Last week things went pretty well in terms of my learning goals and objectives. Learning the past tense of the verbs wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be because you use the same endings as you do for the present tense. The past and present tense of the verbs are actually very similar, which was helpful in learning them. Each week I continue to increase my vocabulary which is nice and I feel like I am learning a lot. I am still having trouble recalling the vocabulary as quickly as I would like to, so I need to spend more time reviewing vocabulary this week. On that note, another student and I got together and combined all of our farsi notes and created a review packet of vocabulary. It was nice because sometimes in class its hard to catch all of the words that people are saying and write down their meanings.In our language sessions we are still focusing a lot on speaking. Sometimes Mona speaks really fast and it's hard to understand what she is saying, but I have been surprised by how much I understand when she speaks about things that I haven't studied vocabulary on. I am also getting better and not freezing when questions are asked of me. I still struggle putting the grammar all together to make coherent sentences, but at least I am understanding what is being asked of me and generally getting the point across when I answer. This upcoming week Mona is bringing another Farsi speaker to class, which will be good because then we can hear different accents and hear how other people speak. It will also be nice if the person is Iranian because then we can ask them more about Iranian culture. Mona is great about answering our cultural questions but it is always nice to get another perspective.
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Week 8This week I will be working mostly on my artifacts and getting started on my cultural project. My language partner recommended me to keep studying my flash cards and making my recordings.
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Verbs in Persian are an interesting concept for me because I am very used to just changing the ending of the verb as opposed to dealing with both suffixes and prefixes.To Create: afareedanpast: man afareedam (i created)to create the past is the most simple, add the correct pronoun and then add the proper ending:pronoun - suffixI amyou eehe/she/it -we imyou idthey andPresent: man mi afaram (I create)to create the present, remove the -d- and add mi and the proper suffixGerund: man doram mi afaram (I am creating)to create the gerund, use the proper pronoun, then add the and conjugate dostan (to have) and then mi and the conjugated verb
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Week 7 and 9 combination-I have been remembering my vocabulary much more these few weeks most likely because of my flash cards. I have also listed which words are used in the Kabuli accent and which ones in the Khandari accent so that I don’t mix and match them in my oral usage.-I think I am improving on the “ka” syllable that I had a lot of trouble a few weeks ago but I still feel very conscious about it whenever I use it and I just need to keep practicing with it until it becomes natural and I don’t even think about it.- This week I wanted to use Becky Walkers “Time, Dates, and Festivals” Diigo link to practice on lessening my Khandari accent because time and calendar related words are one of the most contrasting subjects between Kabuli and Khandari accents. Some of the Iranian-based Farsi phrases I had to disregard thou.Diigo Link: http://books.google.com/books?id=M38LSAYmqacC&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=telling+time+in+farsi&source=bl&ots=InwsSmkfuV&sig=uV8fmAlmT7vRyO7Ek7I4Nki3ofQ&hl=en&ei=OrKISY3gK5W6twei5pCYBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA169,M1Differences:Friday - Instead of Jom-e, its Jum-a, Summer is Tawesten instead of TabestenAdverbs, ie, never, here, there, 100 percent the same in Khandari and Kabuli and even in Iranian FarsiContinued….Dar-am instead of Dar-ad (I have)Auto-mo-bil can be used, but Khandari prefers to use Mo-tar (car)I am doing a great job identifying liaisons, or linkages, (the ways that words and parts of words are linked together) but for some reason I’m still struggling in the intonation element of Farsi, I don’t think I’m sensing what my language instructor calls “the rhythm”.My language partner recommended a BBC series for me to listen to everyday for an hour to help me with this. I’ve been recording myself copying the people speaking and Muska and I work on the troubleshoot areas or areas I am doing good and we try to understand why those areas are working for me whereas other areas are not. For example, I show up at every session with at least 5 different recordings of me mimicking a dialogue and then the language partner and I critique those recordings.The main hurdle on working on my pronunciation/accent were areas that affected comprehensibility, that is, areas of my accents that basically made it hard for my language instructor to understand me at all and luckily for me the only area that this entailed was comedy/jokes which is one of my learning objectives for the semester.Nasal vowels are extremely easy for me, but I still practice themI am however having a hard time when I go back and fourth between difference scenarios, whether its from very structured exercises to extemporaneous speech, I sometimes cannot keep up and just follow one type of pattern which I’m trying to fix.But the great thing from my 6 years of experience with Spanish is that I’m not wasting time getting frustrated and just sulking when I feel stuck or lost, my patience is really one of the driving forces that’s lessening my accent and I can already feel a small difference from when I stared 2 months ago.
