For sixth week I am planning to practice my second artifact with my language partner, and learn some new vocabs in order to make short sentences. I would also learn the numbers from 50-100, and will try to write and memorize them soon.
beside this I would also like to watch some youtube videos on how to form some sentences and know the structure of a sentence in Urdu.
for my first artifact I chose my introduction in Urdu, and I guess since then I have improved so much in making the right sound of the words, pronunciation, and grammer structure. I have learned so many other words, that I can now clearly make small sentences like, what do I study, where do I study, where do I go now, what do I eat etc.
for my second, artifact, I am planning on recording a conversation with my language partner practicing questions about my daily activities as well as practicing days of the week with some sentences. I feel like I have learned so much since I started but I do not exactly have a count of how many words.
Here is the presentation on culture of Pakistan
From not being able to read a single letter of Farsi (I used to joke with my parents that it all looked like squiggles) to being able to read very simple sentences, I feel like I have really come a far way in less than a semester. While I can't read Farsi with anywhere near the fluency I can in English, I feel like a kindergartener again, squinting over letters and piecing together sentences. I am no longer the preschooler who could only see shapes and not recognize letters at all. I have learned, at this point, to read words and sentences, and even a paragraph, although that takes a much longer amount of time. I am able to read the sentences my language partner writes, although slowly.
It is really difficult for me to quantify the number of words that I know. Growing up hearing Farsi but not actually understanding it, I learned many words by osmosis or learned to recognize the sounds of words, without knowing their meanings. Now I am going back and formally learning many of the words that are familiar to me from childhood. If I had to guess, I would say that I know around 200 words in Farsi, not including the cognates from English or French.
For the first two weeks, I plan to review all that I learned in 110 and 111, so that I can build upon that knowledge. I was not able to practice more than a few hours over the summer because of my work schedule and traveling. During the first two weeks, I reviewed the alphabet, numbers, simple phrases for response (yes,no,maybe), verb conjugation in the past tense and I had two homework assignments. The first of the two homework assignments dealt with looking up 10 words, given to us in English, in a Persian dictionary and we had to write out the translations. The second assignment required me to conjugate 10 verbs for the six pronouns. I used the strategy of memorization, flipping through a Persian dictionary and writing skills to accomplish it homework at hand. These strategies were highly effective and I received perfect grades on both assignments. I am especially confident in my writing and speaking ability in regards to verbs,that sort of came naturally with few if any errors generally. I will build on all of this by continuing to expand my vocabulary as I translate words from English to Dari and I will also converse to build on every element of learning the language.
So far I am feeling confident because this is all touching on things I simply needed to be refreshed on. However; I do find it hard to understand and respond to conversation solely in Dari. This is chiefly because I do not have many words to work with. If I had a better grasp of vocabulary, then sure I could handle fast paced, complex conversations in the classroom. I will attempt to strengthen this by learning more vocabulary.
I am in my third semester of learning Persian or Dari (Afghanistan) in a self-directed environment. In previous semesters, I have learned basic skills such as how to write the alphabet and numbers. This has granted me the ability to be able to write out words and even simple sentences in the language. I also learned basic conversation in Dari, such as the essential exchange of “Hello, How are you?” I also learned how to tell what I like and do not like in the simplest of terms (i.e. I like Farsi). Throughout the journey, I have also engaged in basic level conversations in regards to describing my day, the weather, my family, among other things. This semester, I would really like to focus on extending my vocabulary because I have the knowledge of sentence structure and conversation flow, but no words to use to deliver this. This semester, I hope to learn positive, negative, sympathetic and neutral reactions (i.e. “That’s amazing,” “How horrible,” “That’s tragic,” and “So so”). Also, as I build upon my vocabulary, I would like to learn how to describe myself as well as others and eventually be able to tell that I am Senior, Journalism major hoping to go into a career involving entertainment. It would be of the utmost importance to learn how to understand simple instructions and know how to ask for directions to places. Then, I have had experience ordering food in a restaurant in my first semester and also this semester, but I would like to learn etiquette vocabulary, so I can be just as polite in Dari as I am in English. Additionally, I need to learn how to ask if items contain meat since I am a vegetarian. Finally, I want to be able to build upon my likes and dislikes. Most importantly, I would like to be able to hold conversations going at a typical pace for Dari native speakers.
