To what extent did you meet the study goals that you set for yourself for over the break? How much time did you spend on studying the Lakota language?
I really didn’t get to study much over break. I didn’t use memrise like I wanted to at all because my initial goal was to use memrise during car trips but I end up not going all the way down south to see my son because of funding issues. I didn’t get to watch the Lakota bears with my son I only got to skype with him and it wasn’t the same. I did not practice speaking out loud although I did go over some recordings just sitting around by myself in my living room sometimes. I got to use some Lakota with a few people who just say simple phrases like hi, and see you later, etc. I did not go to the training over the break and I was behind when I got back into class this week. This is what I didn’t want to do and it end up happening to me. I also missed a day of classes because I was having issues with my furnace in my trailer. I didn’t get much practice before the exam and I feel like I could have did so much better if I had someone to practice with. What are you looking forward to studying this term? Which skills are you looking to boost? I am still looking forward to doing much better on the next tests. I usually do decent at test taking when I study with other types of testing. I want to boost my sentence making skills because it is really frustrating when I can’t make a sentence out of scratch about a given topic. I also would like to work on responding in different ways instead of using the context of the question in my own answers. Reflect on the written assessment: Which questions did you find the easiest and most enjoyable? I liked the exercise with the trees and leaves because I am good at describing colors and what I see. Also I must be decent at identifying trees and corresponding different leaves and flowers associated with each species of trees. I thought I did okay on the questions that we had to change to Ya and change back. I think because we just worked on those types of things the most in class. Which questions didn't you enjoy? Why? I did not enjoy the questions that made us make up sentences about what we did on which day because I struggle at making my own sentences. I also didn’t enjoy the Dakota to Lakota translations because I just can’t see the difference when I’m reading it and it’s really frustrating to read the script over and over without figuring out the difference of Lakota. Did you feel that you performed better in the January assessment than the December one? How? Give examples. I feel that I did do a little better the 2nd time of testing even though I didn’t really study much between the two tests. I felt more comfortable with the 1st questions because of mistakes I saw the first time. I was more confident in most of the test the 2nd time but I also struggled in areas that I did not so much the first time. I struggled with making sentences even worse the 2nd time and that is a frustrating feeling. It makes me want to work on my sentence making even more. Also I could not find the differences between gl and n and l with the Lakota/Dakota questions.
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What was the most difficult thing you learned?
The most difficult thing for me this week was when we got into pairs of two and we had to come up with ways to better the environment. My group was air pollution and air quality. We came up with some sentences in Lakȟóta for simple problems that involve air pollution in big cities like Minneapolis, MN. I did most of the ideas because I really enjoy environmental science. If we had more time I bet we could have made some really interesting sentences in Lakȟóta. It is difficult because there is no words for chemicals and pollutants, we had to say the air was dirty and birds were falling from the sky in big cities such as Minneapolis, MN. There is no word for smog so said the clouds were dirty. It can get tricky, this was a good exercise because it made us think using historical language. What do you think is an important concept to remember? Why? A very important thing to remember from this week is that as Native American people, we should do our best to avoid pollution in our area. As a group we said stuff about using good choices of transportation because many people use their own cars and trucks. If we cut down on our burning of fuels we can help out pollution problem in the air tremendously. What was your favorite thing you learned? I would have to say my favorite thing that I learned this week was knowing that I and my partner would be able to complete the assignment on environmental problems. I think it was my favorite because I am interested in environmental science and I am always thinking about the pollution that might happen because of oil spills. What are you excited to learn about in the future? I am excited to see how I’m going to do on our assessment coming up at the end of the week. This will help me see what kind of pace I’m learning at now compared to the first quarter of class. I am kind of nervous because I missed days because of my dog being sick one time and me catching the flu this week. Hopefully this next assessment will be easier for me. Are you looking forward to a break from classes? I am really excited to have a break. I have yet to visit my family in Minnesota since I moved to the Fort Yates area. I am also very excited to go spend as much time as I can with my son! I miss him so much I haven’t got to see him in months. Meeting and spending time with my family is all I want to do over break. How much revision time will you allow yourself each week? What will you do? I can take turns with my friend on the drive down there and use memrise on the way when I’m not driving. I can watch bears with my son and read stories to him in Lakȟóta. Will you make arrangements to meet up with other learners? And/or fluent speakers? I can try. I know my dad is about half fluent and we are about the same when speaking this language. I can work with him. My family in Minnesota is all Ojibwe and my son is half Dine. I really won’t have much time to meet with learners or speakers over break but I can use the FB messenger if need be.
