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Last week, Jenna and I met and went over my reading comprehension section together that I did for homework. There were only 3 mistakes that I made in the whole section which I was very happy about. Jenna and I decided to start practicing for the writing section of the COM2 exam. We started off by going over some of the prompts that she gave me the other lesson a couple of weeks ago. Jenna and I looked over each prompt specifically and created a plan of action for how I should answer this question. First, I would read and understand the prompt fully. If I didn’t know a certain word, I would use context clues to fully understand the prompt and prepare for what I should write about. The next step in answering the writing prompt is to brainstorm 3 to 4 ideas pertaining to the prompt. For example, if the prompt asked what I did over the last summer, I would come up with three to four activities I did during the past summer and write down the Korean translation for each activity. If I didn’t know the word in Korean, I would simply change and find a new activity to talk about in the writing response paragraph. Next, Jenna taught me how I should start for most of the prompts. The first sentence should always or most of the time start with an introduction or a greeting. I would write “hello” in formal Korean or I would rephrase the question before I stated my answer. For example, I would start the writing response paragraph with: “Hello, some of the things I did in the past summer were…” This was a great idea because most of the times I can copy the prompt word for word in order to restate and answer the question briefly. Jenna then taught me what I should talk about next: expand upon each of the things I came up with before. So, I would write one sentence about going to the beach, one sentence about playing basketball with my friends, etc. Doing these steps and following Jenna’s writing response plan, I would be able to come up with around 5-7 sentences in less than 10 minutes. Near the end of the class, I took around 15 to 20 minutes and answered a writing prompt and Jenna helped me as I started writing sentences. She did a great job not telling me what I spelled wrong right away. She asked me if I think I spelled any of the words wrong or not and I had to figure out if any of my spelling was wrong. This was a great way to self-check my writing without her directly telling me what I spelled wrong. I hope to continue practicing in a similar fashion for the COM2 writing portion. For homework week, Jenna told me to do three more prompts and time myself. The prompts were, “write a letter to your parents about your college experience,” “what is a typical day for you in college?” and “what do you like to do when you are bored?” I was able to finish all three prompts by the last session this past week. Jenna and I went over each response paragraph and corrected for spelling, spacing, and grammar. We saw a huge improvement in spelling errors as Jenna emphasized the mistakes I commonly made in previous lessons. We decided that I was ready for the COM2 exam sometime around next week and I am excited to finally reach the long-term goal I have been working on for the past couple of semesters.

For one of the weeks of this two-week period, I was feeling under the weather and sent into the isolation housing in Keller, so we did not have class. Thankfully, I did not have COVID and it was just a flu. We continued the following week with reading a bit more of Alice in Wonderland, or Alice no Pais das Maravilhas, which I am continuing to enjoy. I have noted that the further we get into the story, the more difficult it becomes. More vocabulary is incorporated, more nuances in the story, or subtext, and more plot to keep track of. As I mentioned before, it is very helpful to be familiar with the story when reading it in another language for the purpose of language practice. I have not noticed much difference in the stories between the English and Portuguese versions, and I am glad that the translation still managed to maintain Lewis Carroll’s light, witty, and at times slightly absurd tone.

In terms of my language progression, I definitely feel that I am improving. I noticed a difference in feeling rustier after being sick for a week and not practicing my Portuguese, as to be expected, but overall, I note a definite sense of improvement. I am more confident in our conversation classes and am referencing dictionaries and my notes less while doing my write-up essay exercise for Thursday.

As we begin to wrap up for the semester, we are mostly finished going through the material that I hoped to cover in the textbook Pois Não. The final section that I had copied had a section of Capoeira and about the Berimbau, a musical instrument that accompanies the practice of capoeira, and my third cultural post will be about this topic. I thought it was fun to read about it now, having some knowledge of both of those. I had seen capoeira as some of my friends in Cuba attended lessons there and discussed what a berimbau was with my music instructors for Brazilian Music and West African Drumming. However, I did not know much about the roots of capoeira and its actual history, and it was really interesting for me to read more about that. It appears in the popular TV show “Bob’s Burgers” as a novel hobby that is more about getting you to buy lessons and DVDs similar to karate lessons in the United States, but its history is really a story of resistance and teaching slaves to fight back and rebel under the guise of traditional dance. Slaves on sugar plantations, the overwhelming colonial crop of Brazil, would practice capoeira as a form of fighting when you are outnumbered and focuses on constantly moving and outsmarting your opponent, under the pretense that they were preforming traditional dances when the plantation owners would ask. When slavery ended, capoeira was outlawed as the government was afraid the newly freed slaves would use it to rebel against the government, and they were forced to keep it a secret again. Now, it is almost a tourist attraction and one of the internationally known cultural attractions of Brazil.

Hello everyone!

It’s almost Thanksgiving, so to prepare to discuss what kinds of food we enjoy eating with our friends and family, Reba and I have been going over some more food terms and expressions we use. “I’m thirsty”, or my favorite, “I’M HUNGRY NOW”, are both I will be teaching my family members soon.

First, we went over the types of meats, seafood, and methods of preparing food (baking, cooking). My favorite word was “potato” because we can have so many variations of potatoes by attaching the signs for “bake”, “sweet”, or “salad” onto it and create new meanings.

We also reviewed some drinks. While there is a particular sign for “coffee”, some words such as the specific types of sodas require that we use fingerspelling. This is mainly to avoid confusion. Reba told me a funny story about how when she was a child, she though ketchup was catch-up, so she would sign “catch” “up” to refer to the condiment.

