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Turkish in 3 months | ||
Tags: Turkish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| horshod Pentaglot Groupie India Joined 5771 days ago 74 posts - 107 votes  Speaks: Hindi, Marathi*, Bengali, Gujarati, English Studies: German, Spanish, Turkish | Message 1 of 7 02 October 2014 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
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I decided to turn my 3-hour layover in Istanbul on my annual trip from the US to India into a 5-day vacation (For
no extra travel cost! I am going to make this an annual thing!). I will land in Istanbul on Dec 25 so I have a little less than 3 months. I have never learnt a language for a definite purpose or within a limited time frame. So I'm not entirely sure what to expect from myself in 3 months. But this is a wonderful excuse to give in to my language wanderlust. I plan to use Teach Yourself Turkish by Geoffrey Lewis (no audio :-[) and FSI. I also found Geoffrey Lewis' Turkish Grammar at the Northwestern University library but it seems a bit too complex and detailed at this stage. I have been wondering if I should get the new Teach Yourself Turkish by Pollard for listening practice since FSI is quite dull. I was a complete beginner a week ago. In the last week I covered pronunciation, vowel harmony, some basics of the case structure and some basic phrases. Most of the vocabulary seems alien. Although finding more- than-a-few familiar Perso-Arabic words (that are also used in Hindi/Urdu) is some consolation. :) I recently found the Turkish TV show 'Magnificent Century' on Youtube (from HTLAL) and I'm loving the sound of the language and watching the Ottoman era of Turkey on screen is getting me more interested in the language and the culture. I am extremely excited to do this! Let's see how far I make it :) Edited by horshod on 02 October 2014 at 11:36pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 5017 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 7 02 October 2014 at 10:57pm | IP Logged |
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Turkish in 3 months? It's quite a challenge, you're taking on. :)
I'll be following your log with interest and I wish you much success. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 3 of 7 02 October 2014 at 11:26pm | IP Logged |
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Hey, good luck!
I'll follow your progresses ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4890 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 4 of 7 02 October 2014 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, absolutely get the new Teach Yourself with the audio!
You really do need some kind of audio; Turkish uses a lot of vowel harmony, and the intonation of words changes as you add endings. I don't know if it's possible to pick this up just from reading about it. The good news: My first trip to Turkey I used Pollard's book, and made it through Chapter 7. I think it took me about three months too. This was enough for me to function independently, and have basic conversations with people who didn't speak English. More good news: More than any place I've been, people in Turkey were super supportive and encouraging of language learners. At the place I stay at in İstanbul the staff declared that they would be my teachers, and sat down with me at breakfast with my word list for the day. And because they all seemed to be incurable romantics, most of it was along the lines of "you have beautiful eyes" and "I think of you all night." My experiences as a learner was that Turkish was hard at the beginning - there are a lot of new concepts that take awhile to internalize. Once you make that first breakthrough it becomes easy, and you make huge gains quickly. And then it becomes real hard and complicated again. But you won't reach that point in three months. Other resources to check out include: Pimsleur I if you can budget for it. Busuu for Turkish. This requires a montly membership (the free section won't get you far). It's like DuoLingo, with similar pros and cons. The grammar sections are excellent; the vocabulary sections are exhausting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| horshod Pentaglot Groupie India Joined 5771 days ago 74 posts - 107 votes Speaks: Hindi, Marathi*, Bengali, Gujarati, English Studies: German, Spanish, Turkish | Message 5 of 7 12 January 2015 at 4:01am | IP Logged |
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Thank you all a lot for the encouragement and advice! And apologies for making the lamest log on HTLAL ever. I
forgot to check the email that I have registered with HTLAL until today! I did not get a chance to study Turkish very regularly :( I did manage to get through the first few chapters of Teach Yourself Turkish and watched several episodes of Magnificent Century. I just recently got back from Istanbul. It was fun but I kept wishing I had spent more time studying Turkish. I was delighted to see that many people in Istanbul - taxi drivers, people I met in bars, streets and restaurants were not very comfortable speaking English and I would have gotten plenty of practice. Nonetheless I did manage to have basic conversations and it was fun. Core Turkish is so radically different from any other language I have ever studied and that makes it really interesting. Currently I have no plans to continue studying it though. (I might be visiting my grandfather in Germany soon so going to work on my German :)) Hopefully I will get to study more Turkish in the future! (@kanewai: I feel really bad that you wrote such a detailed post and I didn't reply sooner! Thanks a lot and my sincere apologies. I did end up getting Pollard's TY and it definitely helped.) PS: In my future logs I am going to try to write more than one post! Edited by horshod on 12 January 2015 at 4:03am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4048 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch | Message 6 of 7 12 January 2015 at 10:56am | IP Logged |
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Hi @horshod!
I know for experience that setting a very tight schedule to learn a language before a travel can be quite frustrating and disappointing, but I'm glad to read that you had good time and that your studies of Turkish have enriched your travel. So: very well done! :) Edited by tristano on 12 January 2015 at 10:56am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| horshod Pentaglot Groupie India Joined 5771 days ago 74 posts - 107 votes Speaks: Hindi, Marathi*, Bengali, Gujarati, English Studies: German, Spanish, Turkish | Message 7 of 7 12 January 2015 at 1:56pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks tristano!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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