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Posted by ReidSchluter on March 24, 2009 at 4:00pm
This week I focused heavily on the first half of the pronoun/possessive unit. This portion entailed the basic forms of personal pronouns & possessives. Like last week, these are very useful tools in terms of my overall comprehension of Dutch. Obviously pronouns form an integral part of many sentences, while knowledge of possessives is also vital to my overall understanding of Dutch.In English, pronouns are me, you, him, her, etc.... In Dutch, the only complication is that there is an unemphatic form for most of the pronouns. This is a common theme in Dutch. For example, you would write 'mij' to represent 'me', but in reality you would say 'me' in conversation. The same is true of 'you' which is written 'jij', but pronounced 'je'.In addition to these basic pronouns, I also learned possessives during this week. These words are very similar to the pronouns, but instead reflect possession of an object. The breakdown is as follows: mijn, jouw, zijn, ons/onze, jullie, & hun. Therefore, one would say 'my mother' as 'mijn moeder' or 'his dog' as 'zijn hond' etc.... Obviously, these two groups of words are incredibly useful & occur very frequently through the Dutch language--or indeed any other.Next week, I will work with the second half of this unit, which includes demonstratives (this, that, these, those) & independent possessives (van mij). Presumably, these sets of words will round out my knowledge of this in tegral portion of the language.
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Objectives10 Areas of Study-science, math etc5 weather phrases4 seasonsPast Tense3 more verbsEvaluationBe able to tell someone what classes I have and what classes I had yesterdayBe able to ask someone what classes they have/had and understandBe able to describe the current weather and the seasonBe able to ask someone what the weather was like yesterdayBe able to conjugate 3 verbs in the past tense
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The only problems with reflections from the previous week is I almost always forget to do them because I get so caught up in what I am learning for the next week. Last week it was definitely nice to review my vocabulary and not have as much on my plate in terms of new things to learn. Also by not having as much to learn I felt like I had more time to review the new things and make sure I understand them. I am still having trouble with grammar, specifically word order and endings, but I think the more I practice it the easier it will become. In drill we have spent a lot more time on speaking and listening which has been really helpful. This allows me to work on not freezing when questions are directed at me. It's not that I don't understand what is being said, but for some reason when I get asked a question I have a hard time listening to what is being asked of me so it's harder to respond. I also feel like when I'm asked a question that I need to respond immediately. However, Mona has been really good about speaking slowly, repeating things and emphasizing the fact that I don't have to respond to her questions immediately and can take some time to think about what she is asking and how to respond. Also, it is really helpful when she repeats my answer back to me with all of the corrections and when she writes it on the board. I am definitely more of a visual learner than an audio learner.Last week was also the Iranian New Year and Mona's mother invited us to her house in Charlottesville for dinner, but unfortunately I couldn't make it. It would have been interesting to see what dinner was like, but it was also nice that Mona explained to us what happens on New Year and how its celebrated. Also, we had to think about our cultural projects and decide what we wanted to do them on. I had a range of ideas, but I finally settled on doing my project about the poet Hafez and his influence on Iranian culture. Mona was telling us how a book of Hafez's poetry is considered a nice gift in Persian culture and how everybody has his works. She also said that a common thing to do after dinner is to read his poetry and there is also some game you do that is supposed to tell your fortune based on the poem you choose or get. I can't remember the exact details of the fortune telling and how you choose the poem, so I need to find out more from Mona. Regardless I'm excited about the project and look forward to starting it.
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Posted by Becky Walker on March 23, 2009 at 9:43am
I hit the point that I knew was coming--the same point that I hit in every language: I realize I have a large deficit in aural skills. Though I could attribute this lapse to my deafness, unfortunately I don't think that I can fall back on that as my sole excuse. The problem is not that I am unfamiliar with the material, for if questions are asked to me in English, I could respond to them, or even translate them, in Farsi. I have tried listening to the BBC and other aural exercises in order to accustom myself to the sounds and voice inflections in Farsi, but it is increasingly becoming more of a struggle to understand not only single words, but entire sentences. I thought that the Modern Persian CDs would benefit me as it would pair the aural exercises with sentences with which I was already familiar. I think what I will now do, is return to some of the aural exercises that I completed at the beginning of the semester, such as the basic phrases on Biki and the first levels of the Rosetta Stone and listen to those without looking at the screen in order to get a stronger grasp on my listening skills.Otherwise writing my practice sentences has been a great tool in knowing what questions I want to learn. Through writing them I begin to question placement of things such as the where prepositions belong in sentences and to which words can possessors be attached. I will continue making sentences on a weekly basis in order to both reinforce the grammar that I have already learned as well as use it as a means to develop new questions.