Later, we did a review of silverware and other materials that can be seen on a dinner table. Furniture was also a big topic I found useful. We talked about the furniture in my dorm room and I told her that even though I have my own room and bathroom, it can get pretty lonely and boring living by myself. On the other hand, Reba said that she had 2 roommates her first year at her university and that it was a lot to deal with since the room was packed.

The next week we talked about technology and went over terms such as “computer” and “program” and learned how to describe how good the internet is. We talked about the computer mouse and how that was a different sign for the animal mouse. I added on that my friend recently got a mouse as a pet and Reba shocked to say the least.

When Reba was teaching me difference between England and English, I was surprised to see how subtle it was. If she was to sign it quickly, I’m not sure if I would notice right away. Then I noticed that many of the signs also have this similarity. The motions for sugar and sweet are exactly the same, but for sugar you do it once and for sweet you do it multiple times.

This wasn’t during a lesson but as I was scrolling through YouTube I came across a trailer for the movie “A Quiet Place” which came out a couple years ago. It’s a thriller movie where the characters have to stay quiet to avoid the mysterious creatures that have extraordinary hearing abilities. Therefore, instead of talking, the characters communicate through sign language. One of the main actresses, Millicent Simmonds, is actually deaf, so it was interesting to hear her thoughts on the movie. Although this movie seems intriguing, I am not sure if I can watch it without squealing throughout the whole film. Maybe I’ll watch it over winter break!

Also, a quick update: I am improving a bit on reading fingerspelling, but I still find it helpful for it to be repeated.

https://youtu.be/qes6p4GwSdc

For the past weeks, I have continued to work on two things: reading comprehension and verbal communication. With the holidays quickly approaching and given my family’s tendency to get together during festive times, I thought that it would be a good idea to focus on practice conversations about my school work and future plans for the inevitable awkward interrogation that I will soon be subjected to. My partner would ask me a series of questions in Vietnamese such as:

• How are your studies going?                                         Học hành của con sao rồi?
• What are you learning right now?                                  Con đang học cái gì?
• What are you studying?                                                Con học về ngành gì?
• What are you going to do after graduation?                    Tốt nghiệp xong con làm gì?
• Have you thought about graduate school?                      Con có đi học cao học không?

And I would try to answer as many questions as fluently as I can. As expected, even with a peer, answering these personal questions are somewhat difficult to answer since I’ve never really articulated them in Vietnamese. Like before, I would switch to English to make myself more comfortable when it gets too difficult, but we would go over my answers together to make them more coherence and consistent. We found that I have a bad habit of translating English to Vietnamese while answering, and as a result, the answers can sometimes get lost in translation. I also translate questions from Vietnamese to English, which can sometimes dilute the meaning of the question if I mistranslate and I would end up answering a completely different question. I believe that the main reason I am having so much trouble with answering these simple questions is because I lack the vocabulary knowledge to not only answer but also to just comprehend the question. So, in order to fix that, my partner and I are working together to create flashcards of relevant vocabularies such as:

• Cao học – postgraduate
• Ngành – branch/department
• Tốt nghiệp – graduation

We are going to continue to conduct these interview-style conversations to make myself more comfortable with answering questions and make sure I comprehend the Vietnamese language rather than translating it to English and back. We will also add onto the list of relevant vocabularies as they come up.

At the same time, in my own time, I have been working on improving my reading skills. The book I have decided to read was Tây Du Ký (Monkey King: Journey to the West) by Ngô Thừa Ân (Wu Cheng'en). It is a tiểu thuyết Trung Quốc (Chinese novel), so it contains a lot of Hán Việt ngữ or Chữ Nôm (Sino-Vietnamese) vocabularies, which I am definitely not familiar with. As a result, my reading progress has been excruciatingly slow as I have to continuous stop and look up words and phrases every other sentences. I think the most pages I have gotten through in one day was 4 pages after hours of constant back and forth. However, I have found some success in remembering some Chữ Nôm through mnemonics, similar to what I use to memorize Japanese Kanji and Chinese logographic characters. It takes a while as I have to convert the Latin-scripted words into Chữ Nôm logographic characters, but I quite enjoy being able to apply my learning style from one language to another.

An unexpected addition to the Netflix library is Kingdom (킹덤), a fictional historical horror thriller set during the Joseon Period after Japanese invasions in the 1590s. The series is the first Korean Netflix Original and is based on a Korean web comic called Kingdom of the Gods. Although Kingdom is a zombie thriller, do not let that put you off. It masterfully explores the dynamics of political crises in Korea during the time of kings and also delves into the nuances of class struggles. When dealing with a zombie outbreak, there will inevitably be a discussion regarding who deserves to survive, after all this is one of the most compelling questions that humans must face in the time of extreme crisis. Kingdom takes that idea and pushes it to its limits by combining it with challenges for the throne in Korea. Survival is not between small groups of people, the antagonist, Lord Cho Hak-ju, is willing to sacrifice the populace to steal the throne from the Crown prince, Lee Chang. Thus this amalgamation of themes ends up being very similar to Game of Thrones, which I am sure most people will have heard of. The zombies end up becoming a tool of political conflict and creates a very interesting experience for the audience.

The main value that Kingdom offers is not found in the fantasy elements but in how Korean politics worked during the Joseon period. It is a good introductory media for Korean learners that is both entertaining to watch and also educational if you ignore the guts and blood lol. In my opinion, Kingdom is a fantastic watch that is an authentic cultural artifact that exceeds quality expectations. Most zombie thrillers are pretty bland when it comes to story but Kingdom does a fantastic job of fleshing out Korea in the Joseon period, and covers a wide range of character perspectives that keep the experience fresh. One criticism of this show is how sometimes the characters have plot armor and deus ex machina becomes a problem as the series progresses. This is a necessary issue with horror thrillers though since keeping the protagonists alive is necessary for story purposes. At times the situation becomes a bit unbelievable despite the fantastical nature of the show. I won't reveal any spoilers for this critic though. 

