Second Language Acquisition is a crash course in identifying and reproducing sounds (comes in handy in learning mouth gymnastics to reproduce sounds that your mouth has never made) We learned phonetics, which breaks down consonants and vowels into categories according to which parts of your mouth you use to reproduce the sound. I now know what a palliative fricative is and a labial dental stop. From this we were trained in how to transcribe the sounds so we can reproduce them later. We purchased a new digital recorder to help with this task also. Other classes included rhythm and tone (I am very thankful that Mongolian is not tonal). We even got to learn some Korean along the way Anyang haseo! This class really has equipped us to be able to jump into learning the Mongolian language. One part that was particularly helpful was identifying what type of learner Cinda and I are (visual, auditory, etc.)
As you can see from the picutres it was all study and no time for fun, well Annika and Toby got to have some fun on the climbing wall (thanks Uncle Larry for the use of the harnesses)
DISCLAIMER: the use of the flash in these pictures may cause hair to appear thinner than what it actually is under certain lighting.
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July 20, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Elizabeth Heredia
I didn’t notice the hair until you mentioned it–I was going to mention your family’s great climbing technique!
Keep up the good writing–it makes it a joy to read!
July 21, 2008 at 11:04 am
Terrill
Ron Popiel invented a spray that can fix that lighting problem….just spray it on the back of your head and your hair looks thick and luxurious no matter what the lighting.