What was the most difficult thing you learned? I noticed that I struggle with my pos, yos, and los. I actually did the entire unit 23 wrongly by saying wo after every sentence. I can sort of notice when to put the wo and not po or lo because sometimes it is just easier to say. Although I don’t think anyone has asked if it is right or wrong to put wo or lo or po, instead. I feel that I have not even learned this completely. I will be sure to ask much questions this week of class. What do you think is an important concept to remember? Why? The most important concept to remember is to talk with the males dialouge because females speak differently. I pretty much know the difference now but when it comes to thinking about siblings in male or female speech I can get confused very easily. I just need to practice the man part and almost disregaurd female speech until I master the male finally. What was your favorite thing you learned? My favorite thing that I learned this week was making sentences about the weather such as : Before it snows, I will go to Bismarck. That is a decent sentence because it is something I would maybe say during the winter season because of the road conditions. Wa híŋ hé sni hanŋi, tȟáspaŋ ožú opéwatȟun ta mniŋ kte. I liked the exercises we did on repetition without writing it down, these helped me remember that entire lesson better. What are you excited to learn about in the future? I am excited to learn about story telling and old folk tales about mythical and misterious things. I think the history of story telling is very important and I feel that most people don’t know about these things. I have sat with older men and heard some pretty cool stories about ceremony and things that are spiritually mysterious. That type of stuff really gets my attention. Listening Comprehension and Transcription Reflection. How has your listening comprehension improved over the past fifteen weeks? Think about the recordings we listen to in class and the fluent speakers that you interact with. I think that my comprehension skills of this language have improved fairly over the course. I can tell by how often I catch myself laughing because its fun to fully understand a joke. I still struggle with talking and speaking my own sentences most of the time. I usually do better when someone asks me a question that I can understand, then I can respond in the same sort of way at least. I have a long way to go and most of it is understanding the subjects of these questions being asked upon me. How have your transcription skills improved over the past fifteen weeks? Think back to our first transcription exercise. My transcription skills have improved tremendously over the course. I can tell by our last transcription exercise because I was almost spot on with most of my tries. I struggled so bad the first time I tried to transcribe. Maybe it is because I am starting to get familiar with these simple phrases that I am starting to hear over and over. The first time I transcribed I was super frustrated because I didn’t recognize half of the words being said. I bet if I were to be able to go back and listen in again I would do much better. The next step for me is to write down the sentence and then configure the sentence in English at a much faster rate. What was the most difficult thing you learned?
The most difficult thing that I did this week was speaking in front of the camera with no hesitation or pausing much. It felt good to finally do that even though I don’t think that my pronunciation of the words was totally correct throughout the exercise. The weather man exercise was difficult because we all had different places with different weather forecasts to cover. What do you think is an important concept to remember? Why? The most important concept to remember is to not slow down or hesistate. It is importat to remember that confidence is key and being scared or not confident in yourself just makes it harder. It is okay to mess up as long as we are trying our best. What was your favorite thing you learned? My favorite thing that I learned this week was the aŋpétu tókča he exercise because it allowed us to be creative and say our own weather forecasts the way we would want to present it. I was actually kind of nervous at first and I wasn’t ready to go first. I felt that I did okay at it; I started out doing good with my introduction but I felt like I should have switched up the way my sentences were. I felt like my sentences were too repetitive when explaining the highs and lows of each day. The main thing was that it was a major confidence booster and it was a great exercise for me. What are you excited to learn about in the future? I am excited to learn how to tell a story with details like things I learned about the weather. It just would sound cool and give the story more of a feel to it. I want to be able to tell stories in Lakota because I have a lot of funny and cool stories to share with people. I think its extra funny when people understand the joke in Lakota because it makes it us think for just a moment and some how it becomes funnier just because of that. Set yourself some clear goals for retaining the knowledge you've gained over the past thirteen weeks. Think about: The diverse topics that we've covered – which do you remember the best and which the least? Some of the things that I remember are: daily routines, how to introduce yourself, what do you like to eat, what do you see, how to pluralize, how to put emphasis on certain words like commands, how to tell someone where you are going or came from, numbers, the alphabet, stress, etc. These are the simple and broad things that I remember. Things that I need help remembering are just random nouns and adjectives that I forget from not working on them. Things that I do remember well is things that I have already gone over in LSI classes this summer because its like I’m just refreshing my memory on those things. I am getting better at remembering things just by taking better notes and reviewing them. Before I would forget a lot of things in my notes because they didn’t make any sense or they wouldn’t have the stress invloved. I actually think that the Memrise app is helping me out because I can use it offline and I need to catch up with everything so I can stay on top of things and not feel left behind.
