My Experience In Class

Throughout this course was really fun. I know I learned a lot. I know for sure I learned the stereotypes of East Asian languages like Chinese being the base of Korean and Japanese. It isn’t that Chinese is the base of both but it’s just that Chinese was borrowed in Japanese and Korean. That is something I learned. Some reactions I had for the readings were mostly surprised. Like the one reading for Korea, where children separate from their fathers to study English was very interesting to me. I never knew mothers went to the extent to leave their home country for a long time just to learn English. I know some families did it for a couple of months but for years was shocking. Also the other reading that surprised me was the Chinese Parenting Style. It seems harsh in a western point of view but it makes sense once I think about it and learned from the lecture. This term and class really helped me a lot in developing and learning the culture in East Asia. Especially in Korea when I worked in my research projects. It was very fun in general! Thank you for this great time and opportunity.

Blog Post #3

One of the topics that interested me the most was comparing the parenting styles of American people versus East Asian people. I myself would not prosper at all if my parents followed the same course of action as East Asian parents. Constantly feeling beatdown and not good enough would do more to frustrate me than build me back up. I really like the lecture format, despite how annoying it may be to some people. I think that having iClicker questions every lecture is great because it forces me to come to class and stay engaged on days that I would rather be in bed.

 

This class has definitely forced me to change the way I do coursework, and my understanding of the linguistics field. Never before had I thought that because I might speak a different language than someone else, our thought process would be different. Also, I never thought I would take a linguistics class, but here I am and I actually enjoyed it! The class is challenging at times, but Professor Idemaru does a great job answering my questions and presenting the information in an informative and enticing way. Thanks for a fun term!

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My hope when I signed up for this class was to learn more background knowledge about Korea, Japan, and China. Even though I’m not majoring in linguistics this class did not disappoint. We touched on and discussed many cultural and linguistical aspects of these three languages and connected them together. Some of the new things I learned about this term were Japans girl graphs and maid cafes, Chinas tea culture and level of polite speech, and Koreas language started from Chinese and their polite speeches. 

Since I didn’t know too much about Chinas culture or linguistic features before this class, it was harder for me to grasp some of the concepts. For example how one character could have five different meanings just by saying it in different tones, left-branching vs right-branching ( in general), and some of the history of the language. That being said, it was fascinating to learn how politeness speech in Chinese changed over time depending on the leader. Compared to America where English says the same no matter who the president is. This class’s information helped me get a better understanding of the linguistics behind these languages. I am also taking Korean 101 this term and it nicely connected with what I’m learning in that class. I don’t think I’ll be changing my major to linguistics, but I would like to learn more about it.

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I am so happy that I chose to take this class. Eall 209 helps me to understand the culture difference in East Asia a lot. Especially the difference between Japan and Korea. The thing that makes me feel most interested in the basic sentence structure topic. Japan and Korea use SOV (Subject Object Verb). China and the United States use SVO (Subject Object Verb). The reason I am interested in this part because the Chinese could use a translation app such as google translate to translate English into Chinese. And the meaning of the content is mostly correct. However, My Japanese friend told me that if he wants to use the app to translate sentences to Japanese, it’s less correct than Chinese. This is because the basic sentence structure is different between Japan and the United States. I am so glad to hear many people’s opinions during in-class discussion. Sometimes when I confused about the topic. Classmates’ opinion is really helpful to me. I am so thankful that Kaori used many great examples in the PowerPoints and explanation of examples is easy to understand. The changing things to me are the quizzes and the research paper. There are many articles to read. And this is the first time I paper wrote except for the writing course. Eall 209 makes me want to explore more about East Asia language and culture. In the future, I will take a similar class again.

Open Topic

I’ve never taken a linguistic class before, so these lessons were refreshing, exciting and challenging. Throughout this class, I learned not only the language mechanisms of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, but also general linguistics. Learning new things I didn’t know is so interesting. Besides, it is also interesting to observe other students’ reactions about things that I already know.

As for how to proceed with the lessons, it is a good way to discuss with the small group in the class, and share some students’ opinions. These ways help me to find out things I was not able to understand, and it gives me a good opportunity to know other people’s ideas. I sometimes couldn’t talk with neighbors about our ideas because I was afraid to make mistakes and bother them with my poor English. Although this class will be over soon, I’ll do my best to talk with neighbors more without being shy in order to not waste this precious opportunity. Also, in regards to research papers, authentic research is effective to know the real opinion from native speakers. I was able to get a lot of information, such as specific examples and the latest information through authentic research.

The most interesting topic was the power of language, like in the example of the article about Amy Chua. Although in the reading, it was written that saying garbage doesn’t decrease their children’s self-esteem, I personally think that saying that will have an effect on their children’s self-esteem, even though children know their mothers are not serious, and that they love their children. For example, some research revealed that self-esteem of young Japanese people is lower than that of other countries young people. In Japan, modesty is considered a virtue, so many parents tend to say something bad about their children when introducing their children to others. It can be said such tendency might have something to do with the result of research. I would like to learn more about this topic.

It was so interesting to learn about East Asia from the viewpoint of an American university student. What I learned in this class would help my research. I like this class so much and I would like to take a class similar to this one. Thank you!

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I’ve learned a lot from this course. Before taking this class, I did not imagine that we rely so heavily on linguistics. But it does not mean it is unnecessary. Thankfully, I learned the language structure of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in this class. It is helpful to study the following topics we argued indeed, like politeness, social situation, and masculine and feminine. Although it is hard for me to understand humble and honoring forms in Japanese at first, I get the meaning after I searched online or ask my friends.

