Sunday, November 27, 2016

Now Watch Me Arabic (Arabic Week 20)

I'm excited to announce I've made some real Arabic progress! This past week I was able to work with somebody from the Middle East to help get a better understanding of how to approach the language. So far I have learned more in the past week than I felt I have in nearly five months of studying.

For starters, I now have a better understanding of verbs. Verbs start with a root word that can be expanded out to form different words for each person. This has helped A LOT as I can then take any verb and hopefully format it to work with any word I want. This helped in realizing how you say, "How are you?"

Last week I was able to distinguish between "my book" and "this book". During the past week I have been able to expand on that and learn more ways of saying possession of a noun. This has been a really good starting block for a lot more to come.

Having an understanding of the alphabet has helped quite a bit. This was especially helpful when new words were presented and I was able to help distinguish between a few letters that may sound the same but look different. I've been able to write out most of the stuff that I've learned.
Look at all the things I can write!
I'm quite happy with this past week. Although a lot of the stuff I have learned is more shaky than what I have been learning, I feel that it is pushing me in the correct direction. I feel that I have a better foundation to build off of with what I've been learning over the past week. My hope is that this confidence can help keep me both motivated and pushing myself every day from here forward.

Overall this week's post is short. There's a lot going on behind the scenes that has me optimistic. This week my video is literally going to be me just rehearsing phrases and words that I've learned most recently. It likely won't make sense but I hope you can feel more confidence being shown, maybe not from the presentation of what I say but in the fearlessness that what I'm saying is closer to correct.
Until next time.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Meeting New People: Making a Challenge Real (Arabic Week 19)

When I first began learning Chinese, I told myself it was because I wanted to meet new people. The idea was that I would be able to communicate with people who I previously hadn't been able to communicate with due to a language barrier. For a year I felt like I was doing that until I realized that everybody I was communicating with was also learning English. This meant that although I was able to use a new language to talk to them, I still would have been able to had I tried speaking English. I needed a different idea.

At the same time I was getting frustrated. Most of the people I tried to talk with had the same mindset as me. You come to a language learning app, with the hopes of being able to practice your language with a native. Most people didn't want to dedicate their time speaking their native language helping the other person. This often led to a "language battle" where each person only responds using the language they're learning, so it isn't really a conversation of either language. I tried to play the middle ground and respond in both languages, but the person I was talking to wouldn't budge.

Finally, I made a rash decision: I was going to find somebody else who would only speak to me in Chinese. How was I going to do this? I set out to find somebody who was ALSO learning Chinese, but from a different country. My goal was that they couldn't speak English so that the only language we could communicate with was Chinese. Initially, I messaged people in Chinese with my plan, but due to how complex of an idea it was, I didn't get any responses. Most people thought I was way beyond their level or didn't feel they could communicate with somebody in Chinese.

I went to my second attempt. Knowing that they couldn't translate as much as I was sending in Chinese, I needed to message them in their language. The problem was I didn't know their language at all. How did I accomplish this? Google translate is a wonderful thing! I typed up a generic message in English, translated it to various languages, and then sent it to people from those countries. Most people were terrified of this idea, fearing that without a comfortable language for us both to communicate in, how would we talk if we got lost in translation? Some people have responded and it has been entertaining to say the least.
Carrying on a conversation with somebody who is also learning Chinese can get interesting.
My success rate of getting somebody to respond is way below 10%. Some people respond back in their language (thanks Google for helping to translate that), some respond in English, but most responses come in Chinese. This sets up a beneficial situation for both of us as we can focus on the one language we both want to learn.
A few of the translations I've used to try to get people to talk to me.
This summer I had the chance to have an actual video chat with somebody from a different country. I was terrified. To prepare, I sent them a list of vocabulary words that I would likely use to introduce myself (I don't expect a beginner to know Mechanical Engineer) to help make sure we could keep a conversation going. Not only that, but knowing that some words may be confusing, I drew pictures. I figured if they got confused when I said I like to ride bikes, I could draw a bicycle and hopefully we could communicate that way. The person I was supposed to chat with got scared and passed the video off to their friend who also spoke Chinese. Being as determined as I was, I was still able to have a conversation with them even though we didn't really have time to prepare. My drawings didn't have to come up either.

Overall, the experience of trying to meet somebody that doesn't speak English at all has been entertaining. There is plenty of times people ignore my request, but there's also times that I can have an actual conversation with somebody that I never would have been able to before. Currenlty, I am having conversations with two different people from different countries in Africa who are also learning Chinese. Had I never reached out to those people, I never would have been able to talk to them. Better to take a chance than to never have that opportunity, right?

This week I had a wonderful little breakthrough. I had been realizing that sometimes you should say "al" before a noun but never figured out why. Turns out it is a way of saying "the" or "a". This week I was able to help understand the difference between that and saying "my". Little steps lead to a lot bigger progress.
Until next time.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

What am I Doing Differently? (Arabic Week 18)

I'm not the only person learning a language. There are millions of people learning other languages. I've talked to multiple people who are also learning a language at this time; so what makes me different? Do I have a secret to allow me to be better at learning a language? Yes, it is using the language.

