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This week I read through a 100 page autobiography of my grandmother who is 97 and had her story recorded by an Israeli journalist. I created a vocabulary list of words that I was not familiar with and accumulated a word bank of twenty words that I was able to apply in forming written sentences to practice their use in context.

I also continued my practice of reading the daily news in Hebrew. This week there were a significant number of articles on the Iranian nuclear situation, Syria's internal problems, and interestingly a section dedicated specifically to US 2012 elections.

I also watched an Israeli comedy clip on reality show interviewing from the News channel in Israel. It was great for insight on modern culture and slang which I am not familiar with in comparison to family communication or news briefs.

Reading Korean is difficult. of course it's not impossible, but it is frustrating sometimes. Although Japanese uses three different written forms (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji), it's easier to read than Korean (I'm going to exclude kanji, though). The tricky thing about Hangeul (the written Korean language) is that you have these sort of 'letters' that must be combined in order to make a syllable or something similar to one Japanese character. Since I'm still a beginner, reading quickly is difficult for me. I noticed that I learned to read Japanese quicker than Korean. It takes more time to figure out what you're reading and how the 'letters' are combined to form words. As for comprehension, I can understand some things, but not many. It honestly depends on what sort of text I pick to read. I practiced reading a newspaper and I couldn't understand most of it, but I could get the gist of some things. I think it would be better if I started with children's books or something really simple. I think it also helps to read aloud. Not only does it help with the reading, but it also helps you to practice pronunciation and enunciation, which is always a plus. I'm working on vocabulary as well. I've memorized the lists given to me by my language partner. We've been focusing on simple things like fruits, beverages and words related to hobbies. I've made tons of flashcards and that's been helpful. Do I have realistic goals? I don't see why not. I'm not trying to rush myself; I'm just focusing on pacing myself and repeating the words I've already learned. Memorization definitely requires repetition. 

I've finished my first artifact for the semester and I have to say, I'm quite proud. I wrote a card to my Korean friend's mom and I wrote it in Korean. It's not a very long message, but I think it's a decent length. In the card, I introduced myself (the mom and I haven't met yet since she lives in Korea) and just talked about what I liked. I asked her is if she liked strawberries because it had been on of my recent vocabulary terms. It was fun.  My learning goals for week 4 and 5 were completed. I learned  how to order food in Korean, how to ask which dish was the tastiest and also whether something had beef in it. Week 5, we extended from the restaurant food ordering to money exchange. I learned to count money and to ask how much something was, how to say expensive/cheap, ask if they take cash/check/credit card. So, mission accomplished. 

Attached below is my presentation on the history of Persian:

History of Persian.pptx

I had never really taken the time to learn about the history of Persian (even though I knew some of the language) until tasked with doing so for this assignment. Much of the information I learned about Persian regarded the language's development and influence. For instance, I had no idea the Persian was one of the most widely spoken languages in Asia decades ago because it was a bridge language; a bridge language is a common language spoken between two people who speak different languages. Moreover, I previously knew about the strong impact of Persian literature and poetry from centuries ago that still impacts the culture today; however, I did not know that Persian written during those times was considered Modern Persian. Essentially, Modern Persian is the Persian that you would encounter today in Iran or Afghanistan, and it has been spoken since 800 AD. As a result, assuming you know Persian, you can pick Persian text from over 1000 years ago, and still be able to read and comprehend it with little effort. 

With regard to evaluating my first artifact, I did not realize how difficult it would be at first for me to produce a recording that I actually liked (similar to what Claire said about recording her video).  At first, it seemed stressful to be able to talk about greetings and introductions with my language partner while using the correct verb conjugations, greetings, etc -- all while being taped on the Flip cam!  After about three tries (yes, it took me a while), I finally had a recording that I liked.  I found that as I became more unaware of the video camera, I was able to focus more on the grammar and pronounciation.  However, I am still aware of my accent in pronouncing "maii" vs. "mai" ("I" vs. "in").  When I was practicing, I kept having to differentiate between the two, and when my LP and I were recording the conversation, I forgot the very slight difference.  One of my most complex sentences was the one in which I responded to my LP's query about my family by saying, "My family is fine, but my grandmother is sick.  But the doctor gave her medicine."  I think this was a little too much of a grammatical stretch for me, since I haven't really studied the past tense of "to give" yet.  If I were to improve upon this, I would use a simpler phrase that I am more confident in saying, such as "...but she has medicine."  It was very helpful to write out the script.  Although it was difficult not to see it during the recording, I felt that not using the script was a better measure of my ability to improvise, remember, and actually have a real conversation with my LP.  One other improvement I would make is making the hand gesture while saying Namaste.  I had studied this, but my LP (who is young) said that young people do not really make the gesture when talking with other young people. I just wanted to make a note to remind myself that if I interact with an older person, I would definitely make the "hands together" gesture.