Also despite that Netflix produced this show, the actors are all professional Korean native actors. It is not a bastardization of source material like Dragon Ball Evolution. Thus, the performance and audio is basically a typical Korean drama but with more CG. Unsurprisingly, Kingdom received critical acclaim for its fantastic visual effects, acting, and writing. It was nominated for Best Drama at the 56th Baeksang Arts Awards, a major awards ceremony in South Korea, and also won numerous awards at the 2nd Asia Contents Awards.

There are currently two seasons released on Netflix which currently conclude its story but a special episode called Kingdom: Ashin of the North is set to be released in 2021.

There was a lot that we covered during these two weeks. One of the most important topics we covered was the Korean number system. This was quite a challenge since Korea has TWO number systems that they use for different contexts. As someone who has only ever used one number system, there was a culture shock to me. Korea uses the Sino Korean number system for dates, money, time, addresses, numbers greater than 100, and phone numbers. It uses Native Korean for numbers of occurrences, counting, and ages. That was quite the mouthful and I definitely have to practice this over time. During the lesson, Somyung and I practiced speaking, reading, and writing the numbers. We did exercises such as telling the time and also telling each other our birthdays in Korean. 

In addition to the number system, I also learned some more vocab about transportation and common items such as glasses or mask. One interesting thing is that the word 자 is used in both bicycle and car and independently already means car. A bit of redundancy here but no problem..

The next big topic that we dived into was expressions that are commonly used conversationally. This mainly came in the form of expressing emotions. Some examples of these are happy, anxious, tired, busy, sad. We also reviewed some more extreme emotions that built on the basic expressions. From these expressions we also learned how questions are the same as statements about oneself except for the tone of the speaker at the end of the expression. Simply with an inquisitive tone will do in expressing a question. This can be done in English as well but people don't usually do this.

If I received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of Korea and Hangul I would not know what to do with it. But if I had to do this research I would most likely focus on how the culinary world and Korean language are intermingled and how the culture of Korea is defined by cuisine. This is actually a pretty common approach to culture; after all food is an accessible avenue to experiencing a culture. In order to tie this back to linguistic studies, I would have to see how language plays a role in food in Korea. There are many YouTube channels that have done this, such as Strictly Dumpling and Korean Englishman. These channels sometimes explore Korean cuisine from the perspective of a foreigner, which is where my perspective lies. By exploring Korean culture through food, I have learned how certain aspects of Korea come to light. Some examples of these are the need for pickling food and the focus on convenience. 

Going back to the prompt, if I had a research grant, visiting South Korea would be a no-brainer. In order to really understand the culture and conduct a linguistic study, the researcher would have to be there in person. When it comes to implementing different structural components presented in class, I am not really sure how syntax and semantics will come into play. Perhaps there may be some underlying linguistic structures that are found in cuisine vocabulary, such as in French. I am not sure but if I had a research grant, this may be worth exploring. 

Another part of Korean culture worth exploring is how it is affected by its neighbors, especially when it comes to cuisine. Since the main theme of this research seems to be tied to the next presentation, I am trying to connect these prompts as well as possible. Further research will reveal some important things to be learned from connecting Korean culture, linguistics and cuisine. 

While the 2012 New York Times article explains why bilinguals are smarter, the Science Line article provides more nuance to this claim. According to Kovac's study, young bilingual children exhibited more attention to their surroundings than monolingual children. However, after reading the Science LIne article, I agree with Ossola about being careful to say that bilinguals are smarter because it supports the notion that there is only one way to be smart. As we learned from the multiple intelligences quiz at the beginning of the semester, there is more than one way to learn and to meaningfully engage with the world. Ultimately, learning a second language and or growing up bilingual helps with this process, and should be strongly encouraged, but it’s not the only way to be smart. Reading this article made me think about how I’ve learned three languages in the past several years (German, Italian, Indonesian), but I am nowhere near fluent in any of them. I find words of these different languages often popping in my head, so hopefully, they will continue to be in storage in my mind for when I need them. It’s definitely sad, though, how quickly language abilities seem to fade. Still, I think the process of learning the languages as a student has helped me understand the worldview of different cultures. Learning the grammar and cultural notes helps me to understand the implications of my own language as well. 

I found an interesting article called "An Investigation through Different Types of Bilinguals and Bilingualism" by Hamzeh Moradi, a Ph. D Research Scholar in Linguistics at Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. (https://www.ijhsss.com/files/Hamzeh-Moradi_6813z4a4.pdf)

about the different types of bilingualism. Needless to say, there are many different ways to classify bilinguals, and these different classifications can be based on when, how, and where the learner acquired their second language. Some people learn the language early in their lives, while others are late learners. Some know the two languages equally well, while others have a clearly dominant language. One common classification method supported by Weinreich (1953) includes the categories of the compound, coordinate, and subordinate. This method connects with our morphology unit because it explores how we organize meaning in our brains. In compound categories, learners have the meanings of the two languages stored together. 

I found these different categories interesting, especially in relation to our conversations at the beginning of the semester about fluency and proficiency. While fluency is more of an all or none achievement, proficiency has a wide range. Similarly, bilingualism comes in many different forms and for each speaker, the two languages have a unique relationship to one another that depends on their environment and educational upbringing. 