I will be using the Hindi alphabet I wrote as an artifact. The Hindi alphabet is divided into three sections: vowels, consonants, and matras.
Knowing the alphabet is the key to knowing the Hindi language. The language is based on phonetics. Each Hindi letter has a sound and these letters/sounds put together create words. The thirty-three consonants have their own unique sounds. These letters can be combined with matras. The matras have their own unique sounds as well. The sounds of matras can be combined with consonants to create variety of sounds. For example, the consonant क can be put together with the matra of उ to create the sound कु. The consonant त combined with the matra of आ creates ता. कु and ता put together form कुता which means dog.
My artifact consist of four sheets of paper. These pages contain thirty-three consonants out together with ten matras. Writing and practicing this helped me accomplish numerous goals. First and foremost, it made me more familiar with the alphabet. Second, it allowed me to put together consonants and matras together to help me form more sounds. Doing so directly affected my ability to read Hindi and talk in the language.
Doing this artifact brought me one step closer to reaching my learning goal for this semester.
One of my big goals for this semester is learning how to read and write in Hindi. When I meet with my language partner we primarily focus on these goals. Hindi alphabet is based on phonetics which makes learning new words a little easier. If I have a strong grasp of the vowels, consonants and their combinations with the matras, I can look at a new word and attempt to pronounce it.
For the purpose of this assignment, as I read, I tried to pronounce each alphabet. Since each alphabet has a unique sound associated with it, at the end, I was able to combine various sounds to form proper words. I was able to read and comprehend more than I expected.
It is hard for me to calculate exactly how many words of Hindi I know. Since I went to school in India, I learned elementary Hindi for two years. When I moved to the United States, due to the lack of practice, I forgot all that I had learned. When I have conversations with my language partner, I can recall a lot of words. As of now, I believe I know approximately 150 words in Hindi.
My goal for this semester is learning how to read, write, understand and speak Hindi at an elementary level. In the span of three weeks, I have learned the alphabet, numbers, days of the week, and how to tell time. I feel as though I do have realistic goals. I am hoping to be able to read basic signs in Hindi and have a legitimate “elementary level” conversation with a native speaker.
Language Partner Meeting #3
Goal for the semester: My goal for this semester is achieve the “elementary” level of Hindi, i.e. read, write, and speak.
Week: 9/24/12 – 9/30/12
Date: September 29, 2012 and September 30, 2012
Goal for the day: Be able to tell time
This week Sanya and I met twice. During our first meeting, we went over the alphabet. I wrote the consonants from my memory. I was able to recall approximately 25 of the 33 consonants. After this, Sanya asked me to put consonants and matras to get and I got all the aksars right. Sanya also asked me to write vowels. I had an extremely hard time recalling all the vowels. Therefore, we went over the vowels and I wrote them multiple times.
After this, we refreshed my memory of numbers. I remembered all the numbers I was taught and I was able to move on to learning about time. To make it less complicated, we divided the clock into quarters: sava, sadhe, and pone. Sanya drew clocks and I told the time.
In our next session, we went over the alphabets again. This time I got all the vowels, consonants, and matras right. Then we practiced some basic greetings and introductions. We utilized both formal and informal terms. Next, we went over time again. This time instead of simply telling the time in Hindi, I wrote short sentences telling time.
Our session ended with cultural talk. In this meeting, we talked about our families and the similarities/differences amongst them. We also discussed the difference between being an “Indian-American” versus being an “Indian-Indian”. We found some fundamental similarities such as the importance of passing along the Indian culture and we also discovered some differences in the way which the culture is passed along.
Below are the PDF files of the Hindi alphabet that I wrote. I put consonants together with matras in order to from aksars.
SDLAP 105 Entry #4
Presentations Last Week:
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)?
How many new words have you learned? Do you have realistic goals?
I’ve probably learned between 500 and 700 words. I would really love to double or triple this count by the time the semester is up. Some might consider my goals too high. I acknowledge the dangers of doing so. One might feel disappointed or underestimate one’s accomplishments. One might even overestimate one’s accomplishments in an effort to “save face” and meet those goals.