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Posted by Becky Walker on March 23, 2009 at 9:20am
As mentioned earlier, I wanted to refrain from doing two similar artifacts. Therefore I decided to transliterate 10 sentences in order to demonstrate my understanding of sentence structure and grammar. The following sentences have no theme-based connections, they were written simply from the vocabulary with which I am already familiar.Doost daram varesh bokonam.. I like to exercise.Dirooz hobedam. I slept yesterday.Seebe bist rial ast. The apple costs 20 cents.Peydaram haste hasteh. My father is tired.Noun forookhdim. We sold bread.Ajaleh daram. I am in a hurry.Kelase avalet oloom ast. Your first class is science.Ba madar bozergeshooh khordan.. They ate with their grandmother.Barow daresh man ra aziat mikoneh. His brother annoys me.Chai minewshan. They are drinking tea.
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Mona had us all listen to a popular Persian song, Man Ageh Nabasham.It was really interesting to listen to the song and hear words that I was actually able to understand.It was even better, once I was able to find lyrics that had both the Persian words as well as the english translation:Man Age Nabasham lyricsman nabasham ki tou royaif im not there who will in ur dreamsmohato naz mikonehdear your hairki ba balaye shekasstehwho will with broken wingsba to parvaz mikonehfly with yourasst begutell me the thruthman ke nabashamif im not thereakhamye pishounitoline on ur fore headki miad douneh dounehwill one by oneba hoseleh baz mikonehopen themman nabashamif im not thereki miad nazeh negato mikharehwho will die for your eyeski miad donbale toro be khorshid bebarewho will, bring u to the sunki mige haga hamishe ba toewho says thats ur always rightvasseye khatereh tobecause of youki mireh poshteh panjerehwho will go for youman age nabashamif im not thereki vase hamishewho will forevertoro miparastebeleive in youki barat mimirewho will die for youki nemishe khastewho will never be tiredki toro mizarewho will put youroye dota cheshmash?on both of their eyeski age nabashi migireh nafassashif ur not there who's breath will be taken awayman age nabashamif im not thereman nabasha ki tahamolif im not there who will toleratemikoneh kareh toroall u doba ragib raftano aziato azareh torogoing and getting hurt from the enemieski e kie javaba nadeh talkhie raftareh torowho will never say anything to your attitudesman nabasham ki barat gesseh mige ta bekhabiif im not there who will tell u stories until u go to sleepki miad sorageh royat to shab hayeh mahtabiwho wil come in ur dreams at nightki bidareh ta to khabet bebarehwho is awake until u fall asleepki gayem mishe to abra ke rahat betabiwho will hide in the clouds until ur confortambleaftab nashi beri zireh abradont become the sun and go under the treesmorvarid nashi beri tahe daryadont become a pearl and go under the searoudkhouneh nashi beri to seyladont become the river and go with flow of the wateragar injouri behsheh vaveyla vaveylaif it become like that oh god god ( va veyla is an expression)parizadeh nashi gomshi nari azizeh mardomdont become a fairy , dont go and become someone's sweetheartnari safar azam dour shidont go on a trip and get far from fromnari ba doshmanam jour shidont become friends with my enemiesyevaqt basteyi najourshidont cause me any problemnari parvaneh shi parvaz konidont become a butterfly and fly awayvasse man bi mehri avaz konidont leave me without a message / good reasondelam az dasteh to bicharehmy heart is becomig poor /crazy because of youakhe to key to mikhay naz koniuntil when do you want to do this ( naz kardan is another expression means like being shy and lovely (they say it to girls)vaveyla vaveylaoh god , oh god !!(http://www.moron.nl/lyrics.php?artist=Kamran+and+Hooman&id=119022)Music has been a great way for me to expand my cultural knowledge and vocabulary.It was also a way to learn about colloquial phrases and cultural undertones:for example, "Who will bring you the sun" is actually a much more significant phrase in Persian culture than the english translation gives it credit for.
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For my cultural project I thought it would be interesting to look into traditional Iranian cuisine. I want to give a report on not just general food culture but also the regional differences in preparation, ingredients and etc.
