Wednesday, February 20, 2013

About Communication

1) I find the podcast project to be an interesting means of learning utilizing the Japanese we learned throughout the past two semesters. I expect to learn many things from the podcasting project, but there are a few that particularly come to mind. I think the process of creating a complete, thought out piece spoken entirely in Japanese will broaden my understanding of how the language works as well as convey my thoughts in Japanese as I would if I spoke in English. It will provide me the time to tailor the dialogue to make it sound natural in Japanese. Figuring out a means of speaking and writing in Japanese that communicates effectively while showing my personality will help me in communicating in Japanese in the future.

I also expect to improve my listening comprehension with all the content that the groups will make. I will get an opportunity to learn new vocabulary as well as hearing both polite form and plain form. It will be nice to see videos in Japanese that is within skill level and can immediately understand.

I will also get a sense of where I am as far as my fluency and accent by listening to myself speak in my group's podcast. It is one thing to have a grasp of the vocabulary and grammatical structure, but I would also like my Japanese to be clear and easy to understand for native speakers of Japanese.

Since the piece will primarily focus on Japanese culture (or American culture explained to a Japanese audience), I will get a better understanding of the culture from both my group's project as well as the other groups in the class. With the groups who will discuss American culture, I hope to get a better sense of New York since I am not from the city and still in the process of getting a sense of what the city has to offer. I think that it will expand my understanding of both my Japanese heritage and American culture.


2) Communication at a base level is relaying ideas and feelings through vocalization, writing, and gestures/expressions. Communication also shows a person's personality as well as the culture they were raised in. Language in and of itself is a reflection of the speaker's culture. Many of the things conveyed and how they are conveyed are rooted in one's culture whether intentionally portrayed or not. It is perhaps the reason why something like portraying humor when learning a second or third language is difficult.

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