The most difficult thing that I learned this week was the iyaya, iblable, and glicu. I understood each exercise but it took me on my own time to learn when to use each verb. I realized that I do not say words completely right especially when they have gutterals involved and I don’t say them. I need to take the time and write my notes correctly instead of just writing them fast without aspirations and stuff like that. I thought that the wanblaka, wanyang manke, and wanyang awastewalake are all difficult to understand when to use. I had to make myself a chart in my notes just as the board showed. The most important concept that I took out of this week’s class sessions was my note taking. I actually bought a new notebook and started to use it more often now that I am getting the hang of keeping my stuff organized. I really understand my own notes now it doesn’t just look like chicken scratch for me to remember for that day only. I can now go back and look through my notes and see all my side notes as well. It looks organized and this helps when I need a refresher for something I may have forgotten about. My favorite thing that I learned this week was okoihanke, meaning this weekend because it is a great conversation starter and people can say all sorts of things because usually weekends are free. I also think that the word for watching television is fun – wichitenaskanskan. I also enjoyed the star stories because I always enjoyed the stars and constellations. I think that the story itself about stars falling onto earth is extremely mysterious and it intrigues me to learn more about old Lakota stories about how they used to live. I want to learn more about winter counts and other historical moments. It’s fun to learn cool words or phrases like – the end of the world, to be burned completely, to be burning- mainly because you can make funny sentences out of things like that. (which helps me to remember, somehow.) I also had fun when Unci Delores was here and we were asking each other if you ever seen this type of animal?, are you scared of this animal?, have you ever ridden this animal? It was funny because dang I didn’t think riding an elephant was so popular, I must be missing out. I have a common goal for retaining the knowledge that I have gained and that is to past my next test with a better score than last time. I just want stay improving and I do not want to forget everything that I have learned so far by stopping or quitting. I remember mostly everything that we went over just from taking good notes and looking over them. I like using memrise because it works offline, and its best to use when your waiting on your food or your on a trip and don’t have any service. I think having Unci Delores in class really helps me feel like I should pay attention very closely and especially to all of her stories because I can understand more and more each time she visits the class. It feels good to listen to a fluent speaker and getting more out of it because I am slowly learning more and more. I feel kind of left out when jokes are being made that I do not understand because of certain words I have yet to learn. I think being able to understand the language when it is spoken is most important because how can one learn to speak without listening to how it is spoken?
The most difficult thing that I have learned this week was using small words like kin, le, kun, un, cha, sece. It is also very important to know these things because you hear fluent speakers use small words like this in their speech all the time. I think it was kind of difficult to catch on to the yule awastewalake’s because there wasn’t any English going on in this exercise. I understood this concept after a couple of minutes. It is difficult to learn immersion style but it does help out a lot because after the lesson I feel like I have it down and it’s in my brain for good. I think it’s important to know these things because it is a good conversation starter because everyone likes to eat different things. I think I need to stop worrying so much when I’m talking or reading this language. – idk just a thought. What I am excited to learn about in the near future is to be able to stand in front of the camera and not being shaky or hesitant to speak this language. That would be a huge step for me as a beginner to this language. If I can stand in front of a camera and get recorded then I feel like I would be able to stand in front of a large crowd of people and give a speech or something maybe. I really don’t understand why we are learning a different dialect because I thought the main thing was that we all had the same sign language back in the day. I felt that it wasn’t too difficult to understand but I just didn’t feel like it was needed really. I understand that the dialects are slightly different, although I don’t have the same feeling about their language. Mainly because I was down to do all this just to learn my own Hunkpapha language and I have no interest learning different dialects. I pretty much didn’t like doing it even I didn’t think it was fun. Kinda messed up but that’s how I felt about it. Everything that I am learning is new information and I am learning something new every day in this class. I don’t think learning other dialects is necessary for learning this language. What was the most difficult thing you learned?
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October 2017
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