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Learning ObjectivesLearn 10 pieces of clothingLearn possessivesLearn 3 more verbsLearn 5 more adjectivesReview vocabularyEvaluationBe able to hold a conversation describing what I am wearing and what the other person is wearingBe able to ask and answer what articles of clothes belong to members of the classUse verbs and adjectives in a conversation describing my day, what I am wearing and asking people about their day and what they are wearing.
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Last week was a difficult week because it was the week before spring break and it was hard to concentrate on my week objectives. I also had an artifact due at the end of the week which was another thing that I think distracted me from my studies. I feel like last week because of these two factors I didn't thoroughly learn the material I set out to learn, which means that for week 7 I will have more to cover and so I think I will cut back on my learning objectives for week 7. I also looked back on all of the things that I have learned over these past weeks and have realized I have learned a variety of things, especially vocabulary. However, I found that my ability to recall all of the vocabulary was not as strong as I would like it to be. I found myself several times having to look back through my notes to figure out how to say certain words or phrases because I couldn't remember them. Over the next couple of weeks I am planning on devoting more time to review the things I have learned, especially since my midterm evaluation is coming up soon.We only had one language partner sessions last week because of the snow day on Monday, which was nice because instead of going to class I worked on my artifact that was due at the end of the week. When Mona reviewed it I realized there were still some grammatical nuances that I haven't fully mastered when speaking the language. For example, when using adjectives you add an e sound onto the object being described. Sometimes I feel like the textbook I am using leaves these things out so it is nice to have Mona there to correct my mistakes. Also, during our language session we each read our artifacts to the class. This was extremely helpful because it was nice being able to hear and understand what was being said. I think that my listening comprehension is improving because of sessions like this. The listening sessions that I do on my own through BBC farsi and songs are more frustrating because I don't understand most of the vocabulary so I find myself getting frustrated. When I listen to what the others are preparing I'm less frustrated because I grasp most of the vocabulary being used and can generally understand what is being said.Last week was a little frustrating because I was having a hard time concentrating so I hope this upcoming week will prove to be more productive.
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Posted by ReidSchluter on March 17, 2009 at 2:30pm
During this week, I continued to master the perfect tense. As I said in my last post, there are a lot of verbs that become irregular in the past tense. In addition, many verbs also require the zijn 'to be' verb rather than the hebben 'to have' verb. This is very counter-intuitive as, for example, you must say 'Is (form of zijn) Pauline al thuisgekomen' to express the statement 'Has Pauline come home'. Also, I have continued to work with the modal auxiliary verbs such as 'to want to', 'to be able to', etc.... These verbs must appear with a separate infinitive verb in order to make sense, so it has required a concerted effort to fully understand their use.Also this week, I learned useful phrases for making/accepting apologies as well as what to say if you didn't understand someone. Both of these skills are obviously very helpful for everyday conversations. Things like 'Pardon' or 'Het spijt me dat...' are how you politely apologize, while you say 'Het geeft niet' or Het maakt niet uit' to accept an apology by saying 'It doesn't matter'. Meanwhile, 'Wat zeg je?' or "Wat betekent dat?' express 'What did you say?' & 'What does that mean?' respectively. Obviously, these conversational skills are vital to everyday life in a Dutch-speaking area.The next unit deals with pronouns, possessives, & demonstratives. These are all similar tools, and I will be working through them in the next week or two.
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Instead of having two similar artifacts, I am going to use this as a simple practice exercise in order to improve my oral skills. Below is the transliteration of my oral snippet. The recording explains my weekly class schedule.Kelase avalam do shanbe ast, ke kelase farsi zaban ast. Bad kelase musikey daram. Seshanbe dota kelas daram, ke kelase oloom va ingelesi astan. Chaharshanbe dobare kelase ingelesi daram. Panjshanbe seta kelas daram;aval oloom, farsi zaban dovom, musikey sevom. Jomeh kelas nadaram. Een hamaye kelasam astan.
