#language pledge

[mayainmena]

نهاية البرنامج

So after a shockingly short 3 1/2 months, I'm now mostly packed to head home in just a little over two days! The last two months in particular seem to have gone by extremely quickly, and it's super weird that the semester is pretty much done. One good thing about time moving so quickly is that it lets me know that studying abroad for a longer amount of time will be totally doable, which is great to know since I'm now officially in the Arabic Flagship program. So while I may be spending the next year and a half in the US (though I definitely might intern abroad this summer), I'll be spending a full year in Meknes, Morocco starting June 2016!

Anyway, these last few weeks in Amman have been somewhat stressful with end-of-semester assignments but altogether really great. The language pledge has somewhat broken down - most of us kept to it for a good 95% of the semester, but starting a week or so ago about half the program started just speaking English again, and the rest of us followed pretty quickly. I think I've gotten a lot out of the language pledge and I'm glad that I stuck with it for a good three months, but I'm also really relieved to be speaking English again. 

In other news, the other day my friend from CLS organized an event for CLS alumni currently living in Amman, which turned out to be super cool. It was unfortunate that I met so many cool people only within a week of leaving the country, but we had some really interesting discussions about our various study abroad experiences. One particularly interesting pattern that we found came up when we talked about sexual harassment; the girls with darker skin thought that the harassment here in Jordan was worse that what they experienced in Morocco, while those of us with lighter skin thought that the situation here was better. I'm not entirely sure what that means (we considered the fact that there are more foreign workers here so darker skin might be seen as low-class, but I feel like that would be true as well in Morocco so I don't really know), but it was definitely an interesting difference in our experiences. 

Within the next week, I'm hoping to post about our group trip to Petra as well as a smaller trip to Jerash, and then hopefully some reflections on my time abroad, both in Jordan and in general.

12/16/2014

[itwasbrilliant]

My loyal followers...

Tomorrow morning at 9 am I sign the language pledge to not speak, read, write, or listen to English. Therefore I will not reblog anything. However I may post occassionally in Japanese if I have the time. See you in August!

[breeinamman-blog]

More to come, but the big news of the day (besides an exceptionally successful cab ride) is that I'm now officially under التعهد اللغوي (the language pledge)! Though I'll mostly be exempting myself from the pledge on this blog, this marks the beginning of my third month under the pledge, and 3la al fikra - by the end of the program, I will have spent half of 2013 with English as a haram language! Kateeeeer majnoon. 

Al hamdulila tomorrow is the weekend (Thurs-Sat) and the exploration starts!

Yalla khalas bye bye!

[etakh1213]

語言誓約 Language Pledge

從明天12點開始， 我會簽一個語言誓約。 我會只用中文來跟別人交通。 唯一的例外是如果一個人不懂中文。 為什麼要簽個誓約？ 因為我在台灣住了六月了， 但是我覺得我的中文依然進步了很少。 我每天真的不需要用很多中文。 我在教堂裡禁止說中文， 我在家裡習慣跟朋友們用英文， 我在街上通常用的中文很簡單 - “這多少？” “明天天氣會比較冷” “我怎麼去屏東科技大學？” 等等。 雖然我的聽力應該進步了， 可是我的輸出還是很差， 常常忘記詞彙、 談話時冷場、 用錯語法。 所以未來兩個禮拜希望自己可以只用中文。 我後天要跟爸爸去菲律賓潛水， 然後要去新加坡賞鳥， 最後要去香港跟家人過年。 所以我應該有豐富機會來用普通話（國語）、 上海話、 和廣東話。 我很久都沒用過廣東話了， 這個方言對我來說應該是最難的障礙。 可是我會堅持。

Starting from 12pm tomorrow, I will sign a language pledge. I will only use Chinese to communicate with other people. The only exception is if someone doesn't understand Chinese. Why do I want to sign a pledge? Because I've lived in Taiwan for six months now, but I think my Chinese hasn't made much progress yet. Realistically, I don't need to use much Chinese in my daily life. I'm forbidden from speaking Chinese in the classroom, I'm used to speaking English to my friends at home, and on the street, the Chinese I use is very simple - "How much?" "Tomorrow will be colder," "How do I get to Pingtung Technology University?" etc. Even though my listening ability has improved, my output is still lacking. I often forget vocabulary, leave awkward lulls in conversations, and use incorrect grammar. So, these next two weeks, I hope I can use only Chinese. In two days, I will go to the Philippines with my dad to scuba dive. Then I will go to Singapore for birdwatching, and finally, I will go to Hong Kong to celebrate the Chinese new year with my family. So, I will have ample opportunity to use Mandarin, Shanghainese, and Cantonese. I haven't used Cantonese in a really long time. This dialect will be my most difficult obstacle. But I will persevere.