Evaluation of Learning Goals for Weeks 4 and 5:

Week 4: Week 4 was really successful in terms of the activities I did.  I loved listening to the Jab We Met Hindi film dialogues -- it was amazing to actually recognize words.  Most of the words I could recognize were colloquial expressions about identity, family, or questions.  Contextual clues helped a lot in determining what was said (like the film star's facial expressions, etc).  I noticed that when I did not have the subtitles on, there were definitely many parts where I misinterpreted what was said.  This usually happened when the conversation was talking about the past or about the future, since I haven't studied those yet.  With regard to grammar, the grammar activities in learning about unmarked/marked masculine and feminine nouns were helpful. I did grammar drills from "Introduction to Hindi Grammar," by Dr. Usha Jain.  It takes me a very long time to read the words (the exercises are all in Hindi, not transliterated), but I think it is helpful.  A very helpful additional activity was the script I created for the video artifact -- it was definitely difficult and I did make a few mistakes with certain letters (forgetting to put the line on top of the "p", etc), but overall, it was definitely worthwhile.

Week 5: 

I really enjoyed learning the interrogative words, but the word order when using them is somewhat tricky, and I did not account for that in my goal.  Thus, I am spending a little more time than allotted to hopefully master these question words and word order.  I am able to talk about myself in present progressive and imperfect, but I need to work more on using verb conjugations for others (he/she, they, we, etc).  I think I will continue working on this for this week.  The post-positions are not as tricky as I expected -- I am doing drills in the Intro to Hindi Grammar, and many are similar to Punjabi.  The ones that are different, though, are definitely ones that I must get more familiar with.  Hopefully I will review these with my LP this week!

Topic of your choice for this week's MLC 110 Cultural Post

India's religious diversity is an interesting phenomenon to observe, as India is home to many different religious traditions; however, people unfamiliar with India commonly assume that because one is Indian, one must be Hindu.  Often, this is not the case.  In my experiences in India, I found people's experiences with religion to be a blend of different practices and faiths.  Religion seemed to be more about appreciating the unknown, rather than adhering strictly to a certain tradition.  During my time in India, I went to many historical Sikh gurdwaras, a Hindu temple, a Sufi festival, and a Buddhist temple.  Additionally, as a person who does not adhere to a particular faith tradition, I found it very interesting to see how different aspects of religion permeated many aspects of daily life in India.  For instance, although my host family was Sikh, they still had Hindu sculptures of Ganesh and other deities around their home to "bring good luck and prosperity."  In the morning and evening, the housekeeper, my host mom, and my host dad would all pray in a certain room in the house that held the Sikh holy scripture.  It was interesting to see how these different roles, so varied in socioeconomic status, all came together in spiritual worship.

India is home to Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Jainism, and many other religious traditions.  Hinduism is the predominant faith tradition (practiced by about 80% of the population).  In Punjab, Sikhism is one of the most widespread religions.  Sikhism is a religious tradition that, in the 1600s, diverged from Hinduism and Islam, the most common faith traditions of the time.  Sikhism is monotheistic, opposes the caste system, supports equality between men and women, and has a holy book that includes the teachings of the Sikh gurus (teachers).  On the other hand, Hinduism is polytheistic, with many different gods that one could worship.  Hinduism supports the caste system and also proposes the existence of karma.  Hinduism has many different religious festivals that are associated with gods and goddesses, as well as with the earth -- for example, there is Holi (spring festival), Dussehra, Diwali, and more.

In India, I really enjoyed seeing how people of different religions came together and supported other religions as well.  For instance, at the Golden Temple (a major Sikh place of worship in India), people of all religions are welcomed, despite the religious/political conflicts between Sikhs and Hindus in the 21st century.  Similarly, with my host parents, I learned that being of a particular faith does not mean having to not practice traditions of other faiths.  To them, religion was about appreciating spirituality through many different perspectives, whether Sikh, Hindu, or Buddhist.  This view of religion reflects the nature of India as a whole, with many multifaceted traditions, languages, and beliefs.

