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The art of diagramming sentences is something taught in many schools across America. I remember learning about the different parts of sentences and how to make the sentence tree diagram. Although I have always been good with languages and some aspects of writing, sentence structure is one area that I found to be difficult because I felt like it required logic similar to science. It is true that the ability to speak English does not mean that one can read or write well in the language - and, vice versa. The parsing method sounds very similar to the way I was learning about sentence structure in elementary school. It is a very confusing and difficult method of dissecting phrases. For someone who is learning English as a second language, I can see how it can be extremely difficult to learn.

In many other languages, sentence structure is not as important as it is in the English language, or it is just very different. In the French language, adjectives are placed after nouns and when certain adjectives are placed before nouns, it gives a sentence a completely different meaning. In other languages, aspects, such as pronouns, are not used or used differently. Someone who speaks a differently language may not be able to easily grasp the concept of diagramming english sentences. I found this article interesting because I was unaware of the widespread use of parsing in teaching grammar and sentence structure in institutions across the country. I also did not know that this practice has been used for years and it is a traditional method of teaching children grammar. The article recognizes this method while alluding to the idea of developing a less difficult and advanced method of learning about sentence structure.

In the last journal post about Communicative Competence, I talked about how communication involves behavioral factors and interpretation. The sociocultural article discusses the cultural factors in language. Culture is a major factor in determining how people behave and interpret certain things; therefore, culture is a crucial factor in language learning. Culture and language are what we use to identify ourselves. The way we interpret events can be attributed to our cultural backgrounds. In the article, Matsumoto defines culture as a dynamic system of rules established by groups in order to insure their survival. I find that language has the same purpose - to provide a means of communication to insure certain groups of safety, etc. I found it interesting that the article pointed out that no society exists without culture. This means that no culture exists with a way of communicating.

Perceptions also play a role in our communication and interpretation. Our cultural perceptions of others determine how interpret the nature of their language. The article mentions how sometimes we perceive other cultures to be "loud", "quiet", or "conservative", etc. For example, when I performed in UR's student production Things Fall Apart, I studied and practiced Nigerian culture. It was necessary for me to understand how to speak like someone from the country. I noticed when even speaking English, how different the nature of communication is. Nigerians are very expressive in their communication, unlike in American culture and many English-speaking cultures. 

Upon reflection of my reading "Communicative Competence" I found myself also reflecting upon the MLC class itself. I came to the conclusion that one cannot effectively teach language without culture, and also that the opposite is true. Language and culture must go hand in hand for one to fully grasp either. Language defines the very nature of a culture, a language takes the ideas, the emotions, the history, and the values of a group of people, whether it be a nation or tribe, and translates them into a tangible means of expression. Subsequently without the aforementioned ideas values history and emotions, in other words without the culture, language is nothing. Culture is the proverbial soul of language. One may be able to communicate to another through words, but the same word in one language will not carry with it the same, if any, meaning in another language. There will always be mannerisms, references, and shortcuts within one language that cannot be found in any other, no matter how similar the languages may be. This is why when anyone studies a language, they should also couple that time studying the culture behind it. Otherwise, the words they are studying will remain exactly that to them, only words.

My culture presentation allowed me to more thoroughly study the history of Hebrew in order to understand the cultural relevance to the modern version of the language. Understanding the history of Hebrew also allows me to become more affluent in comprehending, and explaining Judaism and Israeli culture in general. Because of the religious history of Hebrew, I understand the meaning behind many words, because in many cases, the root of the word has some sort of religious reference or connotation. I also understand the reason why many words for simple things such as "market" or "excellent" are identical, or very similar to the words in Arabic that carry the same meaning. Modern Hebrew brings the history of the jewish tradition, the multicultural relevance which was drawn from it's nomadic beginnings, and the revolutionary adaptiveness of a language which has died and subsequently been revived in a more modern setting.

The Hebrew language is one of the oldest languages that are still commonly used today. The interesting thing about the Hebrew language is that is ties directly to the Jewish religion; in fact, Modern Hebrew had to evolve from it's historic counterpart in order to both incorporate the nuances of the modern world, and to effectively sequester some of the religious themes which were imbedded within the language. The Jews were a nomadic people in the ancient times, this is an explanation for the similarities between the Hebrew language and the various languages through the middle east, such as Arabic. Much of the pronunciation and script in the Hebrew language are audibly and visually similar to that of Arabic. Hebrew nearly died as a language but was revived in the 1800's by a man named Eleazar Ben Yehuda along with the Zionist movement. Since then Hebrew has consistently evolved from being a means of studying religious history into a modern, dynamic language.

