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Solfrid Cristin’s way TAC 2011 Team Ohana | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 177 of 221 25 September 2011 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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So after a good night's sleep we were almost human again this morning, and in addition to some more French, I have actually been able to do some Turkish today.
I am sad to say, that between the fact that I never had much time to learn any Turkish, and that Turkish is a language which simply does not stick to my memory, (my advanced age has of course absolutely nothing to do with it :-), I have so far not learned more than 5-10 words. Basically the ones I could guess from other languages. Today I have however sat down and worked for a couple of hours, so I think I increased my vocabulary with 50% - which puts me at a total knowledge of 15 words. I have used Talk more, which actually gives you a lot of false self confidence, because whether I do the difficult test or the easy test, I still get all the answers right. However, when I write down all the words in English, and try to translate them to Turkish, the result is very different. Out of 44 words, I was able to get 28 totally right, 7 I knew, but had spelling errors, and 9 and I had no clue. Everyone keeps saying that there are no homonyms in Turkish, but there seem to be at least a few. Taksi, telefon, aspirin, banka, pasaport, kredi carta, tren would be understood by most English speakers, for the French plaj (plage), otobüs (autobus), tuvalet (toilet) dus (douche), will be immediately understandable, the Italians will get bira (birra) the Spaniards banyo (baño) the Arabs merhaba, and the Norwegians will easily learn yatak (bed). Not because the Tyrkish word yatak means bed in Norwegian, but because it means "yes please", and the notion of anyone pointing to a bed and say "yes please" tickles our sense of humour. Personally I will easily remember the word for left (sol) as that is what my Spanish friends call me, and sometimes my Norwegian friends when they want to tease me, as my Norwegian name Solfrid means "beautiful as the sun", so they just take the word for sun out of that name. (One of my employees call me "our great leader and sun" when he wants to tease me). Unfortunately all of the rest of the words are really hard to learn, so I am not so sure I will manage even my extremely modest goals before I go to Turkey. On the bright side, it is at the very beginning of learning a new language that you have the most benefit, in the process of going from knowing absolutely nothing to knowing a few survival phrases. Iyi aksamlar, everyone! (good evening). ((And I am sorry that I can not write the specific Turkish letters here, so I have to write the closest thing). To add a dash of holiday memories, I can add that we saw two weddings performed on the beach today. One of them had the craziest wedding photo shoot I have seen in my entire life. They started out with the "normal" ones, on the beach, between the palms etc, and I did not start paying real attention, until the guy threw his jacket in the sand, lay down on his back in the sand, and then his wife climbed on top of him. It looked really weird at first, but actually looked really romantic when they were in position. However they then proceeded to get into the swimming pool - the bride at first lifting her dress, in order not to get wet. My eyebrows went up when I suddenly saw them with water up to their waist, not to mention a few minutes later, when I saw them coming out of the water at the beach, soaked through and through. I thought to myself that I really hoped they were going to change before the wedding dinner, because even if it was hot, it would otherwise be a very cold and unpleasent experience. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 178 of 221 26 September 2011 at 6:46am | IP Logged | ||
When you learn Turkish words, you don't have to learn any articles like for example in German but Turkish words are completely different for European languages besides such loanwords (EDIT) as you quoted here. I managed to learn more than 1500 Turkish words so learning such words isn't the hurdle for me. But the agglutination makes the sentence structures different and this phenomenon is one main reason which prevented me from thinking in Turkish. In all my Turkish courses at the VHS and the University of Essen the teachers only spoke German during the lessons, so I could never assimilate the language like I can in my new Danish course. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 26 September 2011 at 2:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5472 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 179 of 221 26 September 2011 at 7:45am | IP Logged | ||
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homonyms are words that have different meanings in the same language. What you're talking about are loan-words... :)
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 180 of 221 26 September 2011 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Thank you, then I learned something new today :-) I have found quite a lot of other loan words in Turkish. Either word that are completely the same, or close enough that they are easy to remember. Istasyono (station), magaza (fr. magazin/shop)park (to park), bilet (ticket), ambulans, numarasi (numbers) doktora, Kola (Coca Cola) Cay (Russian for tea), greyfrut (grapefruit), sigara (sigar or smoke), mango, tost (toast) seker (sugar), limon, patatasler(potatoes) and then of course pizza and burger - which probably exist in all languages. (Again I point out that I do not have the specific Turkish letters while I am writing, so some of the words will be slightly wrong). I also found a couple that I found funny, like ekmek for bread or ahududu for raspberry. I cannot explain why I find them to be funny - I just do. And then of course the word for plum - erik - which in Norwegian is the spelling for the male name Eric. I also get a bit irritated that really simple survival phrases are translated differently in the two resources I have. "I do not understand" - which is the ultimate survival phrase as far as I am concerned, is translated into anlamiyorum in "Talk now" but into anlamadim in "Complete Turkish". I assume that both can be used, but can anyone tell me which is the most common one? Otherwise we have had a rainly, cloudy day here today, but since half the reason we came was simply to relax and talk things through, that didn't bother us much, unlike a lot of the other tourists who were upset that it was raining in Paradise... Tomorrow we are going on a tour of the island, since I would feel guilty if I went all the way to Africa to hybernate inside a tourist resort. I must get at least a dash of the culture, once we are here. But I am bringing Assimil, Russian, just in case I feel the urge... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 181 of 221 27 September 2011 at 6:25am | IP Logged | ||
I'll give you some clarification: numarasi = his / her number numara = number anlamak = to understand anlamiyorum = I don't understand (Present Tense) anlamadim = I didn't understand (Preterite Tense) In my textbooks I found more "anlamadim". doktor = doctor doktora (Dative) = to the doctor Doktora gidiyorum. = I go to the doctor. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 27 September 2011 at 8:15pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5337 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 182 of 221 29 September 2011 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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You seem to visit more countries in six months than I visit in six years and I am green
with envy but you definitely deserve it and I love reading your travel reports (wow, long sentence). When are you going to Turkey? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 183 of 221 30 September 2011 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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@ Thank you Fasulye, I am so happy that I have a friend who knows Turkish, that is really a big help!
