My learning plan for the semester is attached in the link below:
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Goal: Master telling time and incorporating numbers 11-12 for this purpose
This week, my language partners and I met twice. We focused heavily on understanding time in Gujarati.
This week I focused heavily on telling time. Gujarat and greater India operate as a polychronic society. To a polychron, time is continuous, with no particular structure. Polychrons see time as a never-ending river, flowing from the infinite past, through the present, into the infinite future. Although this is very true, I figured that time is still an important aspect, as people do ask each other for the time during the work day. So I learned that (Ketla Vagya Che) means wha time is it? I respond with # vagya che. So if it is 2pm then I say, be vagya che.
These were the most important aspect of my learning process this week.
Numbers: (1-12)
1: ek
2. be
3. thrun
4. charr
5. pach
6. cho
7. sathh
8. at
9. now
10. das
11. ugyar
12. byar
and phrases of course: I had to incorporate half, quarter, and three quarters time
sadah: 1/2
suhva: 1/4
pona: 3/4
Gujarati differs from English time in that there are two exceptions
thord: 1:30
uhdhi: 2:30
Pooja drew up a large clock for me. So I have been practicing on the clock.
When I incorporate the additional phrases, I add only one component, the phrase at the beginning.
For example:
It is 3:30, Sadah thrun vagya che
It is 1:30: Thord vagya che
It is 7:45: Pona sathh vagya che
This was an incredible learning experience this week. Time is so essential and can be a great conversation starter. I'm eager to learn it to the point where I don't have to look at a clock and think about it.
Attached is my first culture presentation for SDLC 105. My topic was cuisine in Iran and how it reflects Iranian culture.
Attached is my Levels of Competence/LinguaFolio checklists evaluation.
InterpersonalPerson2PersonNCSSFLTemplate_October2009.docI
nterpretiveReadingNCSSFLTemplate_October2009.doc
This week, I researched the culture of Iran and how it made sense with the linguistic aspects of the Persian language I had determined last week. It made sense to me how intertwined the two were.
For example, I determined that Iranian culture was collectivist and family-oriented, which was reflected in the language's many words for family members. This week, I learned about how important family really is in Iranian culture. For example, grandparents in Iranian society are not sent to nursing homes but are taken care of by their children. Family is the basis of the social structure in Iran and nepotism is widely practiced -- it is seen as being able to hire people who are trusted and not strangers. Family loyalty is very strong in Iran.
Iranian society is quite polychronic. There is always an abundance of time. For example, when people meet on the street in Iran, they will stop to chat for as long as they like -- there is no rush to be anywhere. Trust is necessary in Iranian culture, so taking the time to get to know someone well is vital, and looking hurried or being concerned about wasting time can make one look untrustworthy.
Respect is also very important in Iranian culture, reflected in having the second-person formal pronoun in the language. One must always remove his or her shoes when entering a place of worship (typically a mosque) or someone's home.
This week's journal entry is focused on reading in my target language. After I learned the alphabet, I had to learn how to put the consonants and vowels together. There has to be consonant with every vowel in each word. At first it was a bit confusing but with more practice I got started to get the hang of it. Reading in characters is much different from reading in cyrillic (which is what I am used to.) Although reading in Korean is challenging, it is still very fun to learn to read. I can now read my new vocabulary and this is really helpful because I can teach myself how to pronounce new words on my own. So far, I think I've learned over 120 words included with vocabulary, dialogues, and numbers. I did not set a limit to how many words I should be learning but I did set a goal for my reading skills. I am more focused on being able to speak the language rather than read but at the end of this semester, I would like to be able to read small blurbs, titles of places and any time I see Korean writing. I may not be able to know what these things mean but I will still be able to read it and ask someone what that word means.
While weeks one and two of the semester allowed me to review what I learned in SDLC 110 and catch up on some of the things I might have lost effectiveness in over the summer, I was excited to begin learning new material. Weeks three and four were split creating / structuring sentences and reading / listening comprehension, respectively. Mirwais (the FLTA for the course) used week three to gauge everyone's ability to read and write; given their prior experience coming into the course. One activity we did was practice writing sentences in Dari that Mirwais said in Dari. Building upon the meetings from week three, week four was spent on comprehension. As a result, we read--or at least attempted to--read sentences in Dari and then summarize (in Dari) what the sentences meant. To aid our language learning, and add a different perspective, Mirwais had us watch the pilot for a popular Afghan drama / soap-opera called "Raaz Hai Een Khana;" which translates into "The Secrets of this House." The episode was just under ten minutes and Mirwais had tasked us with trying to listen intently to the show's dialogue and then (i) provide a brief synopsis of the episode and (ii) note any words we were not familiar with. I thought this was a great task since it not only was designed to improve our ability with the language, but also provided a level of exposure to Afghan culture since the "Raaz Hai Een Khana" is arguably the most popular show in Afghanistan.