Overall, bilingualism is much more complex than just speaking two languages. It is important to take into account the context of language acquisition to best understand the effects of knowing multiple languages. Since intelligence also comes in many different forms, I think it is inaccurate to make the blanket statement that bilinguals are smarter. However, being bilingual definitely shapes the way the speaker thinks; therefore, being bilingual makes for a unique worldview. 

Works Cited

Moradi, H. (2014). An investigation through different types of bilinguals and bilingualism. International Journal of Humanities & Social Science Studies, 1(2), 147-154.

If I received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of my target language and culture, I would explore the role of slang in Bahasa Indonesia. In my language class with Farida, we just finished the A1 level, which includes formal constructions.   If I received a research grant to conduct a linguistic study of my target language and culture, I would explore the role of slang in Bahasa Indonesia. In my language class with Farida, we just finished the A1 level, which includes formal constructions.  We are now starting to learn how teenagers really speak. It turns out that the fewer words, the better. Nouns are often dropped, verbs contracted. For example, instead of saying "Bagaimana kabarmu" Which means how are you the slang version is only "ngamain" Efficiency of communication seems much more important than following structural components. In past blog posts, I’ve talked about how Indonesian is much less structured than German, which is a language I have studied in the past. Learning Indonesian slang adds to this contrast. Indonesian seems more about communicating meaning that creating an orderly form of speech. It’s also probably partially that Bahasa Indonesia is a relatively new language - one that serves as a lingua franca, a common tool of communication, rather than an ancient form of Indonesian culture. Each community has its own language that they probably spend more time preserving. 

To conduct my research, I would look compare grammatical structures in Indonesian textbooks, and compare this formal version to how it is spoken in the classroom with slang. For example, I could go to a sports activity and listen to how teenagers speak. I would note which grammatical structures get dropped. In class on Tuesday, we discussed morphemes. I would look for patterns in parts of speech and common root words. It seems that verbs are quite important in Indonesia. While they are not conjugated based on the subject, different suffixes change the meaning of words, which means these added morphemes are therefore derivational - I think.  For example, ber- added to the front of the verb means to have. Warna means color, so berwarna means to have color. One could say, "Buku berwarna merah mudah." (The book has the color pink.) I am interested in whether attention to the derivational morphemes continues in slang expressions among Indonesian youth.  Ideally, I would love to spend time in Indonesia, doing a kind of ethnographic language research in Indonesian schools. However, if this in-person method were not possible, I could also use social media, which is a place where young Indonesians actively and informally communicate with one another. For this virtual format, I would be able to not only to hear how Indonesians convey meaning through sounds, but also observe writing patterns. 

After comparing slang and formal Bahasa Indonesia, I could expand further to see how the Bahasa Indonesia grammatical structures compare with German's formal language and slang. While the formal language speaks to the national values that the country has, Bahasa Indonesia is ultimately a national language that does not capture the diversity among different local communities or the modified slang versions that people actually communicate with throughout their daily lives.  By studying slang, I will better understand how Indonesians use the language and the way it shapes their worldview.

During these two weeks, I have been binging on Korean Dramas shamelessly haha. I guess it is pretty embarrassing to say that I finished watching Hospital Playlist in less than a week. Each episode was about an hour and forty minutes and the show had around fifteen episodes! I feel like I was so captivated by the show because it exposed a lot of Korean culture in terms of food and music. Because the show is centered around a group of five friends, the show has lots of scenes where they hang around just eating Korean food like Korean BBQ. The people in the friend group are around 40 years old and also happens to be in a band that allows the audience to be exposed to older Korean rock music. After watching Hospital Playlist, I started watching a Korean show on Netflix that many people had been recommending me, Reply 1988. Watching Reply 1988 reminded me of the dramas I used to watch as a child back in Korea. The Show, like the title says, is set during the late and early nineties in Korea. The show setting happens to be historically accurate as they mention the Olympics in Seoul in 1988 and popular actresses and celebrities during that time. I actually never knew that Korea ever hosted the Olympics until I watched this show. Moreover, the neighborhood the main characters live in reminds me of the neighborhood I lived as a child in Korea. During one of my meetings with Somyung and Tommy, we watched a celebrity reality tv show. That particular episode was about the celebrities trying to eat extremely spicy ramen called BulDak. A lot of people in the west have actually heard of it due to its insane level of spice. After watching the tv reality show, we practiced conversating in Korean. During our second meeting, we watched a video that was more historically informative rather than entertaining. The video was about Korea’s most famous general, Yi shun sin, a.k.a, the god of war. The video addressed the historical context during General Yi’s life such as the unification of Japan’s samurais under Hideyoshi. The video also highlighted the virtuous characteristics of General Yi like his commitment toward his nation when facing adversities and the integrity of his character despite the harsh politics that sought to put an end to General Yi’s military career. Additionally, the video talks about Japan’s plan to invade Busan and push all the way to Korea’s capital, Seoul. I practiced Korean outside of my language learning group by talking to my mother in Korean over the phone. When I called her, I told her how much I was craving Chapagetti, an instant noodle that is close to a Chinese black bean noodle dish. I asked her to get some from the store before I come back home. I also told her about my recent post-hernia repair surgery pain and informed her that it seems that the pain was getting worse instead of healing.