Here is one of the pictures I took at the Golden Temple at sunrise during the summer:   

MLC 105 Learning Journal #5: Reading in Target Language --  Try to do some "reading" in your target language.  What have you learned?

Last week, I read a dialogue between two people in the Teach Yourself Hindi book that I am following.  The dialogue was between two people -- Javed and Raju, and each person was asking the other person about his family.  In the Teach Yourself Hindi book, the dialogues are printed first in Hindi (Devanagari) script, then followed by a transliteration.  When I attempt to read Hindi, I cover up the transliterated part (in English) with a post-it note because if I don't, I will be tempted to read the transliteration of a word if I don't understand it in Hindi first.  I've noticed that I can recognize "little" words that use the common vowels/consonant sounds (probably because I see them more often), but there are also words that I have a VERY difficult time even sounding out because the combination of consonants/vowels are so intense.  When I read the dialogue, I had particular trouble with recognizing the word "adhyapak" (teacher) in Hindi because in Hindi, if two certain consonants are next to each other, they become connected and half of the first letter is removed, so it's difficult to even recognize the two letters for non-native speakers.  What I am learning how to do is to pronounce the word with the other letters first (that I do recognize), and then think about the word that it could be using contextual clues and my Punjabi vocabulary.   This worked for me when I was trying to determine what "adhyapak" could be without knowing the "dy" letter combination.  The most important aspect of reading so far, for me, has been trying to be more patient.  It is frustrating sometimes that I have studied the script but still cannot recognize certain (rare) letters that only occur in writing, but I can recognize them by sound.  When this happens, I try to remind myself that learning a language, particularly with regard to reading, takes time and is a continual, very gradual process.  As students taking other courses as well, it is also important to ensure that with regard to reading, we are both realistic and determined in setting appropriate goals for reading, which I believe I am doing.

I have now started to learn the Turkish alphabet and how certain letters are applied in different ways than in the languages i am familiar with. Learning the alphabet wasn't too difficult since most of the letters are Latin and several sounds are similar to sounds of Russian letters, therefore the alphabet learning process took very little time. I then moved on to greetings and common phrases used in acquainting. I learned that there are several various ways of saying the same exact thing in Turkish, and they all sound very different. However, with the help og my language partner i have been able to learn these sayings and i feel pretty comfortable with saying them now. it is nice that their are several ways to say a certain phrase since if my memory fails me i will always be able to remember one of the four ways to say goodbye rather than just one or two ways as I have seen in other languages. The difficult part of Turkish in my opinion is recognizing how to pronounce words, the language is nothing like the other languages in my arsenal and therefore it has not been easy to get the pronunciation down for several words that i have read in my exercises. Nevertheless, i am making progress and am happy with that, 

Korean is a language where formality and informality have a significant distinction. These very distinctions are evident in several places within the culture. For one, the Korean language itself has levels of formality. There's informal language that is used between friends and when talking to someone younger than you. There is a formal level that is used when speaking with elders and a super formal level as well. 

However, language isn't the only way Koreans express formality and informality. Gestures are extremely important. For example, it is extremely rude to hand something to an elder with one hand. The appropriate way to hand something over is by holding it with both hands or by supporting your right hand with your left. 

There's also other formal and informal distinctions present in dining etiquette. If you are drinking (I'm talking alcohol here) with someone who is older than you, you need to be the one to pour their drink for them. It's unacceptable for someone to pour their own drink. When clinking glasses before drinking the alcohol, it is important to remember that your glass should not be higher than the older person's glass when the glasses touch. Also, the younger person must turn away from the older person when they drink their alcohol.

As you can see, distinctions between formality and informality are in different aspects of Korean culture.

My reading in Farsi is still very minimal; so, reading is quite difficult for me. However, the reading I have been doing is often of simple sentences. Moreover, I repeat my readings of the sentences so I can understand them better. Reading in Farsi has shown me how much I still would have to learn in terms of reading, but also has opened me to how I best understand reading in another language--this is mainly due to Farsi's script. 