Food is very important to Israeli culture. Because Israeli culture is a mixture of eastern and western cultures, many "israeli" foods are actually the same as other Mediterranean countries. In addition, some of the most well-known "Israeli" foods are actually foods customary for Jewish holidays such as: Latkes, Matzah Ball Soup and Hamatashin.
The strong integration between customary Jewish foods and Israeli food can be seen in the end of the following video. The Israeli is trying to explain why Jelly Donuts are special to Jews and he mixes up all of the various special Jewish events trying to tell the story of Jelly Donuts (which, are customary in Israeli during Hannukah, the festival of Lights). I remember at the end of EVERY holiday service or special event at synagogue we would say "They tried to kill us, they didn't, now let's eat!". To me this symbolizes that no matter what happens, Israelis and Jews always think with their stomach :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoILVn43Lnw
A customary dish to make with friends in Israel is Shakshookah. This dish is a breakfast dish and "is not mean to be bought at a store, but to be experienced and made with friends." said my Israeli tour guide, Nadav. The dish itself is not the most amazing, but it is the experience of making it with friends that makes this food so important to Israeli culture. The experience of cooking together brings people together.
The following link gives some amazing recipes to some of these dishes.
http://www.foodbycountry.com/Germany-to-Japan/Israel.html#b
This link is great, even though the lady is not home making Shakshookah, it gives some insight as in to how it is made and a little bit about eating in Israel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGFaAvv69PY
A major difference from American culture when talking about food, is that Breakfast and Lunch are the most important meals of the day. Dinner is customarily a small meal and consists of hummus and a vegetable salad.
The following link is about making Israeli Salad:
This week Shir and I met at dhall and then went for a walk around the lake. We talked about the various types of foods that we were eating, what we had for breakfast that morning, and a little bit about buying food. We also talked about the colors of trees and of nature around us. During our conversation I was able to master a few of my colors, certain vegetables and some vocabulary about nature and use them in a multitude of sentences. I truly have seen a real increase in my vocabulary every time we meet.
One of the most primary gestures of the Indian culture is saying Namaste, also referred to as, namaskar. To say Namaste: place your hands together, raise them up to your chest and bow your head. Namaste is a gesture used to greet everyone, the people you know and the people you don’t know. This gesture is also used while praying in Hinduism. The Hindu religion is closely related to the Indian culture. Saying Namaste requires no physical contact with others. Namaste is used both to greet someone and to say goodbye; it means “hello” and “good day”.
Another very important Indian gesture is touching elders’ feet. Like Namaste, this idea is derived from Hinduism as well. Gods and Goddess are thought to reside in elders and, therefore, touching elders’ feet is like touch Gods’ and Goddess’ feet. In the act of doing so, one is paying respect to an elder and asking for their blessings. Whose feet do you really touch? Usually people touch the feet of saints and elders: grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunts. Sometimes people also touch their older siblings’ feet. The idea of touching elders’ feet, especially your older siblings, proves how vital respect is to the Indian culture. When do you touch elders’ feet? People touch elders’ feet on special occasions such as, birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, long-term leave from home, the Indian New Year etc.
Indian culture is a result of the combination of the Hindi language and Hinduism. Indian culture, as a whole, is more collective and much more polychornic. Family is plays a pivotal role in an individual’s life. There is always time for family, one can never be “too busy” to spend time with his/her family. Family and family’s honor comes before all. This notion largely affects the linguistic aspects of the Hindi.
Goal for the Week:
Learn 50 Vocab Words
Learn Past Tense
Learn To Tell Time
Result:
Learned ~90 Vocab Words
Learned to Tell Time
Learned Past Tense
Learned Future Tense
Learned Commands
Learned Ordinal Numbers
Learned a Couple of lines from the song “Eh Draga Draga”
Watched Gori Vatra
Method:
Most of the vocabulary was learned on my own and will need to be drilled with my language partner next week. This last week’s session was focused on recognizing and speaking in the past and future tenses. We also went over commands. Next week’s sessions will drill these skills, build vocabulary, and begin noun cases!
