measurement or assessment. Personally, I find the mandatory imposition of these write-ups and articles rather tedious and inhibiting to the entire language-learning process. They distract from language-learning tasks and ultimately suck the life out of what is advertised as a self-directed, self-motivated process. It seems wasteful and nonsensical to actually aim to create artifacts for the sake of creating artifacts when the ultimate goal is to learn the language as an independent, self-directed learner. I believe the productions of “artifacts” are a natural result of hard work and genuine investment in language-learning. You completely engross yourself in the experience. As a student here, you read, you write sentences, you practice, you conduct research, you go to restaurants, you meet people, you speak with natives, and you investigate and learn what you want to learn. A child learning a language at home or a student abroad has dozens of “artifacts” a day. The notion of having to document and write about these events every single week to prove that you’ve done something to the instructor is drudgery and belittling. Independent learning is a natural, exhilarating, exciting, and beautiful process for those who are truly passionate about learning, about discovering creative ways that they learn and can learn.

These requirements undermine the very meaning of an “independent, self-directed” learner. These requirements seem to presume an underlying, fundamental distrust of the “independent, self-directed” learner. Why else would there be weekly assignments, posts, and tasks to keep students focused? I think it is sad and very inhibiting for those who truly try to be independent learners, but instead, find themselves having to invest unnecessary mental energy, time, and added stress to showing that you’ve done something, of explaining what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. I cannot express my disenchantment with these assignments enough. Honestly, I find myself feeling mentally and physically sicker when I have to force myself to complete these things each week. I find them to be a complete waste of time for motivated students attempting to maximize their learning. While it is true that the program might have had a history of lazy individuals who believed that taking this class would entail no work and an easy A, fine, spoon-feed them. Badger them. For those who intend to get something done, it is my sincere hope that this program will, in the future, identify those students and treat as they are: independent, self-directed learners. I signed up for this course thinking that I’d be free from the restrictions of the classroom environment reporting to an instructor every day, answering to a textbook, and learning in cookie cutter fashion. Unfortunately I feel that the major difference is that the mandatory meeting time has been reduced to one class per week.

To the assignment: What artifacts will you use to document your learning? I will pay as little attention to artifacts as possible. I’ve already begun to feel the negative effects of diverting my attention from the fun I was having actually learning the language in my own way. I do not plan to use them as tools or assessments. Nor will I plan to create certain artifacts for the sake of creating artifacts. Rather, I will continue as I did before, learning as much as I can and having as much as I can and posting these artifacts that I happen to produce as a product of the natural process to, and only to, satisfy the requirements of this course despite the indigestion I feel while bringing myself up to do them.

Weeks 5 and 6 were spent learning the parts of speech, of course in Dari. Primarily, the focus was on verbs (فعل) and adjectives (مفت). It was really interesting to compare how verbs and adjectives are written in English as compared to Dari. For instance, when dealing with superlatives Dari, two different suffixes are used, as shown in the example below:

good - خوب

better - خوبتر

best - خوبترن

As you can see, the suffixes change as you move up. The word good is simply written as خوب, to say or write better we add the suffix -تر (-er) which results in خوبتر, and, finally, to say or write best we use the suffix -ترن (-est) arriving at خوبترن.

Some examples of verbs are:

to eat - خوردن

to talk - گپ زدن

to get - گرفتن

to see - دىدن

to go - رفتن

When I was talking to Dr. Grove, we discussed the importance of artifacts and it truly struck me how I can really use the artifacts.   Me making flashcards is one form of an artifact, but another really great way I can document my learning is by creating short videos of myself saying every word that I have learned.  This will not only work on my visual comprehension of my vocabulary, but it will also work on my pronounciation.  This way I can track my progress for my recognition of the vocabulary that I am learning.   I am going to try and begin this method, this week.  

 During Week 5, my language partner, Shir and I worked on reviewing all of our vocabulary that I had learned so far in regards to food and beginning to recognize the words in Hebrew script.    I have always known how to read the Hebrew block letters, but learning and beginning to recognize the script letters is much more difficult since the letters look similar to each other.

     I have been working with the letters for flash cards and I still have difficulty working with script letters.   Shir and I have come up with a list of 60 words that I know.  I am now working on recognizing these words on paper and not just orally.  