It is hard for me to quantify exactly how many words I have learned throughout the course of the semester; however, I have learned many words, in comparison to my previous knowledge of Farsi coming into the course. I have not place any set amount of words I want to learn. Some days I learn a few new words, and sometimes I learn the same amount in a week. In terms of setting realistic goals, I have not tried to overextend myself in learning Farsi. I realize that it is quite to difficult to self-learn a language while taking other college courses, so I feel my learning goals are realistic--and being met.  

My first year seminar is focusing on a specific issue in a foreign country. I suggested to my group that we present the prevalence of reconstructive plastic surgery in Korean society today. We specifically are targeting eyelid surgery, which is a huge part of society. South Korean youth has a fixation on popstars in a different way than most Americans - although we may emulate or admire a part of a celebrity, we don't usually want to change everything about ourselves to look like them or act like them. Very rarely does one hear about real obsessions that would cause someone to permanently and surgically change their own appearance with the specific goal of looking like one of the celebrities that we see in tabloids and in music videos. However, in Korea, the industry for Korean pop, or, kpop, is huge. It is not just a type of music, but a lifestyle. And Korean youth - males and females alike - are embracing it to a whole new extent. 

One out of four Korean women have had reconstructive surgery of some sort, and most likely is blepheroplasty, or, eyelid reconstructive surgery. Koreans seek to westernize their look, which means changing their monolid to a double lid. Korean popstars and celebrities are not immune to this fixation - they get the surgery, which is relatively inexpensive due to its popularity, and in turn, the youth that are obsessed with them, undergo the procedure. 

Contrary to Korean belief, I maintain that beauty is skin-deep, and cosmetic surgery is by and large, a way of concealing it. Surgery to look like someone else can have devastating repercussions on one's self-esteem. It cuts away at individuality and is easily the beginning of further experiences with cosmetic surgery. I do not support this vicious cycle, and I am appalled at the prevalence of surgery as an option for children as young as middle school. However, I do recognize that it is a part of the culture and their perception of beauty is different than Americans'. I only hope that it will not have destructive effects on my generation in the future. 

My artifact from last week was an interesting process. You may not be able to tell, but I went through several rehearsals and at least 3 different versions until I deemed it acceptable for public scrutiny. It was very odd listening and watching myself speak, especially in a different language that I'm not accustomed to speaking in, but it was interesting to see how much of a different experience it was making an artifact in Korean rather than English, my first language. 

The aspects I decided to touch on were basic conversation topics and points that would be comfortable to have with a peer in a relaxed setting. It seemed to be a good way to start my documentation and I will have more to build on. I went through the basics such as my name, interests, favorites, and then talked about the weather and time. 

I hope that this week I will learn to polish my speaking skills when I am speaking colloquially, which I seem to have a harder time with. I am more accustomed to speaking formally in Korean because the only time I really speak in Korean is to adults such as my parents and grandparents, and rarely do I speak to someone who informal speech would be appropriate with. I am also going to work on deciphering a Korean song with my language partner in order to work on this skill. 

Next week, I hope to be able to watch a Korean drama and try and pick up on culture and social cues, as well as work on language and conversation. Ultimately, I hope to be able to watch an episode and understand most of what is being exchanged. I am also interested in learning about social issues in Korea, as I have just written a paper about North Korea and was exposed to come current events. I'd like to try reading a Korean website and see how much I can understand, and learn vocabulary that would be necessary to be able to do so. 

After trying to do some reading in Kannada,I have found that I am quite incapable of distinguishing between letters and words. I can only see that the script has spaces in it! But when Aarti reads it to me, I can recognize important words like she/he or "I am" and "they are." While I am still in the beginning stages, it is nice to be able to listen and divine some choice words from a completely foreign text.  Thus far we have learned 54-55 words, which fit into set phrases, or can be used to make sentences based on our surroundings.  Realistically, I hope to learn many more, and to sing a song in Kannada by the end of the semester.

Bethany and I:

• met with Aarti and learned more structured sentences and conjugating certain useful verbs such as "I am" "she is", "they come."
• read a short autobiography of a woman from India involving cultural and life differences
• continued to practice our greetings and phrases outside of class time

It was interesting this week working with Aarti, because as we were pronouncing words, I kept mispronouncing the "t" - I was making it hard like "top" whereas it should sometimes be soft like "the." After researching the Kannada alphabet, it struck me that Kannada has several versions of "b" and "t" and "l" which English does not have:

There is a huge difference between "lu" where you move your tongue against your teeth, and "lu" when you mov eit against the roof of your mouth.  There is also one word that is quite important (very) - "bhal" which should NOT be pronounced "ball" but rather like you are saying "pa" with a "bha" - "bh-al." These minor differences are important, as one could be saying entirely different words! 

