My goal in this class is to walk away with a new understanding of how to learn new languages. I really love this piece of advice as i believe that being surrounded by people who speak that language natively is the best way to learn. I also think that this mindset can be applied to all aspects of life.

I truly believe texting is one of the worst ways to communicate. Tone is completely lost over text and it can lead to so much drama between people. It is so much easier to communicate on a call or in person where we can hear their tone of voice.

Culture is an interesting thing because culture can be found in the masses, and culture can be found within friend groups. Mass culture could look like how it is typically unexpectable to film someone in public. Then culture among friend groups could be inside jokes, clothes we collectively like, a shared music taste, etc.

I like this definition a lot but i think it is also important to include social practices. I think one aspect of culture involves common practices, whether that be religion or what time you show up to an interview. I know a lot of families that say "if you aren't early your late" while others don't see value in showing up early to events.

I never thought of Language being lost by intentional destruction. I always assumed it was lost by simply the colonizers being more prominent in the area.

A good example is colonialism. Where a more powerful group dominates the other, thus the more dominate group becomes more prominent in an area and their language quickly becomes the primary language.

This is exactly what i was talking about before. We don't learn through flash cards or apps such as Duolingo. We learn through real life experiences. I truly think that if someone wants to learn a language, they should travel to a country where that language is commonly spoken

I like the idea of interacting with others to learn a language. This is exactly how we did it as children. We learned how to talk by observing our parents do it, and we got better the older we got, by trying to expand on the conversations we could have with our parents. It seems unnatural to learn a language with flash cards or Duolingo.

It makes sense that it is most efficient to learn a language "in the wild." Like how an engineer doesn't just trust that their initial designs will work, they'll go out and use it in the real world to find its flaws.

I was fortunate enough to skip the dorm process freshman year and got an apartment right when i turend 18. This caused me to learn a bunch of lessons that most of my peers are just starting to learn. It has also taught me that learning life lessons is crucial to my growth as an adult so I am now constantly chasing potential learning moments as i want to become better, as quick as possible. The reason i am taking this class is so that i can learn language quicker thus progress in life faster.

Children are born into a world with zero knowledge and the only thing they are surrounded by are their parents who are constantly communication. It is only natural for children to learn to speak the same language. I also believe that if you threw am adult into a foreign country they would learn to speak the native language faster than a child learns to speak its first words.

Body language is universal. This is nice to know because it means we already have an upper hand in learning to communicate with people who speak different languages. I once worked at a restaurant with a man who could only speak Spanish, and i could not. But we were able to communicate very well using pointing, body language, and using our hands to give physical examples of how to complete a task.

This is crucial to understand. Language is constantly developing with new slang, phrases, and words with each new generation. You cant be perfect at a game when the rules are constantly changing.