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Week 6I reviewed some more children jokes and riddles early on and I feel very comfortable understanding them and relaying them back to my language instructor. Therefore I wanted to start working on the mullah nasrudin jokes and the 30-60 seconds jokes.My language instructor basically told me that if I can get real comfortable with these jokes by the end of the semester, that’s the most realistic goal I can aspire to because the more advanced jokes really don’t make much since at all in English whereas the mullah nasrudin jokes do actually make sense and are funny somewhat in English as well.Mullah Nasrudin jokes are more than 700 years old and are still considered the backbone of Persian comedy. He is the pioneer and model for most comedians in the middle east including the Arabic and Turkish speaking parts of the world.Muska gave me some BBC links that had the so called “modern adoptions of the mullah” but the jokes were weaved into stories that were too complicated for me so therefore we settled on just working on the jokes without any type of additional background. We also decided to just work on his most simple jokes, ie, “why the mullah is dumb”.The main jokes that I am having problems finding the comedic element to:The mullah said this to a man sitting beside him in a tavern, “only one drink makes me drunk” the other man replied “really, only one?” the mullah replied “yes and its usually the sixth”This sounds equally confusing in both Farsi and English for me, and although I can see the punch line as being funny if its supposed to be a drunk remark by the mullah, my language instructor told me it’s the only reason.Jokes that I understand:Mullah Nasrudin’s friend said to him one day "my wife is very touch the least little thing can set her off." The mullah replied "you are lucky, mine is a self-starter”The punch line here makes sense in both English and Farsi, but in farsi the punch line doesn’t have as many interpretations when the mullah says “Self-starter”
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This past week I continued working with verbs & the perfect tense. Having already mastered the basics in the previous week (as well as independently studying some important verbs), I focused a large amount on the various exceptions outlined in the pages after the main perfect tense unit in my textbook. For example, there are many verbs that become irregular in the perfect tense because they don't follow the typical ge- prefix, -d/t ending that regular verbs do (for example: compare regular lopen/geloopd to irregular zijn/geweest). Zijn (to be) is always irregular, but there are other verbs that are typically regular like zoeken (to seek), which become irregular in the perfect tense (gezocht). In addition, there are also verbs that will take zijn to form the perfect tense rather then the traditional hebben (to have). An example is 'wij zijn gegaan' rather than 'wij hebben gehoord'. Again, all of these rules need to be memorized on an individual basis, so I have been devoting a lot of time to mastering these skills. I've also learned the 4 modal auxillary verbs, which are: willen (to want to), mogen (to be allowed to), moeten (to have to), & kunnen (to be able to). These 4 verbs occur pretty frequently, and take the same form as the perfect tense, only with the infinitive coming at the end of the sentence rather than the past participle. I've also focused on a further 20 verbs approximately to improve my vocabulary. I've now learned most of the frequently occuring ones, including irregulars & partial irregulars.Dutch Language History:Dutch is a member of the West German grouping of languages. This language grouping is the largest of the three Germanic subtypes, and includes English, German, & Frisian in addition to Dutch (and as a result Afrikaans). Dutch also has strong ties to Northern Germanic languages spoken throughout Scandinavia too. Dutch & Afrikaans care mutually intelligible, as they are extremely similar in many regards. Dutch is officially spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium (Flanders/Vlanderen), Surinam, Aruba, Dutch Caribbean islands, Indonesia, and small portions of France & Germany. Afrikaans is spoken in South Africa (mostly the west) & Namibia.Dutch is one of the oldest European languages. Around 500 AD, its evolution towards its current derivation began with the split of Old Frankish--a language spoken in & around the modern-day Netherlands. The language spoken in the region for the next 500+ years was known as Old Dutch. It was during this time that Dutch achieved its reputation of being a sort of cross between English & German. Dutch didn't take many of the sound changes that German developed during this time, and hence is similarity to English which was independently derived from the same parent language. From approximately 1150-1500, the language has been termed Middle Dutch. This is when it evolved from an archaic language very similar to all of the early Germanic languages, into a much closer relative of the language spoken today. 1500 saw a huge push to standardize the language. This was facilitated greatly by the unification of the Netherlands at the end of the 16th century. Coupled with the fall of Antwerp, this was the motivational factor for Dutch artistic, economic, & trade dominance for the coming centuries. This international significance required/facilitated the development of a standardized language, and also allowed for it to be exported along with Dutch colonial dominance.Dutch has a pronunciation that is very similar to the other Germanic languages of course. Its pronunciation is unique in that every letter needs to be pronounced in nearly every instance. It also retains the ability to string together long sequences of vowels and/or consonants to make seemingly very complex words. At the same time however, Dutch is based on steadfast rules more often than not, and there are 'shortcuts' to interpreting the language, given that you are aware of the fundamental rules. Interestingly, the south has a very similar regional dialect to the south of the United States. Vlanderen & regions of the southern Netherlands such as Noord Brabant speak in a slower dialect with a distinct twang. This effects the culture in a manner that Jan has told me is very similar to the north/south difference in the US. Knowing the age & derivations of the language among its 2 counterparts of English & German should be helpful in allowing me to better understand the language as I learn it.
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