I’ve decided to try and start memorizing songs for fun in large part because Jamaica and Dr. Grove have shown such enthusiasm towards music as language-learning medium. Though I was skeptical at first, it’s been quite fun!
The movie was a dark, satirical comedy. I had trouble with remembering “house”, but the movie said that, and dropped the f-bombs so many times that I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. The movie got me thinking a lot about how misunderstood, yet good-willed and humorous the Bosnian people are despite their heavy trials, tribulations, limited resources, and really unfortunate turn of events they’ve been through. They seek to present themselves and their people in the best possible light.
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.
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.
Attached is my learning plan for the semester.
This week, we learned about pronouns and verb conjugation (past tense only). We learned the words for I, you (informal and formal), he/she, we, and they. We also learned how to conjugate verbs in the past tense, which is by adding different suffixes to the end of the infinitive. For example, the infinitive ‘raftan’ means ‘to go.’ By getting rid of the –an ending and adding –am to the end, ‘raftan’ can be conjugated to the first-person singular form in the past tense. The word ‘man’ means ‘I’, so the sentences ‘man raftam’ means ‘I went.’ For homework, we had to write sentences like the previous one with various verbs and all the pronouns.
We also learned how to say where we are from and ask someone where they are from.
My goals for this week and next week are to work more on conjugating verbs in the past, work on communication, and work more on learning basic things (colors, numbers, days of the week). Doing the homework Mirwais has given us will help me with improving my grammar. We will be going to a Persian restaurant next week so hopefully that will help me work on communicating with people, especially since these will be Persian speakers whom I don't already know. I will evaluate my success by seeing how well I do on the homework, reflecting on how well I can communicate with people at the restaurant, and seeing if I can count to 100, name the days of the week, and name colors.
Goal: Master immediate family members
This week, I meet with my language partners twice. We intensely covered family members. One partner drew up the family tree for me and the other orally went over pronunciation. I'll admit, this was a difficult task to master, as in the western language, for example, all aunts are aunts. In the Gujarati language, there are four different aunts! Mom's sister (masi), mom's brother's wife (mami), dad's sister (foi), and dad's brother's wife (kaki). This was the same for uncles, and grandparents. During the week, I was finally able to master these by making a digital album of my immediate family members on my laptop and pointing to them, and instead of calling them by their names (John), or English designation (uncle), I called them their specific Gujarati familial designation. This was extremely helpful and effective.
In addition to working on family members, we talked about culture in Gujarat. We talked mostly about the impact on women from arranged marriage, to how women and men are treated differently. I was really interested in this aspect since both of my language partners are women. As a transgender guy, I am intrigued to know that I would experience culture differently had I grown up in Gujarat where Pooja grew up. Here in the US, I was able to be myself, with few limitations from society. I most definitely wouldn't be pressured to marry anyone that I don't want. I am eager to understand more of the traditions of Gujarat such as dowries and the inner-workings of families, such as the fact that when a woman is married, she moves into the home of her husband's family and takes care of them. There are just a few examples of the rich cultural differences. This week was an exciting week and I am eager to learn more.
My language partner and I met twice last week. During our first meeting, we explored the use of Hebrew children's songs. To do this, we went to Youtube and in Hebrew wrote in names of various songs. This was an adventure because the Israeli keyboard is very different from the English keyboard. Additionally, we wrote out verbs on the board and began to initially conjugate the verbs for the various pronouns in the Hebrew Language. The more I review the conjugations and speak the conjugations, the better I will become.
Also last week, my language partner and I met at Mozaic's at had lunch together. Here we talked about the food on the menu and the weather. We are still working on the various vocabulary, but I was feeling more confident using my sentence structure this week.
I found the reading "Figuring Foreigners Out" very interesting. Each of the points about society and culture are very necessary to take into consideration: Individualist vs. Collectivist, Nonverbal Communication, Monochronic vs. Polychronic, and Direct vs. Indirect Communication.