For this week's individual meeting, we were able to further our study based on what we went over from the last two weeks. We continued learning more about grammar. To be more specific, noun0modifying verb. In English, we always put verbs in front of the nouns when using verbs to describe nouns. However, it is very obvious that this isn't the case in Korean. In Korean, verbs are placed before nouns to describe them. The noun-modifying form of a verb can be thought of as an adjective- it describes a noun. Remember that what would be considered adjectives in English come in the form of a descriptive verb in Korean (for example, 파랗다, the verb to be blue). One way to use a descriptive verb is to conjugate it and pair it with an appropriate subject and particle. (Ex. 모자 + 가 + 파랗다 = 모자가 파래요, The hat is blue.)

Another way to describe a noun is by using any verb’s noun-modifying form paired with the noun. The modified verb comes before the noun, and together they become a part of a sentence.

Noun-Modifying Verb Form in Past Tense: -은/ㄴ

Add -은 or -ㄴ to the stem of the verb. If the verb stem has 받침, use -은. If the verb stem does not have 받침, use -ㄴ. Then put this form of the verb before the noun it is modifying.

Ex. 먹은 음식 (the food that (I) ate)
Ex. 한 숙제 (the homework that (I) did)

Noun-Modifying Verb Form in Present Tense: -는

Add -는 to the stem of the verb. Then put this form of the verb before the noun it is modifying.

Ex. 말하는 사람 (the person who is speaking)
Ex. 선물을 받는 남자 (the person who is receiving the present)

Noun-Modifying Verb Form in Future Tense: -을/ㄹ

Add -을 or -ㄹ to the stem of the verb. If the verb stem has 받침, add -을 to the verb stem. If the verb stem does not have 받침, add -ㄹ to the verb stem. Then put this form of the verb before the noun it is modifying.

Ex. 먹을 음식 (the food that (I) will eat)
Ex. 만날 친구 (the friend (I) will meet)

Noun-Modifying Verb Form for Adjectives: -은/ㄴ

To make the noun-modifying form of a descriptive verb (a verb that would be considered “to be” plus an adjective in English), always add -은 or -ㄴ to the verb stem.

작은 손 (small hand(s))
예쁜 옷 (pretty clothes)

Special Cases: There are a few special cases when it comes to verb stems and the noun-modifying forms.

Verbs in which the verb stem usually ends in -ㄹ (for example, 알다) have a new verb stem in this case. -ㄹ is dropped (changing the verb stem to 아 rather than 알) and the end of the noun-modifying form is given according to the new verb stem.
알다 (to know) - 아는 사람 (a person (I) know)
살다 (to live) - 사는 곳 (the place where (I) live)

Irregular verbs in which the verb stem usually ends in -ㅂ have a new verb stem in this case. The new verb stem is the original verb stem minus -ㅂ plus -우. (As a rule of thumb, a -ㅂ다 verb that is conjugated with -워/와 is irregular. For example, 좁다, which is conjugated as 좁아요, is regular. 어렵다, which is conjugated as 어려워요, is irregular.)
Ex. 춥다 (to be cold) - 추운 나라 (cold country)
Ex. 어렵다 (to be difficult) - 어려운 시험 (difficult test)

For -ㅎ다 verbs such as 어떻다, 그렇다, 이렇다, 저렇다, 빨갛다, and 파랗다, which have verb stems ending in ㅎ, drop the ㅎ to make the new verb stem. Add -ㄴ, following the formula for past tense, to make the noun-modifying form.

빨갛다 (to be red) - 빨간 얼굴 (red face)
그렇다 (to be like that, to be that way) - 그런 사람 (a person like that)

Last week, Jenna and I continued on to the next part of the COM2 exam: the reading comprehension portion. Last semester, Jenna and I focused on reading and writing so I was sort of confident in my ability to read and write. We agreed that we should spend one to two sessions on reading comprehension and the rest of the semester to practice on the writing portion of the COM2 exam. For the reading comprehension portion, Jenna provided me an article about the band BTS. The paragraph she gave me was just a portion of the article, but she timed me 10 minutes to read the article and answer a couple of accompanying questions regarding the paragraph on the BTS band. There were a couple of words that I did not know but I was able to use context clues for most of them based on the knowledge of other words surrounding it. The questions were fairly simple and easy to understand. The thing that I struggled with most is rewording and paraphrasing the answer. Furthermore, I had trouble spelling some of the endings of the sentences in my answers. I asked Jenna about this and we both agreed to focus on writing in Korean next session.

            This past week, Jenna and I met together on Friday via zoom. We agreed that I was prepared for the reading comprehension portion of the COM2 exam. Jenna also gave me another paragraph with a couple of questions for homework. I hope to get a pretty good result on the reading comprehension Jenna gives me next week when she grades it. Jenna and I agreed that if I do well on the homework reading comprehension in less than 10 minutes, we can start working on the writing section of the COM2 exam. I am excited that I am one step close to being ready for the COM2 exam. I think the goal I set for myself was perfect for my confidence and pride in Korean. I hope to be able to pass the exam with confidence and ease. Although I am a bit worried about the writing section for the COM2 exam, I am confident that Jenna will provide me with the right tools and abilities to pass the exam with flying colors. For my cultural presentation for the end of the semester, I am thinking about researching Korean healthcare and how it is different from healthcare in the United States. Next week, I hope to begin preparing and perfecting the writing section of the COM2 exam. Jenna and I met for a bit earlier this week to talk about what the writing section of the COM2 exam might look like. She gave me a list of around 10 prompts that might appear on the COM2 exam. Some of the prompts were something along the lines of, “what are your hobbies,” “write a letter to your parents talking about your college experience,” “talk about what you did in the previous summer,” and “what do you typically do during the day?” Jenna told me we will start practicing answer these prompts with full complete sentences in around 7 minutes. She told me I should aim to write around 5 sentences for each prompt. I am excited to begin practicing for the writing section of the COM2 exam next week.