One final interesting moment in learning was when I learned the phrase for "I have 2 daughters." Indians wouldnt say "have" - they use the verb "to be." So it ends up being - "For me, two daughters are." I thought in light of the communal culture, it was so interesting that in speech, one would include one's daughters with oneself. Americans would never say - "in regards to me, my daughters are...." - it would be much more individual in terms of seeing the world. This statement says something about the importance of family in Karnataka.

During Week 3, Bethany and I:

• Met Aarti for 2 hours and discussed greetings (both with and without respect), practiced forming sentences with words we knew, and learned vocabulary relating to family.
• Practiced certain phrases by saying them to our friends and each other (for example - "Neevu channda adeeree" - "You are beautiful.") until they felt natural to say.
• Learned about differences between individualistic and communal cultures, and how such practices as greeting with warmth and initiating conversations would be different in India than in America.
• Finished the first section of our learning plan.

I really enjoyed this reading - Figuring Foreigners Out.  After reading about the section on Individualist-Collectivist, I was completing a cross-cultural training, where they had us pretend to have either individualist or communal norms and greet each other. My group had the norms of - not initiating conversation, keeping a personal distance with strangers but being open with family and community, and keeping conversation formal. When the members of the other group came over and shook our hands roughly and stared me down saying hello - I felt uncomfortable for the first time in my life with hearty greetings. I even recoiled when someone tried to hug me in greeting. That wasn't allowed - it was uncomfortable - it was strange to my norms. This exercise cemented the idea of Figuring Foreigners Out for me, because people from other cultures will have different ways of life than I do. For example, their nonverbal head shakes back and forth do not necessarily mean yes. Their silence and distance in greeting does not mean they do not wish to interact with me. If they show up late (or early) it could be that their culture dictates a different usage of time. If an individual will not speak to me, perhaps there is a bonafide cultural reason such as power distance (direct and indirect communication being a factor). Keeping these differences in mind, I learned to not act on my first impulse in new cultural situations, but take my time to observe and understand and consider my interpersonal actions.

With increased confidence in reading simple words, I set out to increase my vocabulary.  I study foods, numbers and simple inanimate objects (table, window, etc.). The numbering system in Farsi is fairly straightforward, and at times similarly sounding to English or French. For example, 1-2-3 would be Romanized as roughly yek-do-sey. With Farsi, while the unfamiliar Arabic script can be intimidating, I’m finding there are many places in which the Indo-European nature of Farsi leads to beneficial familiarity. 

Here is my first Hindi artifact!  It is a video of my language partner and I having a formal introduction/greeting conversation, and then an informal introductory conversation.  I also wrote out most of what we said in Hindi, which you will see in the pictures of the written out dialogue.  We did not refer to the written out dialogue while recording the video, so I made a few mistakes that I corrected while speaking.

:)

During this past week, I did the following activities:

• Created a script/dialogue for my first artifact based on a conversation between two people greeting each other, introducing themselves, and then saying farewell.  I wrote the dialogue in Hindi script, and my Language Partner and I are recording it tomorrow -- I will then upload it to the Ning.  [Approximately 8 sentences]
• Listened to 3 dialogues from "Jab We Met" (Hindi movie) and tried to recognize certain words -- this was very helpful based on the similarity of many words to Punjabi.
• I learned the singular --> plural transition of masculine/feminine nouns in Hindi and did grammar drills about this topic (singular/plurals of masculine and feminine nouns) from the book "Introduction to Hindi Grammar" (Usha Jain)
• I read and listened to the dialogues in Hindi in TYH (Teach Yourself Hindi) -- introduction to asking someone about their family and introducing someone else.
  

As my first artifact I thought it was appropriate to begin with a short video recording of me speaking Swedish. In this video I introduce myself and answer the most common of questions: Why do you want to study Swedish? I am also hopeful that looking back this video at the end of the semester will allow me to hear a clearer difference in my Swedish.

So now here it is: https://voicethread.com/share/2710987/