[ashish92]

Paris - first impressions

I arrived in Paris on Thursday (Paris time) after not sleeping a whole day and pushing around my luggage around the streets of Paris as I looked for my host family's house.  After getting an amazing arm workout from the suitcases, I found the house, which is absolutely beautiful. There are like a billion rooms and it is like a museum or with decorated ceiling and everything (sorry, no pictures, I'd thought it'd be a tad creepy). I also met my roommate for the next month, who is also on the Midd program and is really nice!! My host mom was sick, so we didn't really talk much. The house I'm staying at has three other exchange student besides me, one from Brasil and other from Japan. 

That afternoon, my roommate and I climbed up the Montmartre (located right not far from my house, which in the 10th arrondissement) and got to climb up all the way to the top of La Basilique du Sacré-Coeur to see a beautiful view of Paris (with half of the Eiffel Tower because it was super cloudy). We also ate a wonderful meal at a café at Place de Tertre (somewhere near Montmartre). 

The next day we had orientation, where they told us about the program. Basically, this program is going to be so much more independent than the program in Hangzhou. We had to figure out metro, phone, etc. all by ourselves. Also, we signed the language pledge that day. Albeit, all these things are not that hard, but its a big change. That day, I also saw the Louvre from the outside and the Jardin des Tuileries. 

The next day, some Middkids (i.e. Sarah & Brianna) and I walked around Paris some more, including the Notre-Dame, the Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. We're waiting for a nice sunny day to climb all the high buildings so we have a good view of Paris, but at this rate, it might never happen (its been too gray, not even a little sun). 

Today, I was able to visit the Jardin du Luxembourg (which is huge btw) and see the Invalides from the outside. 

So first impressions of Paris:

1. So much more expensive than China, especially in tourist areas.

2. Speaking French is hard, since every time I open my mouth, Chinese wants to come out. But it's feeling better day by day (just hope that doesn't mean I will start forgetting my Chinese).

3. When a lot of people hear your accent, they just want to speak to you in English, but if you're incessant, they'll continue in French. (I was annoyed at this the first day, because I just assumed everyone would continue in English, but that's not always the case). 

4. Paris is exactly as I pictured it. Beautiful. But my first impression of it, is that it is more of a city to see than to live. I'll have to figure out how Paris can be both over the course of this semester.

5. The Métro is pretty easy to get around.

I've decided that for this semester I have to start from the beginning of the semester to keep the language pledge completely and to reduce my contact to English, because there is already a lot it of here (music, signs, tourists, etc.) In order to that, I've decided I'm going to try to reduce myself one time of English a week and that's on Sundays (so those will be my checking Facebook days, TV days (maybe), and blog days). The other days, I will try to listen to music exclusively in French and only go on French websites (with a few exceptions, like when I need to talk to friends and family back in the US); of course I have to make another exception for Chinese (but that's not English). Personally, I think this is extremely difficult, but I really want to improve my French. At least I'll be able to reduce, if not eliminate my access to English, in any case. 

During orientation, our director asked us what we were trying to get out of this semester. And one of the objectives I put was making French friends. He told us about how hard it is and how much effort it really needs. I think I'm willing to be more open, but I don't know if I actually will be.

Upon further reflection, I think its not exactly my main goal here (even though I wrote it). I would absolutely love to meet some cool French people, but if that doesn't happen, I won't be too upset. For me this experience is more about trying to improve my French, learn to be more independent, and to learn how to maintain languages that I learn (this will be my first challenge in trying to maintain my Chinese when I'm not speaking it all the time). In the future, I know that I will not be able to live in both places as much as I would like (or maybe even at all), so it's my responsibility now to figure out how to balance both. 

[nicktacto]

Yup I told I joke.... IN CHINESE

So today I'm feeling pretty good about my Chinese. guess why?...

I told a really dirty joke and everyone understood! AND LAUGHED! Even the Chinese people around me knew what I was saying (they looked at me funny)!

This is how I know my Chinese is improving. I'm regaining my personality and humor :D After a week of only speaking Chinese this feels amazing!

Now I just need to do really well on tomorrows test and I can feel super good about myself!

*happy bubble*

[nicktacto]

use your words honey...

Remember when you were young and were trying really hard to express yourself but you couldn't. Then your mother told you to "Use your words". That seemed like a really long long time ago huh.... Not if your on a language pledge... If you want to re-enjoy the feeling of not being able to properly express yourself take a language pledge in your second language and even if you consider yourself well educated in whichever language you pledge to solely speak I promise you will run into many obstacles.   

For example, today I tried telling one of my classmates that his shoelace was untied and ended up pointing dramatically at his shoe for about three seconds after Chinese failed me... I dont know the word for shoelace but I can talk about euthanasia with you if you'd like.

This is what China does to you...