Coming from a very Italian family, the Israeli cultural tenancies do not overtly shock me. This past Thursday, my language partner and I went out to lunch together to go over the menu and speak about food. When she saw a table outside that she really wanted to sit at, she put her jacket on the chair, claiming the table, and we walked up to the waiter and told him that we were sitting outside at that table. I laughed at the directness of her actions, because it is exactly what my grandparents do whenever they arrive at a restaurant. However, as an American, this action was startling and was something that I am still learning and becoming comfortable with, the directness of the Israeli culture. When I was in Israel, I had to insert myself into situations if I wanted something to happen, otherwise someone else was going to get what I wanted. Thus, I would say that the Israeli culture is quite direct in their confrontations. However, I do not see the culture as being more individualistic and having "less developed ingroups." On the contrary, I find Israeli to be quite a collectivist society and that their directness is part of their culture and how they show affection. You cannot go to Israel and easily be offended, otherwise you will be offended.
Additionally, Non-verbal cues are essential. Last week, my language partner taught me how to say "wait a minute" with her hands. This hand signal to me, from my Italian background, meant "CRAZY PERSON!!". She had to take five minutes to explain how the gesture is used and what context. To me it was very different and just showed me how much cultures can very with the same gestures. Thus, I would have been part of the second category where a non-verbal communication gets mistranslated.
I found the reading "Figuring Foreigners Out" very interesting. Each of the points about society and culture are very necessary to take into consideration: Individualist vs. Collectivist, Nonverbal Communication, Monochronic vs. Polychronic, and Direct vs. Indirect Communication.
Coming from a very Italian family, the Israeli cultural tenancies do not overtly shock me. This past Thursday, my language partner and I went out to lunch together to go over the menu and speak about food. When she saw a table outside that she really wanted to sit at, she put her jacket on the chair, claiming the table, and we walked up to the waiter and told him that we were sitting outside at that table. I laughed at the directness of her actions, because it is exactly what my grandparents do whenever they arrive at a restaurant. However, as an American, this action was startling and was something that I am still learning and becoming comfortable with, the directness of the Israeli culture. When I was in Israel, I had to insert myself into situations if I wanted something to happen, otherwise someone else was going to get what I wanted. Thus, I would say that the Israeli culture is quite direct in their confrontations. However, I do not see the culture as being more individualistic and having "less developed ingroups." On the contrary, I find Israeli to be quite a collectivist society and that their directness is part of their culture and how they show affection. You cannot go to Israel and easily be offended, otherwise you will be offended.
Additionally, Non-verbal cues are essential. Last week, my language partner taught me how to say "wait a minute" with her hands. This hand signal to me, from my Italian background, meant "CRAZY PERSON!!". She had to take five minutes to explain how the gesture is used and what context. To me it was very different and just showed me how much cultures can very with the same gestures. Thus, I would have been part of the second category where a non-verbal communication gets mistranslated.
For my first artifact, I have posted a conversation in Dari that I essentially had with myself; which was a lot harder than I thought it would be because I did not take into consideration how difficult it was to think of what to answer for questions I had thought just seconds before. The primary topics of the conversation is an exchange of greetings, discussing exams, plans for the day, weather and a plan to meetup for the dinner the next night. That said, you can listen to it through the link below:
First Artifact: A Conversation in Dari
I think having the conversation with myself helped me a lot more than I would have expected. It really required me to think fast in Dari; which is something that is difficult to learn without focused practice or immersion in the language. I was happy that I was able to react quickly to the questions I had made asked myself moments before. However, I think I could have talked for a bit longer or maybe about more topics. So, going forward, I think it is best to get a little more comfortable with the topics I know and then be able to discuss them with relative ease. I think my pronunciation was decent but it is quite obvious that there were occasions where I stumbled upon some words or did not really know what to say. I really believe I can improve on this by practicing my speaking. Also there were some things I said that did not quite seem consistent with what I had said in other parts of the conversation. For instance, I asked if the other person (who was actually just myself) wanted to get dinner after their exam tomorrow, when it was already stated that the exam would finish at 2:30 pm; which seems quite an early time to get dinner regardless of culture. I also asked how the weather was where the other person was, who describe it as rainy and cold whereas I described the weather where I live as sunny and hot. It does not make much sense for the weather to be so drastically different between two places, if those two people would be able to get a meal together the next day, unless I added more context to the conversation. As a result, I think going forward I should be more aware of what I say and if it is consistent with I have previously said and what I want to say.