            One of the sessions in the past two weeks fell on my birthday, and I got the chance to learn a lot about what it is like to celebrate a birthday in Brazil! As we both have a bit of a sweet tooth, we talked a lot about food, desserts in particular. There is a certain type of small, round sweet made from condensed milk called a brigadeiro which is my language instructor’s favorite. Funnily enough, my mom surprised me with a big birthday party in a box, and she had actually made me some brigadeiros without knowing that we had just talked about them in class. I have not tried the real thing, the real brigadeiro straight from Brazil, so I’m not sure how much I can evaluate them, but I can certainly say they are very sweet. They are very similar to a truffle size, but more sweet than rich, and usually with sprinkles. I look forward to trying them should I ever visit Brazil. Until then, I am looking forward to going back home and being able to try my hand at making them myself.

            This week from the textbook, we practiced some irregular verbs like poder and ter (to be able to and to have, respectively). I find these difficult as I am not too comfortable with many verbs in Portuguese. I need to practice my conjugations and my tenses because even though I almost always get them correct when I guess, I am slow and not confident because I get them confused with French and Spanish. While Portuguese generally has the most crossover with Spanish, the amount of vowel usage is very French. We also practiced the different “r” sounds that Portuguese has, per my request. Also, much like French, Portuguese has a pretty distinct “r” among the Romance languages. Nothing so complicated as the American [ɹ], but the Portuguese written “r” can be pronounced a handful of different ways. There is the more standard tap [ɾ], such as in Spanish, but there is great variety in the two other main /r/ sounds. The first is written as /rr/ but the same phoneme can also be written as /r/ when it is at the beginning of the word and sometimes when it is between two vowels, but not always in the intervocalic instances. Speakers in the South will roll it sometimes like the trilled [r], but generally it is a fricative and close to an aspirated “h” sound that I learned in Arabic, close to [χ]. When /r/ appears at the end of a word, it is sometimes dropped entirely, pronounced like the American [ɹ] (a sociolinguistic element mentioned in the book), or like [h].

            I was so excited to see a section in the book about sociolinguistics, even if it was a brief overview in many ways, I’m sure. I learned that the rural people of Brazil called caipiras who are a generally mountainous group and have their own holiday, festival or celebration in Brazil. During this festival, people will put on cowboy hats, hang colored bits of paper, and dance in traditional caipira fashion.

Welcome back!

Nowadays, Reba and I are reviewing and continuing to practice so that I’m more comfortable using sign language. We primarily went over using numbers in situations such as when talking about money in terms of dollars and cents. Terms and phrases such as “credit card”, “you owe me”, and “no money” were fun to learn too. Furthermore, I learned fractions! I don’t know how to sign 1 over a large number, but ½ and ¼ are fair game. Numbers are interesting in ASL; at first, I thought they were fairly easy to learn, but now I think they are one of the more difficult topics to master. Signing numbers themselves are simple, but when you put them in context such as “two months”, it is not the sign for “2” and “months, but one motion that combines both the signs. Since there are these variations in sign for numbers depending on the situation, it can be challenging when deciding on how to sign it.

This particular topic has interested me for some time. In Korean, there are two number systems and one or the other is chosen depending on the context. On the other hand, English is very simple when it comes to numbers because there is just one system that stays constant throughout.

When we were going over the seasons and holidays, Reba asked me how they compared to Korea. I told her that the seasons were the same as in America and that Korea also celebrated religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas, but not others such as St. Patrick’s Day. I also mentioned that Korea has a Parent’s Day and even a Children’s Day. When Valentine’s Day came up, Reba showed me that the sign was drawing a heart with your fingers on the left side of your chest, then the sign for “day”. I thought it would be a fun to jump in and teach Reba something too! I showed her that in Korea, many people make a small heart sign with their thumb and index finger. She didn’t really understand it at first, but her face lit up right when she realized it.

In our last session of these two weeks, Reba taught me some signs for fruit. We told each other our favorite fruits and I told her about the difference between the grapes we eat and Korean grapes. Now that I’m reflecting on these sessions, I am realizing how much we talk about and compare American and Korean cultures during our lessons.

Throughout these weeks I’ve also noticed that I’m starting to understand the jokes Reba makes. At first, I was confused to whether she was serious or not, but now I’m excited that I progressed enough for us to joke around and have fun sometimes. There was also a moment where I trying to say “no” so I shook my head side to side and had my serious face expression on, but it turned out that I had switched the sign to “yes”. Reba and I had a good moment laughing about it. Next week, we’ll be diving deeply into more food terminology. Stay tuned!

Welcome back to all of my devoted followers! I hope everyone had a spooky, socially-distanced, safe Halloween and are ready for the upcoming chilly turkey season! Reba and I have continued to learn American Sign Language using zoom, and things are going very smoothly. Reba has recently gotten much better about her usage of technology, from what source or how I am unsure. Regardless, I am extremely thankful as now I do not have any difficulty seeing her hands when she sings, she is in proper lighting, and the communication as a whole is much easier. Our lessons are going extremely well. For the past few sessions, we have been tackling the task of numbers. Although I understand the numbers 1-1,000,000,000, the usage of number signs differs when referring to numbers in different contexts. What I mean by this is that the sign for 10 minutes is different than just the sign for ten and sign for a minute. There is a slight alteration between the two signs and meanings and because the alteration is so subtle, it is often hard to remember and keep track of the proper sign usage. Other forms of time are also difficult including precise measurement of time, hours, minutes, months, days, weeks, and seconds. Additionally, numbers in the context of money are also difficult as the sign of money needs to be incorporated into such contexts. It is a bit discouraging to have difficulty with something that seems so simple in my own language but then is so difficult in another language. I understand that the languages are different, but numbers and math are usually considered universal and as such, it is frustrating to have problems learning about something that seems so “simple” but “essential” in a different language.