For me however, it is precisely these high-bar goals that keep me motivated. The prospect of reading, writing, and speaking fluently in the target language is really exciting. To keep medium and long range goals in sight, for me, is incredibly important. If anything, friends and mentors should encourage or help you understand how “realistic” goals are by helping you verbalize, quantify, or conceptualize exactly what it is going to take to reach that place you want to be. Having knowledgeable, pragmatic, yet supportive and encouraging friends and mentors have been incredibly important to my progress thus far. They’ve either lifted me in times of doubt, or motivated me with their pessimism! To believe that it is possible to read a novella by the end of the semester, realistic or not provides me with an opportunity to plan steps that, at the very least, provides a chance that the goal might be reached.
SDLAP 110 Entry #5
Goal for the Week:
Learn 50 Vocab Words
Begin to learn Noun Cases
Result:
Learned ~50 Vocab Words
Learned two of seven noun cases (nominative and genitive)
Method:
For the next couple weeks, my language partner and I decided to meet three times per week for longer periods of time. This would give her more time to prepare lessons for noun cases, apparently the most challenging grammatical aspect of BCS. It should also allow me much needed time to review, practice, consolidate, and master the material I’ve learned. After noun cases, I’ll likely request a week of “midterm” exams where my partner will test me for a week on all the material we’ve covered so far before moving on to anything new. I think this midterm period will give me a perfect opportunity to complete a few artifacts and cultural postings as well.
I now officially have a Bosnian penpal! Though I have to use my dictionary extensively, my grammar is terrible, and letters are going to take a very long time to compose, I am very excited.
This will be a combined reflection for week four and five (as we talked about).
Week 4 post:
My goals for these two weeks are to learn 40 new vocabulary words, the numbers, family members, and also to identify a few words in the ever so popular song "Gangnam Style" to get a sense of what the song is actually about. I plan on watching more youtube videos that help with these topics and also to listen to the song repeatedly. At the end of week 5, I will evaluate my success by testing myself to see how many words I actually remember. I will also create a worksheet for myself with pictures of family members such as mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, and etc to see if I can write the words in English letters how it is sounded. I will also test myself to see if I can count from 1-10 out loud. As for the song, I will listen to it once more and write down as many words I can identify.
Week 5 post:
I've mostly been using the online book under resources to learn new vocabulary, numbers, and family members. Also, I watched many different youtube videos that helped with pronunciation of the new words/phrases I've been teaching myself. I met with my new language partner for two hours today and she helped ALOT with this week's learning. She was able to re-explain the alphabet system to me and even went over my introduction with me to check my process. Then we discussed the formal/informal aspect of the language and went on to learn the numbers and family members. Because it was our first time meeting, we made sure that everything was clear and she answered any question I had and helped me understand everything better. I learned that the number system is a little complicated because there's a different way for counting and for telling age. I now know how to count from 1-10. I reached majority of my goals for these two weeks because I successfully learned 40 new vocabulary including the numbers and family members. I was not able to complete the last part of my goal about the song but this will be done with my next week's goal.
Artifact evaluation:
I think my first artifact was a success. I was able to record myself using Voki which was a fun process. Before I recorded it, my language partner listened me for the linguistic accuracy. In the beginning I had trouble pronouncing words with the letter "L" in it because it's a much softer sound than how it is said in the English language. With practice, I was able to say it the correct way. In my introduction, I said the basic facts of my name, age, origin, what school I attend, and my major. In addition, I added fun facts like my favorite color and food. I ended the introduction with a "it's very nice to meet you". Everything was spoken in the formal language.
This week, we visited an Afghan restaurant to learn more about Afghan cuisine and culture. I was very interested to see the similarities between Afghan and Iranian food. They were similar enough to remind me of my mom’s cooking and make me miss home a lot! I had a lamb kebab with rice, and kebab with rice is one of the staples of Iranian cuisine. I even had one of my favorite drinks, doogh, which is a carbonated yoghurt drink.
In class, we learned the words for the different colors, days of the week, and numbers. We also read and wrote a short paragraph about a girl named Shila and her day, practicing our translation skills. We translated an Afghan poem about going to school for the first time as well.
