Tim Doner

Tim Doner is certainly an extraordinary talent, isn't he? 

I like the point he makes about language being a vehicle for culture. He makes this point in his discussion of some everyday Persian expressions in his TED Talk where he discusses the expression of thanks "Ghorbanet beram" which literally means "May I sacrifice my life for you" or "I'll die for you." The strength of these words shows that good deeds for another are valued particularly highly in Iranian culture. An insight I will miss out on if I don't learn Persian. As Doner concludes "You can translate words easily, but you can't quite translate meaning." 

Regarding ways to learn languages, I think Doner is on target in suggesting watching movies is a good way to achieve this goal. In the clip uploaded by THNKR, he says movies are useful for language learning because they expose you to the normal rate of speech and examples of colloquial words and phrases, and it is fun watching them. I also like his idea of associating words with places, for instance thinking of a particular place & identifying verbs of one's target language with various zones in that place, so he associates some outdoor steps with "suwaru" because you can sit on them and a bookshop there with "yomu" because you can read there.

Finally, he reminds me that it is important to use one's target language in communication, whether with folks online or in our neighbourhood, wherever users of this language can be found. And if our experience is similar to his, we'll find them happy to chat and happy to help us in our language learning journey.




Comments

  1. Maha HongJune 27, 2021 at 2:45 PM

    I love the point that he said “ language begin a vehicle for culture” too. Different languages are various types of culture. For example: I had learnt many valuable things while I had studied Chinese such as tea traditional tea making culture. It bring me into another world.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MikeJune 27, 2021 at 6:17 PM

    I can understand how you feel about the tea ceremony, Hong. It certainly is a different world isn't it? I remember that the tea ceremony was the culture - without the language! I think Tim Doner is correct in thinking that language is a vehicle for culture. We talked briefly about this today - remember that the dictionary has a very correct way of putting boundaries around words, but it is culture that expands that boundary.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 3MT Competition -- The Humanities Heat

Image
Here is my take on the 3MT Competition. The presentation I found most interesting was Gray Baldwin’s talk on Creation Care: A New Direction for ‘Oikoumene.’ There are several reasons why. First, the talk addressed the mission of the church and as I am a Christian who seeks to be involved in that mission it was immediately relevant to me. Secondly, the fact that Baldwin highlighted the etymological connection between ecumenism and ecology, in that they both come from ‘oikoumene’ – the inhabited earth, attracted my attention. Care & respect for the world that God created and loves is a worthwhile cause around which the church should unite. The presenter who was the best communicator was, I believe, Cassandra Joseph. She did very well in starting with a question to which many in the audience responded to in the affirmative. In this way she built rapport with her audience. She also owned the stage, moving around it at ease, and she spoke to the audience in a warm and conversational
Read more

The Three Minute Thesis Competition

Image
Write a post on the experience of attending the 3MT heat for humanities subjects on the 6th of July. Explain which presentation you found most interesting and which presenter was the most effective communicator. Finally say what insights on the possibilities and challenges of post graduate study you have gained from this session.
Read more

The Three Minute Thesis Competition

Image
On Tuesday morning, we had learnt outside class at University of Otago. We attended to listen The Three Minute Thesis competition program. It had six Master’s degree and PhD. students participated to speech. It was an enjoyable, interesting and unforgettable experience.  The candidates were the best presenters. It seems that they had prepared highly informative. It was challenging to do a clearly presentation in a period of time. In particularly it was just only three minutes speech. But they all did a great job. “Heat-Humanities” was the thesis topic for a competition in this time. Is was not easy to opt for. There were so much information and hardly to find out an appropriate problematic subject. Surprisingly, they were able to determine a interesting issue. For instance once of the topic is  “How is the concept of silence used in peace and conflict studies journals?” It was presented by Kalika Kastein, PhD.National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Division of Humanities. T
Read more