       We do not have much time left in the semester, and as I look back to August, I think about all I have accomplished. My vocabulary has definitely expanded to include words that are much more sophisticated and my ability to read others when they sign has increased drastically. My signing is much better than before, as expected, but I still wish to become faster and more accurate with my signing skills. I feel confident enough in my abilities to be able to converse at a basic level of sign and offer my opinion in the simplest of terms across many subjects. I still would like to learn more medical terminology, but I have an additional semester with Reba and I still want to emphasize my understandings of the basics and foundation. It is crazy to think about how close to graduation I am as it feels like I just started university yesterday. It also makes me think about how will I continue my ASL journey in the future. Honestly, I don’t know. It will depend on where I am and what I am doing, but I would like to continue doing classes of some sort. That I know.

For my third cultural post, I listened to and watched a Korean rap song on YouTube. The name of the song is Eung Freestyle. The song is very popular, and I have seen it in a couple of advertisements and in a couple of videos in the past. There are many prominent Korean rappers in the video such as Rich Brian and Sik-K. They all freestyle together into one beat. I listened to it multiple times to fully understand the lyrics. There were a lot of bad words that I didn’t recognize until I actually searched up the lyrics. But I think it was a great learning experience for me because of the fast-paced beat. Similar to many other Korean songs I have listened to in the past, there are many English words being thrown around every few seconds. I think this is because there are no words in Korean for that specific English word. There were also many cognates that I recognized that they broke up into multiple syllables. For example, one of the rappers says, “Stephen Curry.” In English, we say this word with four syllables, but in the video, the rapper pronounces this with five syllables. This is because there is no word in Korean that pronounces the letters “Ste.” Because of this, in order to say the word in the Korean way, you must say “S-te-phen” instead of “ste-phen.” I thought this was really interesting to learn about because this concept can be applied to many different languages. I think that this song was very cool to listen to. It is the equivalent genre of American hip hop and rap, something that I love to listen to. The name of the song is called Eung freestyle and the word Eung means “yes” in Korean. I thought that the freestyle was really well written, and the words flowed really well. It was really cool to see how the rappers incorporated English words into their verses and the flow still sounded perfect. Similar to the word Stephen Curry, there were many other English words that they pronounced with extra syllables to pronounce it in Korean. Overall, this rap really helped with my listening and a speaking portion of Korean because I had to search up the lyrics and read/understand the words. I am very amazed again by how they incorporate English into the songs with Korean and still make it sound really cool and smooth. I know that I could never do that. It is interesting to think how weird it would be if American rappers said one or two words in Korean out of the blue. In Korean rap culture, there are many references to American culture and history but never the other way around. I think this is due to the history of how Korea became a democratic country because of the United States and I think it is fascinating to see how American culture has influenced and been incorporated into Korean rap culture.

Capoeira is popular in a lot of places in the world, and one of the main elements that Brazil is known for, besides their soccer, the beautiful Amazon rainforest, and vibrant culture. However, it has not always been this way. Capoeira developed among enslaved Africans who were brought to the country of Brazil and worked on sugar plantations owned by the wealthy, white Portuguese colonists. It was a way for the enslaved to practice fighting back without the plantation owners realizing. The self-defense and strategies that are designed to teach how to win a fight when one is outnumbered by being faster and one step ahead of the opponent, getting them to use the most energy and trick them into a vulnerable position that makes it easier for you to give a critical hit. All of this is paired with music and designed fluidly to disguise it as a dance. Slaves that fought back against their captors and escaped their plantations fled to Quilombos, or villages of escaped slaves.

This continued largely without any interference on a national or legislative level until May 1888 when slavery was declared to have ended. At this point, the government had much less control over the previously enslaved population and feared that the freed people would organize a rebellion, and fight against the oppressors with the same methods that had shown success in the past: capoeira. Because of this, the government banned the practice or performance of capoeira entirely. As the dance had been created, taught, spread, and used almost entirely in secret for so long under the very noses of the same oppression that was now actively trying to eradicate it, it is unclear how effectively the Brazilian government thought that they could catch them. Capoeira groups continued to meet in secret, using only nicknames when they met to avoid leaving any traces that could lead back to them and their real identities should one of them be caught. They eased capoeira into society by again presenting it as a folk dance, which was not altogether untrue. At this point, capoeira could certainly be considered a cultural tradition and part of the experience of being a black person and former slave in Brazil. Capoeira was de-criminalized in the early 1930’s, but it was not until 1936 when capoeiristas, or practicers of capoeira, were invited to fight and perform in front of the then-President.

The word capoeira refers to a “short grass” found at the edges of the plantations where the slaves would practice under the guise of traditional dance. Another element of the dance-fighting is the “ginga”, or swaying motion. This refers to the state of constant movement that the capoeiristas are in while in the “roda”, or the fighting or performance stage. Along the edges of the roda, there gathers onlookers, other dancers or fighters, and the musicians that set the beat or play the musical accompaniment. Types of instruments typically used are called the berimbau, an interesting string and percussion instrument, pandeiro, or tambourine, and atabaque, a special type of drum.