   I have learned that even though I can be learning a lot of vocabulary verbally, I still need to work hard on my written vocabulary.   I feel confident that I am learning at a steady pace and that I am retaining the information.  

I thought Pooja’s focus on the Hindi tradition of touching feet as a sign of respect was particularly interesting for two reasons. First, in the Chinese/Laotian/Malaysian cultural household I’ve grown up in, the feet are considered dirty. Setting one’s foot on an eating surface or at an individual’s head level is considered extraordinarily rude. The foot has a connection with the dirty ground, bacteria, and overall poor sanitary conditions. To touch or kiss another’s feet would be considered not as a sign of respect, but one that signifies either humiliation or the imposition of power over another. So when heard Pooja’s presentation of touching feet as one of the highest signs of respect and exaltation, I was intrigued. Second, this drastically different cultural practiced led me to think about greetings in Bosnia. I recently learned that Bosnians engage in 2-3 cheek touches/kisses to greet one another. In contrast to a comparatively conservative Asian culture, I found this very interesting. While Bosnians are considered social, they are also considered sexually and socially conservative. They tend to trust only close friends and family and have a very conservative attitude towards sexual practices, especially foreplay and the romance involved. But they kiss! Interestingly, mainstream Americans seem to possess opposite traits: socially and sexually liberal. Perhaps this is why Americans find kissing or cheek touching inappropriate or uncomfortable? Precisely because kissing is sexually or romantically connected whereas in Bosnian culture sex is quite literally and exclusively, sex (I’ve yet to see BCS movie sex scenes, but this is the impression given to me by my language partner)?

The evidence for my “research” here has been compiled from my experience with Bosnian international students, Bosnian films, and an interview with a Bosnian Serb from Trebinje. For fun, I decided to guess at whether or not Bosnians tended to be more individualist/collectivist, monochronic/polychromic, internal forces/external forces determine destiny, and direct/indirect communication before the interview. I am pleased to report that my hunches were all correct.

As far as formality and informality goes, there are ways of speaking to indicate respect for an elder person. “Kako si” for instance, is used for friends, while one would say “Kako ste” for formal situations. You’d use “ti” for the informal you, and “vi” for formal. In all of my interactions with Bosnian people and Bosnian culture, I’ve yet to hear formal speak. I hear please very rarely, thank you a little more often. For the most part, I’d say the culture is more informal and less inclined to care for appearing polite to each other

Individualist vs. Collectivist

Bosnians place extraordinary importance on the family and the value of friendship and teamwork. One of the very first things my mentor told me was that family was very, very, very important to Bosnians. The “why” question is harder to answer. While this is just a guess from what I’ve learned and observed, family is the one guaranteed trustworthy and safe environment there is. In a country destroyed by war, by their own countrymen, by neighbors, and by external forces, it is no wonder there is a fundamental distrust towards individuals outside the family unit. While this can limit meaningful interactions with the outside world, the love that is displayed within Bosnian families I’ve interacted with and spoken to is unlike familial relationships I’ve seen anywhere else. They tend to be highly passionate, emotional, and loyal talking about one another and in action towards one another. There is also a fierce care and defensiveness towards family members. I’ve never heard serious complaints about Bosnian family members without at least two positive comments to follow up. There seems to be sacred bonds within the Bosnian family.

This collectivist mentality is also on display in team-oriented projects. Two Bosnian friends of mine in fact, had a quarrel about an incident during a business activity. Individual A decided that the group was slacking, and that victory could only be achieved if they took charge for their perceivably incompetent and apathetic members. Individual B was taken aback by such behavior and was appalled that Individual A would do such a thing. For Individual B, you must bring the group up and include the group in all major decisions before engaging in activities. To leave the group and do one’s own thing was seen as selfish.

Monochronic v. Polychronic

Bosnians appreciate timeliness. In my experience, if you ask a Bosnian to meet at five o’clock, you will meet them at five o’clock.