I was able to converse with our waitress, and order my food in Farsi, so I was pretty pleased with my accomplishments there. I learned how to count to 100 this week, which had been one of my goals for a long time, so I was also happy about that. I also learned how to say all of the days of the week, which are actually pretty simple (Saturday is "shanbeh," and every day after that is just a number with "shanbe" attached. Sunday is "yekshanbe", Monday is "doshanbe," and so on. Only Friday is irregular, it's the Arabic term "jom'eh). Mirwais also taught us colors. I was surprised to see the different between the colors my mother had taught me and the terms used in Afghanistan. Iranians say "ghermez" for red, while Afghans use the word "serkh". "Soorati" means pink in the Iranian dialect, while "golabi" is pink in the Afghan dialect (interestingly, "golabi" means pear in the Iranian dialect). So overall, I think I met my learning goals from last week pretty well.
I also uploaded an artifact, where I use greetings, introductions, and farewells. The dialogue translates as, "Hello. How are you? I'm well. My name is Layla Samandi. What's your name? It's nice to meet you. Goodbye." Although without another person, this would be a typical first meeting with someone. I was slightly annoyed with myself for forgetting to include something like good morning ("sobh bekheir"), which would be typical in Iran to add, but otherwise I am pretty happy with my first Voki.
Language Partner Meeting #2
Goal for the semester: My goal for this semester is achieve the “elementary” level of Hindi, i.e. read, write, and speak.
Week: 9/17/12 – 9/23/12
Date: September 22, 2012
Goal for the day: Get familiar with the Hindi alphabets and use them to learn days of the week and numbers
My meeting with Sanya started with writing and pronouncing the Hindi alphabet. We orally went over the vowels, consonants and matras multiple times. This form of repetition helped me get comfortable with pronunciation of letters and it also helped me remember the letters. As we continued on with this for about fifteen minutes, Sanya helped me put vowels and consonants with matras in order to form proper words.
Doing so directly led us to Hindi vocabulary. Hindi language is based on phonetics. Sanya recited numerous words for me, to evaluate if I could recall Hindi. I was surprised at how much I remembered. After we established this, I started spelling the basic words in Hindi. I spelled nineteen words.
After this we moved on to days of the week. First Sanya introduced me to the words and I found them closely related with Gujarati. I tired spelling these words on my own and I succeeded with the exception of a few words.
Then we moved on to numbers. The numbers in Hindi are written differently than the English numbers. I learned how to write them first followed by spelling them.
Overall, I really enjoyed this session. I was able to focus on the alphabet and yet simultaneously learn days of the week and the Hindi numbers.
Greetings in Hebrew Artifact 1
I have attached a link to my First Artifact
Assessing myself did not take very long, because it made me realize how much I do NOT know. As of right now I am a Low Novice in all of the categories. My goal for this semester is to increase my abilities in Listening and Speaking. I would like to be a Mid Novice - High Novice at the end of this semester. Shir and I are working on getting a taste of a variety of topics and now we are starting to work on becoming familiar with particular basic subjects. Next semester I would like to work on my reading comprehension and writing.
Lesson Plan: At the beginning of this semester I had virtually no vocabulary other than the basic hello and goodbye. My lesson is as follows:
1. Learn about Food: how to order food, how to make food, cooking in Hebrew, how to buy ingredients, and about Israeli foods (goal: Make Shakshuka with Shir, Amit and Alex).
2. Learn about Nature: How to talk about the weather, the woods, learn my colors, learn names of animals, (Bonus: talk about camping in Hebrew). Culture: Learn more about the importance of water and learn Israeli conservation methods for water.
3. Misc: Learn Hebrew cursive script, become proficient at reading Hebrew script and recognizing vocabulary words. Be able to conjugate a verb for I, you (m) and you (f).
This week my language partner and I met and we talked about our weekend, what we did, and what we are going to do. This brought me to learning the days of the week, the months, and how ask someone their birthday. My Homework was to talk to Alex and Amit and ask them for their birthdays. This led to a funny conversation between us, where I did not ask them when their birthday was, but "What is your birth?" I am still learning to pronounce my words correctly, but I am definitely progressing in my ability to speak and my vocabulary. If someone asks me a question in Hebrew, I can usually answer it. I am also starting to grasp the difference between male and female verb tenses.