@ReneeMona - My father used to accuse my mother of having gypsy blood in her veins. She wanted to travel as much as possible - he wanted to stay at home all the time. My mother used to retort that given her blue eyes and blonde hair, and his black hair and dark brown eyes, she was not so sure where the gypsy blood came in. What is absolutely certain is that I have inherited both my mother's colors and her need to travel. I have no jewels, and absolutely no designer clothes, shoes or handbags in my closet, and part of my furniture is bought at a flee market, because I spend whatever money I have on travels, languages and plants for my garden. I am going to Turkey in November. Still have not told my boss yet, who will go absolutely ballistic when he finds out :-) We had a great tour of the island, by the way. We were supposed to do it in French, but since the French guide's accent was very heavy, we chickened out, and did it in English. I am very happy that we did, because the French group was big, and they did not speak to eachother, but we were a small group consisting of two Austrians, two Indians from South Africa, two Koreans and my sister and I. By the time we had finished lunch, we were one big happy family, and had sung "Happy Birthday" for the youngest of the two Indian girls who turned 16. I also got to chew on a sugar cane, which was interesting. Funny though, the Korean girl was totally in awe of the fact that I spoke German (she heard me speak to the Austrians), whereas she herself was fluent in Mandarin, which I thought was a lot more impressive. For a Norwegian to speak some German you do not actually have to be Einstein. I had brought a couple of French newspapers from the plane, and one of them, Le Canard enchaîné makes me laugh so hard. Sometimes I have no clue what they are talking about, but what I do understand is hilarious. It does however drive home the point that you can understand all the words in a statement, without understanding the meaning at all. On the subject of Palestine asking for acceptance of statehood in the UN, the following was written in one square: La Palestine à l'ONU: Etat frère... and then in the next square ...et ta soeur? Anyone has a clue as to what that last part means? I got to talk a little bit more German today, since I met a German girl at the gym. Whenever I go on a holiday to relax, three things happen: 1) I get horrible nightmares when I sleep late (and we are talking war, death, earth quakes, land slides, Japanese comandos coming out of choppers nightmares here), 2)I get sun allergy (so right now it feels like a little monkey is chewing away at my face while I am still alive) and 3)my back goes on total strike ( I am walking in a 60 degrees angle right now). It is like my body and mind is telling me: You lazy bum, who do you think you are just relaxing in the sun, go back to work. NOW! So in order to fix my back, I went to the gym, and had three classes in rapid succession: aerobics, abdominal and stretching. I had brought my old aerobics gear from 1982, because I figured that everyone at the class would be too young to know how incredibly out af fashion they were, and I was right. Not a soul over 25. The funny part was that our trainer used only English for the two first classes, and spoke English very well with a good accent, but when a French speaker joined us for the third class, she suddenly started to speak not only French, but also English with a French accent. In another desperate attempt to soothe the excruciating pain in my back, I also went for a massage, and had a long and interesting conversation with the male massagist about Mauritian Creole, and how your ethnic background and your name largely defined which kind of jobs you could get on the island. We tend to think that racism is a European/American thing, but my experience is that you find it everywhere. I also hear a lot of Spanish and Italian spoken around me, but I have so far not made any attempt to speak to anyone. I sometimes have difficulties not laughing though, because they do not expect us to understand them, and speak loudly on any number of personal topics. In Turkish I have moved into numbers and colors. The numbers are a relief, in the sense that when you have learned the first 10, you know the next ten, as they are basically ten-one, ten-two, ten-three for eleven, twelve and thirteen etc. I am happy to see there is one thing which is easy in Turkish. The colors are an absolute nightmare though . The only one I could recognise was gri (grey). The rest was totally unrelated to any language I know. Well, you can't win them all. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 30 September 2011 at 8:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 184 of 221 30 September 2011 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Solfrid Cristina, it's my pleasure to help you with Turkish! I enjoy teaching generally, so I explain things where it's welcome and useful. The Turkish number system is indeed strictly logical. There is no irregularity in it like for example in French or in Danish. For the colours I would suggest that you learn at least the four basic colours plus black & white. Here they are: BASIC TURKISH COLOURS red = kırmızı (Think of a "Kirmes" in Germany with a red merry-go-round!) blue = mavi (Think of a marvellous blue sky!) green = yeşil (Yes, you are ill, if you are green in your face!) yellow = sarı (Think of a beautiful yellow coloured Indian Sari!) black = siyah, kara white = beyaz If you can remember these six key colours, it's quite a lot! Başarılar dilerim! (= Good luck!) Fasulye 1 person has voted this message useful |
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