Internal Forces v. External Forces

From my observations, knowing the religiosity and reasoning behind events that either end favorably or unfavorably, Bosnians believe that fortune, luck, and God play the largest role in determining one’s destiny. In the movies I watched especially, one can pick up on the sardonic “damnit this sucks” and that’s it humor. It’s a hysterical form of dark, fatalist humor. To give a more graphic and crude example, Americans will say “fuck, I suck”, or something to that effect. They blame and get angry at themselves as if they’re in control of circumstances. When something goes wrong, a Bosnian will likely say something to the effect of “I might as well let a duck fuck me”. In contrast to the other phrase, this phrase shows that the individual has done all they can, yet fate has decided to be unfavorable towards them. It’s as if nothing they do can make a difference. Americans in sum, will say I deserve this for better or worse. Bosnians are more likely to thank or surrender to higher powers, “i to je to”, and that’s that.

Direct Communication v. Indirect Communication

Bosnians can be incredibly intense in your face people. They are very direct and passionate in conversation. Small talk does not make them more comfortable. In fact, small talk makes them more uncomfortable. They want to deal with issues, especially emotional and social ones, as quickly as possible so that everyone can embrace, increase their understanding, and move on with their lives together in war or peace.

Cultural Post #2

I discussed the BCS writing system briefly in my presentation. Depending on where you are in the country, it is either in Cyrillic or Latin. You’d be safe most anywhere knowing the Latin. While the English alphabet as 26 letters, the Bosnian alphabet has 30.

Bosnian doesn’t have q, w, x, or y. Obviously, Bosnian also has letters that do not exist in the English language: š, ž, nj, lj, Đ, Dž, Ć, Č.

Artifact 1

Email Correspondence

Though the grammar might not be there, it is my very first effort to write in Bosnian. In the first email, I ask her how long she has been learning English (because I have now fully realized the impressiveness of her English speaking abilities), how here love interest is, and how fun, but slow and difficult the process of learning Bosnian well really is! I also ask if she’d be willing to be my pen pal. The second email was her encouragement. She was very supportive of my efforts and seemed impressed with what I’ve been able to do in only 1.5 months. She told an inspirational story of a PhD friend who now speaks Bosnian very well! Here is a rough transcript of our correspondence. The third email thanks her for the encouragement. I’ve edited out some personal things, but this should provide an idea of what I’ve been up to.

From: Justin

To: Friend in Bosnia

slusaj!!! aha!

koliko dugo si naucio engleski?? kako je tvoja dragi?

bosanski je vrlo zabavno, nego tezak. ovo proces je sporo! ne svida mi je sporo. svida mi je brz. znam samo o petso rjeci. jebi moj zivot. smeda govna.

trebam da vjezbatam puno. da li zelis biti moj "prijatelja s kojim se dopisuje" (google translate)?

:)

From: Friend in Bosnia

To: Justin

Justin!

Wow, stvrano si napredovao! Iako učiš Bosanski samo 1.5 mjeseci, dobro ti ide. Ja sam jako ponosna na tebe! :)

I naravno da ću ti biti penpal. 

Moras prihvatiti činjenicu da je proces učenja jezika dug i spor, ali uz upornost i rad bit ćeš u mogućnosti da govoriš Bosanski jako dobro. Ja imam jednu prijateljicu iz Španije koja je u Bosni radila PhD i za 2 godine ona je naučila Bosanski super da govori! Tako ćeš i ti - sigurna sam u to! Ja jako poštujem činjenicu da si ti tako posvećen i da si odlučio da odeš u Bosnu i tamo provedeš neko vrijeme i da naučiš jezik. To je fascinantno!

Kako si ti?

P.S. Vidim da si naučio i neke psovke. Tako treba, samo naprijed!

P.P.S. I hope you'll learn bunch of new words from this email.  

From: Justin

To: Friend in Bosnia

hvala lijepo. ti si ljubazna i iskrena i vrla ohrabrujuća. ja sam zahvalan ti si moj prijatelja.

ja osjecam frustracija zato sto spor proces, nego proslo ja sam citao tvoja pismo, sam srecan! ja nadam ja cu govorim dobro! oni je vazno ja naucim bosanski. ja necu odem Bosna dok ja sam tecno! aha! ja sam rekao moj otac danas o Fulbright u Bosna. dobro je ide.

tvoja engleski je vrlo, vrlo dobro kada ja mislim o to sada. cestitam. tvoja bosanski je dobro isto. cestitam.

ne dragi? eh. nije vazno.

odluku o study abroad?