As I became more familiar with my language I learned there are pros and cons to learning a language without learning how to read. Because I chose not to learn how to read I became much more sensitive to the pronunciation and forming of words physically than I would have otherwise. I was able to practice my vocabulary based on audible characteristics, and construct a stronger comfort level with interpersonal communication in my language than I would have had I decided to undertake reading as well. The downside to abstaining from the reading part of my language was that I did not have the ability to transliterate words myself. Which means I had to depend upon another person who knows the language if there was script involved. However, considering the give and take of my choice, I believe that i made the right decision in terms of practicality.

Interview with language partner

I believe that overall, the learning of Turkish individually, was a beneficial experience, however there were definitely some adjustments that could be made. In my learning experience I believe that I should have focused more on vocabulary and its practice. At the end of the semester I did not know as many words as I would have liked to and the reason behind it wasn't me looking up words, but because practicing them and applying them in sentences was something I never did with my language assistant, they would simply be forgotten. My language assistant and I worked more on understanding grammar instead, which is also great but it did not help me reach my goal of being able to conduct a simple but rather broad conversation, instead I only learned a single type of typical dialogue and a lot of grammar that I couldn't even apply with many words since I did not remember them. I believe going over the basic structure of the language and a little bit of history  behind it is important because it gives you a better understanding when you look at and use words. That is what my language assistant and I did in our first couple of weeks of studying and it helped me greatly, especially in being able to read and pronounce the language correctly. Overall I felt that by the end of the semester I had a great foundation fro learning but not much skill in speaking. Conducting dialogues with my language assistant is what I think would have benefited me a lot since I would have to use as much Turkish as possible to keep the conversation going and that would enhance my memory of certain words and sayings, as well as the recognition of the language and my quickness of response to typical questions. In this course I believe it necessary to learn and use the language instead of learning why something is said a certain way and the grammar behind it. I thought that the presentations on the culture of our languages was a great idea since it really made me research a topic I had never looked into before and learn a lot about the culture and language through that process. It was great that we had to use many foreign words in the presentation since it made me learn more vocabulary independently. I also believed that it would have been a good idea for me and my partner to have the opportunity to speak in our language in class for ten minutes at least in every of our meetings, it would have challenged us both to learn from each other since we both most likely know something about a specific word or saying that the other one doesn't, and that way we would learn from each others mistakes and knowledge. I also thought that watching cartoons in our language could be very helpful since the language there is simpler and it would have helped me understand pronunciation and the pace of the language. I thought that it was great that everyone could learn about so many cultures in one short semester, it truly brought a lot of previously unknown knowledge to the table for all the students of the class. I also believe that visualization  vocabulary learning would have been greatly beneficial for me in learning words, I had tried that method with other languages and it gives a better association with the word than simply seeing the straight up definition of it on a piece of paper. Overall I am happy with my learning of grammar and culture of the language and the foundation I have made for myself for further learning, I am also content with my pronunciation and reading skills, however I am not so pleased with my vocabulary level and speaking skills, as well as response time and recognition of typical questions. I have learned a lot about learning languages this semester and I believe that it will help me in the future if I choose to take on a language by myself, especially since I now know what to avoid and what to execute in order to be a successful individual language learner.

In this journal entry I will discuss a more complicated part of a dialogue with another person that goes over quite a bit of information. 

A: Senin adin ne? - What is your name?

B: Merhaba, benim adim Mark, memnum oldum - Hi, my name is Mark, nice to meet you

A: Sen nerelisin? - Where are you from?

B: Ben Ukraina, Kiev lliyim. - I'm from Ukraine, Kiev city

A: Sen kac yashindasin? - How old are you?

B:Ben yirmi yasindayim. - I'm twenty years old

A: Hangi okula gidiyorsun? - Where do you go to school?

B: Ben de Richmond Universitesine gidiyorum. - I go to the University of Richmond

A: Hangi bolumu okuyorsun? - What is your major?

B: Ben pazarlama okuyorun. - I'm studying marketing

A: Saat Kac? Yemek yemek istermisin? - What time is it? Would you like to get a meal?

B: Evet! Ne tur yemek sevarsin? - Yes! What kind of food do you like?

A: Ben sushi severim. - I like sushi

B: Tamam ozaman International center gidelim. - Let's go to the International center

A: Senin kardesin varmi? - Do you have siblings?

B: Benim bir kuz kardisim var, onun adi Anastasia, Anastasia on dort yasinda. - I have one sister, her name is Anastasia, Anastasia is fourteen years old

A: Senin ailen ne is yapiyor? - What do your parents do?