One of the most intriguing topics for me is the “new masculine gender identities in East Asia.” I’ve watched several Korean TV series, and I noticed that the actors are “beautiful.” After taking this class, I learned that this new type of Korean male is called handsome flower men. They always wear eye makeup and have longer hair than city jade men.

I realize the importance of language, and this class changes my perspective on linguistics a lot. Language can not only affect society, and society can also alter the language uses. In addition, language also relates to one’s way of thinking. Language is an essential part of the culture. The reason for this is because the language has cultural characteristics. I have seen a sentence before: “the language of a society is an aspect of its culture; language and culture are parts and wholes.”

My learning approach for this class is to read the materials carefully before class and review each of the lecture slides seriously. That’s works a lot for me.

 

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When I took this class, I feel that is difficult about the quiz, and it has lots of quizzes, it gives me more pressure. After some quizzes, I am used to finishing the quiz and read some articles before the class. I think that the professor taught the culture of different countries and the various languages in Eastern Asia. Like, the using of the verbs, the structure of the language, the meaning and different form used in the sentence, and so on. I am so surprised about the difference in language between Eastern Asians. Before I attend this class, I could not distinguish the kanji from the Chinese and Japanese, I do not know there was a different culture, and the meaning is not the same. This class gives me rich knowledge about the Eastern Asian language, and the discussion from class change my thoughts a lot. I can listen to others carefully and sometimes ask the question to other classmates. Besides that, I find more about the culture of Japanese and Korean. And know why people’s customs are different and the reason for their life. I feel it is interesting. Even though sometimes I think that problematic for me to remember more about the grammar and others, I still find fun from the study.

Reflection Blog

Before I took this class, I have always had the thought of there are no big differences between the countries in Eastern Asia even though I am from China. However, after taking this class in this term, my mind has completely changed. Many topics that we have covered in this class have really expanded my view. For example, the differences in politeness among Eastern Asian languages, gendered language, and different way of thinking based on different languages we speak. Besides, based on my last two researches on politeness and gendered languages in Japanese, I found a lot of interesting facts about Japanese. What’s more, before my researches, I used to watch the Anime like normal people do, now I will start to notice the differences of what the characters say and look them up.

Furthermore, many interesting topics that we’ve covered have really helped me learn a lot about the language, traditions, and culture of my neighbor countries. This class has raised my interest of visiting Korea and Japan and experience their culture in person.

Open Topic

One of the questions that has intrigued me the most was actually from our newest topic. If language effects how people perceive the world, and how differently speakers think from one another. I hadn’t thought of it much before this class and now thinking about it I am amazed at how much the way our languages are structured can effect what we perceive first and the results of thoughts all together. As, in class I thought it was interesting to know that English speakers when deciding if the person in the center was happy or not. A big percentage chose happy no matter how the surroundings were and only focused on the person in the question, while even in the other exercise with the fish tank. You see the difference that east Asian language speakers could have that instead of looking at the first thing they see and answering, they look at the bigger picture with everything included to give an answer. Also, the cow and grass picture was just another intriguing moment, as it wasn’t until now that there was a difference between how people categorize things and how relationships affect the result.

How I approach learning for this class, is just preparing myself to read the content more than once. So that I am able to fully comprehend and remember what I am reading/learning about. Flashcards also help me when trying to remember important parts of the lectures and readings that have shown up on quizzes and in the readings. This class has challenged my thinking when it comes to linguistics. In terms that I have learned more than I’ve ever really known about linguistics and it’s given me good insight within the three languages and in my own in this class. Also, learning that a lot goes into linguistics and there are several parts to it which opens my eyes to see just how complex languages can be and just how interesting that is. Seeing the difference between three languages that people tend to mix up, and understanding just how different they are as well as shared similarities between each other. As someone learning Japanese and Korean and has taken Chinese classes as well, this class actually gave me more knowledge that comes into mind as I am doing homework and practicing the language. It has made me think a lot more about the language that I am learning and overall has helped me understand it more from grammar to gendered linguistical features within it.

Open Topic

I think our class provides many interesting examples of the linguistic differences between English with East Asian languages and among Chinese, Japanese and Korean. For example, in week 10 classes, we learned about the differences in cognitive conception, languages in Eastern and Western visions. In Week 8, we learned about the new gender identities in East Asia. Although the new appearance has a different name in China (City jade men), Japan (herbivore boys), and Korea (Flower handsome men), they all show the change of modern society. We can use the culture to learn about linguistics and we can also use linguistics to show the culture. I am a native Chinese speaker and before our class, I have never realized that there is gender contrast in Chinese. It intrigued me that Chinese, Japanese and Korean all have gender contrast.

The organization of our course is very helpful for me to learn. I finish the reading and do the quiz to check if I miss some important points in reading. During the lecture, we have many pairs or small group activities to discuss what we learned and sometimes I can get some new ideas from other students. In lecture slides, there are many pictures that are very clear to help me to better understand the content. For example, the “Hello Kitty” pictures help me to understand the cuteness in Japan.  Discussion sessions help me to do the assignments by sharing ideas with other students who have the same interest as me in Korean. If I have some questions about the lecture and reading, I can ask other students or Hyunji during the discussion.

Thank you Kaori Idemaru and Hyunji Kim for teaching and helping!