Thanksgiving

This week was not a great one for Zulu, given that it was Thanksgiving break. I thought I would have a lot of extra time to study Zulu, but as usual, that didn't happen during break. I was able to meet with my language partner the week before break, and we just conversed in Zulu, without any particular focus or topic. It was actually an interesting test of my language abilities. It was quite the struggle, but I generally understood most of what he was saying. I often had trouble responding generally due to a lack of vocabulary. It would be interesting to try the same thing again after I've had more time to learn vocabulary.

For the rest of the week, I mostly worked on mastering old vocabulary. I did not complete any new lessons, which was fine. It's good to review. It will be a real challenge to squeeze in my Zulu study for the next few weeks because I have many other things due. My plan is to design one activity per day that lasts between 30-45 minutes. That will at least keep me going on Zulu but will not require more time than I have. It may actually be helpful to have a set time limit for my studies, so I move through things faster. We'll see how it goes.

Planning is the best!

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, last week I made a plan for the whole week on Sunday, to try to help me stay on task better. This technique worked marvelously, and I think I got a lot more done during the week as a result. I certainly didn't manage to finish everything on my list because it was quite ambitious. But by the end of the week my list looked like this

Monday

• Review vocab from class
• Pretend I'm in a restaurant and order food

Tuesday

• Practice asking questions
• Learn unknown question words
• Learn a few new verbs to ask questions with
• Complete Unit 4 in Sanibona

Wednesday

• Practice using "to be" with occupations
• Complete Unit 5 in Sanibona 

Thursday/Friday

• Roleplay going to the market
• Review rest of week's material

Not too bad for one week! I also decided to make a plan for my language partner and I should talk about. This also really helped to guide our sessions, so I was able to learn a lot more than I had in previous weeks. All in all, it was an excellent Zulu week, and I hope to keep this momentum going forward!

Man with a plan

This week, I decided to make a daily lesson plan for myself for each day of the week, which tells me what I should do each day for Zulu. This structure has considerably helped me stay on task and feel like I'm heading in the right direction with my language learning. Because this was my first weekly lesson plan, I may have been a bit too ambitious for what I can actually get done in a week, but I guess it's better to aim high than low. In future weeks, I think I will be able to make more accurate lesson plans. Below is my plan for this week:

Sunday
-learn 5 stative verbs (I'm tired, hungry, etc.) and practice using them
              -write these new words in my language dictionary
-Review commands (do this, do that)
-Review vocab with quizlet

Monday
-Do a role play where I pretend I'm in a restaurant and order food similar to what we did in class 2 weeks ago

Tuesday
-practice asking questions (where someone lives, what they do, etc)
         -use Sanibona Lesson 4 for guidance
         -prepare for meeting with Bongani to get guidance on how to ask questions
-Learn 5 new verbs to ask questions with (live, see, visit...)

Wednesday
-Write out to-be verb and practice using with occupations, etc
-Unit 5 in Sanibona

Thursday/Friday
-Review material from the week
-Do a roleplay of going to the market
-Meet with Bongani and ask him to help me review and practice everything I learned this week

The plan seems to be working quite well so far! I'm really enjoying having this structure and using a mix of different methods to improve my learning. Next week, I think I will include more specific instructions for what sort of activities I do to learn various vocab, grammar, and role plays.

Missed Week

I just realized that I forgot to post last week, so I'll post two this week to make up for it. The Zulu study has been going relatively slowly lately because I've been so busy with all of my classes. I have managed to attend one of the first semester Zulu classes, where we learned how to talk about what's wrong with us (i.e. my stomach hurts). I haven't been able to retain all of that new vocabulary yet, but I've been working on it. I also met with my language partner at the Union. We talked for a bit in Zulu and then played pool and talked in Zulu the whole time. It was a lot of fun.

I think my main issue has been that I have not been making detailed schedules for myself at the beginning of the week. This week, I'm going to make a detailed schedule (today, in fact) that maps out what I'll be doing each day for the rest of the week. This way, I'll stay on task better and also have a list of what I did that week, which will be nice to look at later.

Guessing Words

This week has been slightly less productive than previous weeks, partly because of Halloween and partly because I have had a million other things to do. I wasn't able to meet with my language partner this week either, which made it harder for me to stay motivated. However, I did attend the first semester Zulu class this past week, and I feel like I really learned a lot. We did a role play where we went to a restaurant and ordered food. I learned a lot of new vocab and was able to activate it in a conversational setting, which was nice.

This week, I decided to try and employ the "guessing words" strategy mentioned in the Peace Corps chapters. This involved listening to my dialogues a few times before I looked at the written version and trying to guess words from the context. I also looked at the pictures in my textbook and tried to guess the words that were under them without looking at the vocabulary. I think this helped me retain the words better and will keep them in my memory for longer.

This upcoming week I'm going to focus on learning more verbs and a lot more grammar. I want to learn a lot about the different noun classes, so I can more easily understand why words change when they do. I want to learn verbs so I can come up with more interesting sentences to say.

Fast Progress but still lots to learn

This week, I seemed to make progress more rapidly than last week. I met with my language partner for the first time last Friday, and it was tons of fun. I feel like I made a lot of progress with him and was able to really activate the language. I started making flashcards to help me review the vocabulary I have learned. This seems to be a good tactic because it allows me to move faster because I know I can always use my flashcards to remember words I have learned.

I also attended the Zulu language for the first time last week. This was also a great deal of fun, but I felt a little embarrassed because my Zulu knowledge is so limited compared to everyone else. I still managed to pick up a fair amount of what was going on, and I learned several new words, so I still felt proud about that. I'm trying not to let the competition aspect of things discourage me (like we talked about in class), so I tried to take it very lightly. This tactic seemed to work because I still had fun and wasn't too worried about my limited proficiency. That said, I worked very hard to learn as much as I could, so I can participate more fully in future language tables.

I feel pretty good about where I am now with the language this week. This week, I plan to cement what I learned with my language partner and at the language table and then continue with my language plan.

Zulu Beginnings

Well, I've begun my Zulu language learning in full force. So far, I have mainly focused on pronunciation, spelling, and learning basic pleasantries and introductions. I forgot how difficult it is to learn a new language from scratch! The key so far seems to be repetition, repetition, repetition. I have been using a combination of online language courses with recordings and my Zulu book, Teach Yourself Zulu, to begin my language learning. I have repeated the dialogues in each of the lessons at least 10 times so far. Eish! But it has paid off because many of the greetings now roll off my tongue rather quickly. It's nice to see that progress. I plan to review these basics today and then start onto my lesson plan for this week either tomorrow or Wednesday. If I remember correctly, I start my first grammar topics this week, so that should be exciting!

It has been quite difficult to work on Zulu pronunciation because I do not have access to a ton of resources. Zulu is very difficult to pronounce because it has many, many sounds that do not exist in English. Thankfully, I found one or two videos that explain how to pronounce clicks, and my Zulu book describes some of the other difficult sounds. So now, I think it's mostly practice, practice, practice. I plan to attend the Zulu language table this Wednesday, so hopefully that will help me improve my pronunciation and listening. I have also arranged to meet the Zulu language TA, Bongani, once a week on Fridays to practice speaking and listening. I'm excited for our first meeting this week!

I think that's all for now. Tune in next week for more updates!