B: Benim babam doktor ve annem, ev hanimi. - My dad is a doctor and my mom is a housemaid

A: Tanistigimiza memnun oldum. Sonra tekrar goruselim. - It was nice meeting you. Let's do this again sometime.

In this journal entry I will discuss why Turkish has an almost completely Latin alphabet, that most people can read,compared to arabic countries that don't, as well as the significance of Ataturk in the Turkish language.

The Turkish Language Association (Turk Dil Kurumu), was established in 1932 under Ataturk's guidance. Its goal was to make the language of Turkey more Turkish, as odd as that may sound now. The Turkish language around 1930 was largely what we now call Ottoman Turkish, and it was heavily cluttered with Persian and Arabic vocabulary. This vocabulary shift followed and built upon the 1928 introduction of a modified Latin alphabet to replace the Persian form of Arabic script used to write Ottoman Turkish. Arabic script, Persian or otherwise, was a poor means for writing Turkish as the languages use very different sets of sounds. And an Arabic script would be a great difficulty for a country wanting to modernize and connect to the outside world.

Imported words were banned from the press, and the Turk Dil Kurumu went about replacing the Ottoman words with a mix of newly invented words based on Turkish roots and ancient words revived from Old Turkish. For example, shimal had been borrowed from the Persian for north. It was replaced by the Middle Turkic word kuzey, derived from the Old Turkish noun kuz meaning dark and cold place or shadow.

The result was that the vocabulary of spoken and written Turkish started on a huge and continuing shift. The generations in Turkey started speaking very differently, and this difference has remained as the language change has continued.

In this journal entry I will describe the exercises I performed to test my conjugation skills. I was given a sentence and three options to finish the last word in the sentence, Ben Turkim, Turkum, or Turkum, the right answer is ben Turkum which means I'm Turkish. The next sentence was Siz nerelisin, nerelisen, nerelisiniz, nerelisiniz, the right answer is nerelisiniz which means where are you from. The next sentence was Hakan cok yakisikli, yakisikliyim, yakisiklar, yakisiklyiz, the right answer is Hakan cok yakisikli which means Hakan is very handsome. The next sentence was Siz bekar milar, misinz, miz, misin, the right answer is siz bekar misiniz which means are you single. The next sentence was Biz mutluz, mutluyuz, mutlusunuz, mutlular, the right answer was biz mutluyuz, which means we are happy. The next sentence was Sen kac yasindayim, yasindasan, yasindasin, yasinda, the right answer is Sen kac yasindasin, which means how old are you. I also learned that doctor means doctor, kadin means women, cocuk means kid and kor means blind.

 In this journal entry I will present some different variations of common greeting conversations in Turkish. A: Merhaba (Hi) B: Merhaba (Hi) A: Ben Haktan, senin adin ne? (I'm Haktan, what's your name?)  B: Ben Mark, memnun oldum. (I'm Mark, nice to meet you.) A: Ben de memnun oldum, nasilisin? (Nice to meet you too, how are you?) B: Sagol iyiyim, sen nasilsin? (I am good, and you?) A: Sagol, ben de iyiyim. (I am also good.) B:Gorusuruz! (Goodbye!) A: Hoscakal! (Bye!). We then worked on  some conjugations with an exercise where I had to write "I am a student" in all the different conjugation forms. It was presented as: ben ogrenciler, sen ogrenci, o ogrenciyiz, biz ogrencisiniz, six ogrencisin, onlar ogrenciyim. I corrected it to ben ogrenciyim, sen ogrencisin, o ogrenci, biz ogrenciyiz, six ogrencisiniz, onlar ogrenciler. Ben means I, sen means you, o means he/she/it, biz means we, six means the plural form of you, onlar means they. The basic ending for ben is in, sen is sin, o has no ending, biz is iz, siz is siniz, onlar is ler or lar depending on the vowel harmony consisting of back vowels a,i,u,o resulting in lar and the front vowels e,i,u,o resulting in ler. I also learned that bu means this, su means that, o means it and is adami means business man, ve means and, ev means house, muhendis means engineer, evhanimi means house wife, de means also.

FYI: The alphabet is written from right to left; however, the camera takes the "mirror image" so it appears left to right...

Here is my link to my Cultural Presentation!

Prezi: The Culture Behind Afghan Cuisine

As a French and International Business major, I have always been interested in international affairs. At an early age, I made it my goal to pursue a career in the international or government field. I started looking into opportunities with the U.S. Department of State, Embassy of France, and international corporations. I also decided that the first language I wanted to learn was French. I started taking French in the 8^th grade. At first, I performed poorly in my French class; however, as I became intrigued with the language and culture, I began to take more of an interest in learning about it. I have been taking French for over six years and it will always be my preferred foreign language. Nevertheless, I started to become fascinated with foreign languages in general. I decided that it would be enjoyable and beneficial if I began to learn more languages. The next language was Farsi.