Overall, things are going well. My Indonesian teacher is providing a helpful structure for progressing in the language. When I look back on my presentation, I agree that I am still on the right track and have been learning a lot from Farida. My speaking skills are improving, and I have been exposed to a lot of vocabulary, which I record in my language journal. My lesson plans have focused on sociolinguistic competence and personal and interaction functions. For example, in weekly cultural journal entries, I write reactionary responses to Indonesian sports, housing, and foods from my perspective. We practice the interaction function when trying to have conversations with one another. As a potential teacher, knowing how to communicate with students in a specific cultural context is key to being an effective teacher. I’m grateful for the culture classes and the practical vocabulary that we are learning, which will help me if I am an English Teaching Assistant in Indonesia. I have also been learning a lot about Indonesian Indigenous culture and the importance of language learning in general. I think these skills will be invaluable even after this semester of learning Indonesian. Overall, things are going well. My Indonesian teacher is providing a helpful structure for progressing in the language. When I look back on my presentation, I agree that I am still on the right track and have been learning a lot from Farida. My speaking skills are improving, and I have been exposed to a lot of vocabulary, which I record in my language journal. My lesson plans have focused on sociolinguistic competence and personal and interaction functions. For example, in weekly cultural journal entries, I write reactionary responses to Indonesian sports, housing, and foods from my perspective. We practice the interaction function when trying to have conversations with one another. As a potential teacher, knowing how to communicate with students in a specific cultural context is key to being an effective teacher. I’m grateful for the culture classes and the practical vocabulary that we are learning, which will help me if I am an English Teaching Assistant in Indonesia. I have also been learning a lot about Indonesian Indigenous culture and the importance of language learning in general. I think these skills will be invaluable even after this semester of learning Indonesian.  Since all our language courses have been on zoom, there are some cultural competency categories, like olfactory, artifact, and eye contact that may be different in the virtual world. I am excited that Farida will hopefully be on campus next semester so that we can communicate in person. She has offered some insights that connect to these categories. For example, Indonesians bathe every single day, which means smelling nice is probably a priority. Clothing also has significance - many women who identify as Muslim wear hijabs. It is important to wear long pants, especially when in places of worship. When learning vocabulary for clothing, I noticed that the word for “shorts” actually referred to short pants and not the above-the-knee shorts that people often wear in the United States. It seems like eye contact is important for communication through our lessons, but I think there may be a cultural norm of avoiding eye contact when greeting elders. I know honoring the hierarchy is at least somehow embedded in how Indonesians interact with each other. Since the language is quite simplified and people often talk in slang or shortened versions, reading between the lines and paying attention to body language is helpful for effectively communicating. For example, saving face is part of Indonesian culture, so people don’t always say what they mean for the sake of having a good impression. When I am speaking to Indonesians, I will also want to make sure that I am not too blunt with my comments so as not to be disrespectful. I think the key is to observe and listen first before jumping in blindly. I can also ask Farida if I have specific questions. Overall, learning Indonesian this semester has so far been an exciting opportunity to develop communicative competency across cultures. I am excited to continue learning Bahasa Indonesian!

10/25/20

During the past two weeks, we have had several units related to houses. We learned the names for the different rooms and common objects in each one. One of our assignments last week was to make a video that describes the different objects in our bedrooms, and this week we had to interview one another about our dream houses. I was excited that we learned a lot of new adjectives this week, including colors! As an artist, being able to say what things look like is important. Knowing adjectives is also helpful for describing words that I am not sure about. 

We also learned prepositions, which was helpful. I always accidentally say in instead of di, but I think I’ve gotten over this habit now. 

I also appreciate the cultural knowledge we've learned about houses - I didn't realize that parts of the city are often poorer than the rural areas and in much worse shape. I think it would be interesting to compare housing inequalities in the United States and Indonesia. The best part of this lesson was learning about a village that painted the houses rainbow colors--a creative art renovation project!

There have been a couple words that I’ve been having an especially hard time pronouncing: ungu (which means purple) and mengagumkan (which means awesome). The particular "ng" sound is difficult for me to pronounce, but I am continuing to practice. The articulatory phonetics framework can, fortunately, provide some insight on which part of the mouth is the point of articulation. Otherwise, I have not had too much trouble with Indonesian pronunciation. 

I’ve said this before but it is still true: questions stress me out because I’m always afraid I won’t be responding to the right question! Thinking about communicative competence, I need to rely on context clues. Even if I do not catch every word, it is fair for me to assume that when I first log onto zoom, Farida will ask, "Bagaimana kabarmu?" or how are you? And if we are doing a unit on animals, she may ask, "Which is your favorite?" Even if I do answer wrong, that is okay! Language learning is a process, and we can learn from our mistakes. We are continuing to have our speaking class on Wednesdays, which is pushing me to speak more. Farida had the helpful advice that when we are responding to one of the images with two minutes of talking, we should think through the question words and include these in our response: who, what, when, where, why, how? This will help us organize our thoughts instead of rambling. I have also found it helpful to take a couple of notes in the margins so I remember what I would like to say. 

In the upcoming two weeks, I will challenge myself to ask questions in Indonesian. Perhaps if I’m more comfortable asking questions, I’ll also be more comfortable responding to them when I hear them. I can repeat things back in Indonesian and use the language as a communication tool. I will also continue working on my vocabulary notebook because we’ve recently acquired a lot of new vocabulary, and I tend to remember things best if I write them down repeatedly. Having a print version of all my words may be more effective than just using an online translator. Ultimately, I’m excited by my Indonesian progress so far and look forward to continuing to learn more.