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Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5558 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 201 of 221 15 November 2011 at 12:35am | IP Logged |
Pamukkale was good fun and full of Russian speakers when I visited about 10 years ago. Although be warned, my feet were killing me afterwards (as you have to take your shoes off to walk on the mountain in order to preserve its natural beauty). Don't miss out on the hot spring containing ancient ruins too - very relaxing! :)
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| 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 202 of 221 15 November 2011 at 11:07pm | IP Logged |
@Teango, we will be going tomorrow morning to see Pammukkale proper. I can't wait.
I may be the only Norwegian woman to come home from a holiday in Turkey with the phone number of a
Russian babushka. And to be immensely happy about it! Why so happy? Well because today I had my first
conversation in Russian outside of Russia or Ukraine with someone that I had not payed to speak to me,
and who also seemed to be extremely happy to speak Russian with me, and who gave me lots of
compliments. The fact that the combined knowledge in English, French and German of the three
generations of women was less than my Russian, might have played a tiny role :-). I butchered the
language totally, and I did not have even a single sentence which was totally correct, but I managed to talk
to them, and both the grandmother and the mother of the family insisted on getting my contact details so
we could contact eachother again. I doubt if anything will come out of it, but I was so happy to actually get
to use my Russian. We also learned 5 words of Turkish, and since 4 of them were among my 8 1/5 I was
the only one who was able to pronounce them properly.
Our guide has a thick accent and his grammar is - eh - creative, but he does a great job explaining the
origin of the words for Ankara, Istanbul, Pamukkale and Antalya. I am really enjoying this trip, even if we are
freezing our tails off. We are also learning a lot of history , and I asked so many question that a lady in my
group asked if I was a historian. :-))
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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 203 of 221 16 November 2011 at 6:15pm | IP Logged |
Congratulations on your Russian success!
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| 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 204 of 221 16 November 2011 at 10:24pm | IP Logged |
@ Cavesa Thank you. An insignificant step to mankind, but a huge step for me.
Otherwise I am in a bit of a shock right now, as we were in a car accident today. We are all right, but got
really scared. I am immensely impressed by Turkish police and paramedics though.
I have talked a bit of French today, with some French tourists who asked me if I was French. I love it when
that happens, even if it is usually just after a minute, and with background noice. I was also happy to be
able to help out a Polish lady who was stuck, and didn't know how to ask for help. That felt really good,
even if most of our communication was non- verbal.
Pamukkale was beautiful. Yes my feet hurt after walking barefoot on the mountain, like Teango said, but
unfortunately I did not get to swim in Cleopatra's pool. I will have to come back with my girls.
Our guide claimed that in the time of the Ottomans everyone spoke Arabic, and then they changed to
Turkish in the 20ies. That sounds strange, to say the least. I always heard that Ataturc changed the
alphabet from Arabic to Latin. Impressive in itself. But to change a whole language, for a people of 50-60
millions, of whom several are analphabets? That seems really strange.
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| 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 205 of 221 17 November 2011 at 9:13pm | IP Logged |
I think I solved my " how do you make 60 million Turks change their native language" - mystery. According
to a little book in German I bought yesterday, the Turcs used to speak Turkish but write Arabic. What
Atarurc did was to make them write in Turkish with the Latin alphabet instead. That is still a formidable task.
I could not for the life of me figure out how he could make everyone change their language, even if my
guide insisted that this was the case when I asked him about it again this morning.
I have been to a Turkish hamam ( bath) today. Since it is 44 years since I was last scrubbed, washed and
dried by someone else, that was quite an experience. I also went to Virgin Mary's house and to Efesos
today, so I am full of impressions. Oh- and I ate fasulyes today - guess who I thought of then :-)
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| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5053 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani
| Message 206 of 221 17 November 2011 at 10:02pm | IP Logged |
I just realized that fasulye is the same in Russian: фасоль. Took me about a year!
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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 207 of 221 18 November 2011 at 7:05am | IP Logged |
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
Oh- and I ate fasulyes today - guess who I thought of then :-) |
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There are not many forum members "who you can eat"!
Translation into Turkish:
I ate fasulyes today.
Bugün fasulye yedim. (Often in Turkish the plural form of nouns is not used. The plural form would be fasulyeler.)
Fasulye
Edited by Fasulye on 18 November 2011 at 2:17pm
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| 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 208 of 221 19 November 2011 at 10:22pm | IP Logged |
@espejismo: Isn't it nice to see similarities like that!
@Fasulyes: You are the only edible forum member I know of :-)
Today I was in the surreal situation thar the only common language we had with a shop keeper was
Russian. Not awfully practical, but I earned a lot of respect from my fellow travelers, rudimentary as my
Russian may be. I also spoke some Russian at another shop. They started out speaking German to me, but
then asked me if I spoke Russian, and I was dumb enough to answer in Russian that I did not. It was nice
though; the owner was from Ukraine, and his assistant from Azerbadjan, and they were both fluent in
Russian.
I also got a compliment from a 25 year old today, which actually made me blush, as it is a while since I had
that from someone in that age group. Not sure if he realized I could have been his mum.
We are still shaky from the accident, and since we yesterday had black smoke coming out of the bus due to
really bad breaking practice, we are really, really on edge.
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