            Farsi, or Persian, is a widely spoken language especially in Afghanistan and Iran. My interest in foreign policy and relations directed me towards learning Farsi (especially because I am interested in working for the Department of State). Although I would not change my decision to learn Farsi, the language is extremely difficult to learn. Unlike Farsi, French came easy to me after a certain amount of time because I was fascinated with the culture. Afghan and Iranian culture has caught my interest; yet, learning the language is still a hard task. Not to mention, French is a romance language and uses the same alphabet as English. The Persian alphabet is very similar to art. And, I’m not very artistic. It takes concentration and practice in order to be able to write words easily. For me (and in general), learning the alphabet is the foundation of the Persian language and without knowing the alphabet, learning words and phrases is a futile task. The Rosetta Stone in the Global Studio was also helpful in learning new vocabulary words. The visuals in the program helped me to remember the words. Also, having a language partner was very helpful because they are knowledgeable in the language and culture. MLC 105 really allowed me to explore a language that I may have otherwise not have been able to. The fact that it is “self-taught” is convenient because, as a business school major, I have a heavy course load and I’m taking French classes. Therefore, learning another language in a classroom setting would have been too much pressure. With MLC 105, I was able to develop a learning plan and learn the language at my own pace. I will definitely continue to learn Farsi and I look forward to continuing my language-learning journey.

I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to study Hebrew as a self-directed learner this semester. Autonomous language learning has been the perfect setting for me to delve into improvement of my Hebrew proficiency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Since I have a unique situation in which I have studied Hebrew in an immersed setting for a few years in elementary school, but haven’t had to apply it since, I am able to express myself verbally much better than I can actually read or write in the language. For this reason, I primarily intended to focus on retention of new vocabulary by reading research and news articles online, and then writing summaries on the topics I covered. What I found, and have been complemented on in the past couple months, is that my vocabulary and speaking have benefited from these efforts as well.

What worked? As I noted above, I think that reading articles online was most beneficial to my learning. Since I chose to read about topics that interested me, I was motivated to keep reading and spend a substantial amount of time trying to grapple with harder articles. Also, I chose to focus primarily on politics and international relations because of its relevance to my studies and other courses. This also helped by providing context and ensuring a level of understanding that could transfer to my use in conversation and writing. I found the cultural components of MLC really supportive of my learning as well. Sometimes when you grow up familiar with a culture, its traditions, stereotypes, hand gestures, and assumptions, you tend to overlook them and not pay attention to how they’ve developed or what their significance may be. The articles we read for MLC 105 and the culture presentations that were built into MLC 110 were great eye openers for me. I found it really interesting to think about the cultural assumptions built both into the Hebrew language as well as Israeli culture. Using Diigo and the Ning cultivated a sense of importance to the research I was doing. I enjoyed being able to share neat clips or articles I found with others, as well as look back at my personal journey throughout Hebrew learning this semester. It documented for me some of the cultural finds and learning I experienced. These included dissecting the Zohan clip for its stereotypes, understanding the subliminal messages embedded in political cartoons, or reading into the lyrics of Israeli songs. I found that the more interactive I was with the process of learning, the better I retained the new vocabulary and its contexts.

What didn’t work? Part of my learning plan included the completion of a novel in Hebrew. While I did so, I found that I was least excited about this assignment. I believe this is because I did not stop often to look up the words I was not familiar with, and I was reading at a much slower pace, while trying to understand the nuances of the story. I think the more interactive things I worked on were more effective. Since even when I was living in Israel, I preferred to read books in English, I am still really proud of completing the book. Another thing that could have improved my work would have been a possible connection with a native speaker with whom I could converse. I think that this would have supported my application of new vocabulary and been good motivation on a regular basis. Maybe in the future this would be possible through Skype conversations.

I think the biggest accomplishment for me was being able to understand Hebrew within the cultural context of its evolution. Understanding that Hebrew in its original form is such an ancient language, helped me gauge the tremendous transformation that occurred when it was in transition to being applied as a modern language. So many sects of society that we take for granted just did not exist in biblical times. Thus, it was helpful to understand that many new words were introduced to the language since the time of the European Enlightenment, as well as many adopted words that were blended into modern Hebrew, especially from Arabic, English, German, and Yiddish. Furthermore, I’ve found that there is a lot of specialized vocabulary depending on areas of expertise, vocation, or the military, which was supportive of my research. Other accomplishments include regular reading in Hebrew and practice in my writing, which I haven’t done since the sixth grade.