Goal For the Week:

Noun Cases

~50 Vocab Words

Result:

4/7 Noun Cases

~50 Vocab Words

Method:

While reviewing the nominative and genitive cases from last week, I learned the accusative and vocative cases. It’s going to be a challenge setting all of those endings straight, but I think I’m already beginning to catch on. It’s been really helpful writing this Bosnian friend of mine. I’ve also been exploring the online newspaper titled “Oslobodjenje”: http://www.oslobodjenje.ba/ and flipping through some pages of an academic piece on the Bosnian War and the current state of Bosnian/American relations from the perspective of the current U.S.-Bosnian Ambassador Patrick S. Moon.

This week, we learned how to express degrees of comparison in Farsi. To put an adjective in the comparative form, add –tar to the end as a suffix. To put an adjective in the superlative form, add –tarin to the end. ‘Big’ in Farsi is ‘bozorg’. ‘Bigger’ would be ‘bozogtar,’ and ‘biggest’ would be ‘bozogtarin.’ My language partner had us write three sentences for twenty different adjectives, using the three forms of the adjective.

We also had a short quiz on what we have been learning over the past few weeks.

I finished the first unit of Rosetta Stone this week. In unit 1, level 1, I learned basic vocabulary such as the words for different types of food (coffee, bread, etc.), people (man, woman, etc.), how to make the plural form of a word, and basic verbs (to run, to read, to cook, etc.) and how to use it all in a sentence.

Something I have really wanted to improve upon this semester is my knowledge of grammar and parts of speech in Dari. Additionally, I also wanted to practice some more of my writing ability and expand my vocabulary. That said, this past week my fellow Dari learners and I were working on adjectives with our language partner. The following spreadsheet includes 20 Dari adjectives (including their comparative forms) and sentences using each adjective (English translations are also included):

Adjectives in Dari

I am so curious about what young adults do in Afghanistan for fun. It is so hard to find truly fun activities apart from the standard party, go to the mall or movies in the United States alone, so I’m interested in seeing if it’s the same there. I will explore this topic by talking to Mirwais and Susan, my former language partner, and seeing what they do when at home for a good time. As a subtopic, I also want to learn about subcultures in Afghanistan. For example, we have the hood rat subculture, the emo subculture, nerd subculture, etc. So do groupings like this happen in Afghanistan? I will do online research of Afghan pop culture blogs and such to try to map this out. If the subtopic proves to have a lot of supporting information then I may allow it to take precedence in my cultural project. I have a feeling that I will be dependent on interviewing students from Afghanistan to get the most accurate accounts of this. This has all sparked my interest because in the U.S., the media has gotten so many people wrapped up on Afghanistan being a war zone and it is sickening. There is life beyond that and I am only scratching the surface by my personal exploration. I am looking forward to getting the interviews started and learning all that I can for a successful, informative final project. Maybe I can even get some photographs of young adults engaging in this recreation.

To document my learning, my first artifact was a voice recording of me introducing myself using Voki. I chose to record myself saying the greetings, farewells, and introductions because that way I can hear how I sound and figure out if I am pronouncing anything wrong or figure out what needs improvement. For my second artifact, I will be recording myself speaking to a partner to show that I can ask and answer questions about my identity. It will be a dialogue asking questions such as "What is your name?" "How old are you?" "What is your occupation/what do you do?". I will be responding to these questions when my partner asks me and all of this will be recorded to document my learning. My third artifact will be a description of my family members using my family portrait. By doing this, I will be introducing myself and the rest of my family in Korean to show what I have learned so far. This will also be a recording. Lastly, my final artifact will focus on ordering food at a restaurant. I will document this with pictures and recordings of how to do this.

For my learning plan, I have learned a lot of things so far, such as my introduction, asking for directions, or understanding very basic sentences. I guess learning more vocabulary and using them in sentences is not so hard and I can do it easily.

The thing I should pay more attention is the grammar and usage of the verb with gender differences. I would also like to start reading some simple and basic poems, which is one of my goals to learn. Learning days of the week, and numbers are also easy. I am sure by the end of this semester I will be able learn a lot of other words and get into intermediate level of learning Urdu.