This seems so obvious but it can be challenging as well. Obviously as we learn a language our hope is to be able to use it. The issue is that we always wait until we think we are "good enough" to actually start to use it. We'll wait until we have a large enough vocabulary, grammar, confidence, etc. The problem is that this is actually slowing down the progress.

Nobody was able to walk on their first attempt. The first word you ever said when you were a baby likely wasn't some novel idea. The first time you do something, you aren't going to be good at it. The sooner you get working on it the sooner it will be able to improve. You can spend hours, days, and years reading how to ride a bike but until you get out and start riding you won't see that improvement.

More than anything, you have to be willing to make mistakes. Don't be worried about saying something incorrectly. You'll find that people get excited when you are speaking their language and will go out of their way to help you instead. Not only that, but you learn more from your mistakes than from your successes. I figured out pretty quick the different between "don't" and "haven't" with regards to Mandarin. If you recall, the first time I tried to tell somebody that we were hungry because we "haven't" eat I accidentally said we "don't". That's a pretty big difference in those regards and the reaction I got proved that as well. The more willing you are to throw yourself out there and make mistakes, the more likely you are to see improvement.

Friday night Jessie and I watched The Chronicles of Narnia and I thought it'd be fun to try to translate it in real time as we went. It wasn't long before I was asked to stop but it was cool to see that I was able to translate quite a bit more than I expected. I've done this before with a Dr. Seuss book and the same reaction happened. I was more successful than I thought I would have been. Sometimes you have to stop holding yourself back and just trust that you can do more than you thought.

This week I did a lot of planning for future improvements that I'm hoping to see in about a month. I realized I had some goals earlier in the year that I may not have completed so I'm going to try to see which ones are still within reach without going off my main path just to check off a box. This week I went for my 5 minute monologue in Chinese. I used it as a way to talk about a challenge that I've faced when trying to practice Chinese.

Not even going to try adding subtitles for all of this. My video editing system right now is lacking to say the least. Instead, fun activity for anybody who speaks Mandarin to use it as a chance to listen. Again, I made plenty of mistakes along the way. There's words I don't have in my vocabulary, word order was off, I couldn't think of what to say, etc. but the important thing is that I can give it my full effort and not back down.

Literally thought to myself, "Why am I always sitting in the same seat?" so I stepped outside. Guys, I went outside!
Until next time.

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Culture & Language: Learning One is Learning Both (Arabic Week 17)

When I first began learning a language, I had no intent of really learning the culture behind it. I figured everything would be pretty straight forward and equivalent to English. Obviously, that isn't the case. As you learn a language, there is certain indications about the culture itself that you have to learn to really interact.

My first experience of this was when I began learning the appropriate way to start a conversation with somebody using Chinese. A common phrase, "你好吗?" is closely related to, "How are you?" There was a time that hunger was a very serious issue in China. This issue led so much that a common greeting was instead inquiring that the person you were talking to had eaten for the day. Previously, a more common phrase to use was, "你吃了吗?" which is, "Have you eaten yet?" If somebody approached me on the street in the U.S. and asked me that out of no where, I'd likely be a little skeptical; are you about to ask me out to eat? This common phrase from the older generations in China is a way of showing your concern for the well-being of somebody you are talking to.

Another interesting aspect of other languages is the order of your name. In China, your name is commonly referred to as <Last Name> <First Name>. I always like to consider the values of the country when looking at this situation. When it comes down to who you are, you put your family first.

In a more grammatical sense, the explanation is likely that it is common to start with a larger group and then go to a smaller subsection. Instead of saying, "I am from Iowa City, Iowa, U.S." I would say, "I am from U.S., Iowa, Iowa City" For a lot of people I'm sure this seems completely backwards, why would I say something that way? Honestly, it makes more sense to start with the general area. You may not know where Iowa City or Iowa is located so until I mention the U.S. you are completely clueless as to where I am talking. On the other hand, when I start with the general area you are more clear of the location prior to hearing the exact place.

With regards to Arabic, there is a lot of religion that goes with the phrases. Here is a list of common phrases and their literal translations:

Hello (Peace be upon you)
السلام عليكم
Hello (Peace upon you as well)
وعليكم السلام
Response to how are you: (Good, praise to Allah)
كويس الحمد لله
Response to offering you to do something: (If Allah wills it)
إن شاء الله

At first this may seem to concern people, the whole language is driven by religion!? What about English? We always say things like, "Bless your" or "God bless you" and it never is a very big deal. When tragedy strikes a certain person or location, we say, "Pray for <blank>". There are certain words that originated from religion as well. "Holiday" can easily be rooted back to "Holy Day" yet we use "Happy Holidays" as a way to refrain from any religious conflicts.

Overall, one theme that can be seen in a lot of languages is how you pay respect to your family. It took me a little time when I first began Chinese to realize that having a brother wasn't good enough. There are different words for siblings that are either older or younger than you. There are different words for you dad's and your mom's parents. This is seen in a lot of other languages as well, distinguishing somebody by either their age or their side of the family.

Another interesting aspect of languages is how some of them are related. Would you believe that one of the easiest languages is actually rooted from one of the hardest? Due to historical conquests, there are around 8,000 Spanish words that have Arabic origin. This week I am going to go over some of those words in both Spanish and Arabic to show how nearly 600 years of separating cultures can still have very similar sounds.I will start each one with the Spanish word, followed by the original Arabic word.
Until next time.