         Starting out in Self-Directed Language learning, I was really excited about working with Bethany and learning Kannada. I must admit, I was a little overenthusiastic and over-expectant. I expected that we would have an extensive vocabulary and be able to carry on intense conversations with the people we would meet. As we started learning, I realized that some aspects of the way I learn were exactly right: I am a audible and social learner, and the way Bethany and Aarti and I practiced together was perfect for my learning style. Our conversations would be filled with fun moments, like sitting outside in the courtyard on a pretty day, or going to the prayer room and talking about life in a sacred place. We had jokes too - like not pointing feet at people (as this is EXTREMELY rude in India). 

         My favorite moment, though, was when Bethany and I learned a song in Kannada which we created ourselves. I definitely learn by musical tones, and the lyrics of the song will stay with me. We placed the words to a popular tune that we know, and every time I hear the song, I will want to sing it in Kannada! 

          Some of the articles such as sociocultural factors and communicative competence I truly enjoyed reading because I could effectively look back at my study abroad experience and then look forward to how it will be different in India in a different culture and with a different language. For me, the articles brought in the cultural aspect that was missing from the language time with Aarti. I learned about the use of henna in India, and then started wearing henna and telling stories with it. I really enjoyed this aspect, and I have a henna pen in my room that I fully intend on using next year and learning new designs. In addition, I learned more about Indian culture in general - their views on family, on time, and on food. I think if I were to do this over, I would spend more time on vocabulary based on the culture (i.e. chutney - a favorite breakfast meal).

         When we go (now next summer) I am extremely excited about using knowledge about Indian culture; and in the meantime Aarti and I are going to keep learning together and cook together in my apartment. I felt like I grew from this class in ways that will stay with me. I fully hope to spend the rest of my life understanding cultural differences and talking to people from every people group and ethnicity and nationality. Learning Indian culture and Kannada are the first step in cultivating a greater communicative competence in my future.

This semester as a self-directed learner for Swedish has been a very challenging and rewarding semester. At the beginning of the semester I was very motivated to begin this course even though I was hesitant about my ability to remain motivated when there were only goals set by my self and my own responsibility in keeping up to date. These were legitimate concerns since I had never before participated in this type of course, but I was very soon convinced that the course would be a success when I began speaking Swedish and recognizing significant improvements in my fluidity and confidence. My goals at the beginning semester were to become more confident speaking in formal settings and expanding my vocabulary in order to speak about more complex topics beyond daily tasks and activities. My focus would be on developing my presentational speaking through readings taken from Swedish media and conversation with my language partner. At the beginning of the semester it was a little difficult to place my language level because I had never had any formal training in the Swedish language but could nonetheless communicate rather effectively in daily conversation. Determining my level was one of the interesting discoveries I made throughout my first conversations with my language partner. I realized that I was very uncertain about the conjugations of certain words and lacked confidence but many times I utilized complex sentence structures naturally. My language level was at a very interesting point at the start of the semester but I realized later through a particular reading that revealed more about my learning style and how that reflected my Swedish language development.

            The reading was a short article taken from The New York Times that explained the results from a study that showed the brain activity of an individual taught to learn a language like a native speaker. The studies showed that by focusing on oral ability and communicating a context where the spoken ability and fluidity is more important, learners exhibited brain activity similar to that of a native speaker’s brain activity. I realized while reading this article that a majority of my language learning has stemmed from such learning and that although I may score highly in immediate responses that are culturally appropriate I do struggle with written language. This was confirmed during the European Swedish language exam I took during my final evaluation. In listening and speaking I scored C1 and B2 levels respectively and on the other hand was not too surprised that my lowest score was in the writing section. This semester I have learned more about how to assess my languages and marked significant improvement since the beginning.

            Reflecting now on my experience, I believe the most fruitful part of my learning has been meeting with my language partner consistently twice a week. I have improved my speaking abilities tremendously and as I compare the amount of time I spoke to him to the amount of time I spoke in a French class, it has been much greater. I realize that had I been given the same opportunity to speak with a language partner for other language such as French my level may have been more advanced. Not only did I learn to communicate, but also I further developed my own cultural nuances through conversation of Swedish culture in comparison to the United States. If I could do one thing differently it may have been to focus more on writing, but saying this I am not sure this would have made my experience equally enjoyable and rewarding. I accomplished the majority of my goals that I made at the onset of the semester and of this I am very proud. A self-directed course took great organization and prioritization in order to remain up to date, but I know now I have the ability to direct a similar course for myself once again given the skills and I gained this semester.