Domestic and international students met in the Culture Connections lounge for Linguistic Insights, an event held by the student workers in Culture Connections, to learn more about other cultures through their linguistics.

The event kicked off with an introduction and summation of what the event would consist of by Kris Bista, an assistant professor in the School of Education.

The students arranged themselves in groups of five; three American students and two international students.

Two games were played and the names of the winners were written down to draw for door prizes.

Jong mi Kim, a freshman English student from South Korea, said she learned the importance of language.

“I learned the importance of language. Even though we are from different cultures, we found that we have things in common after only a short time,” Kim said.

The first game played was “Different Language Alphabet.”

The purpose of this game was for students to discover their names as written in multiple languages using different internet programs.

After everyone translated their names into at least five languages, other groups had to guess what language the other group member’s names were in and how you would pronounce it.

South Korean Kang Myeong Muk enjoyed teaching Korean words to American students.

“My group was really fun. I enjoyed saying the words out loud,” said Muk, freshman environmental engineering major.

The international students helped the American students pronounce different words in their native tongues.

Kim said that this event was important because we all have to cooperate with many people from different countries. Learning more about their cultures, makes this easier.

“Words of Respect,” was an activity used to explore the diversity of language and ethnic groups in the different states and countries. Also to identify groups of words and terms from various cultures that are commonly used.

Participants tried to guess what the words and phrases meant.

Tracie Beebe said she enjoyed learning different words in Korean and making new friends.

“I learned how to say thank you in Korean, gam-sa-ham-ni-da, and this was important because it brought our group together and we all bonded,” said Beebe, senior elementary education student.