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Tackling Turkish

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Hakan D
Tetraglot
Groupie
Turkey
Joined 5100 days ago

45 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Turkish*, Icelandic, English, German
Studies: Spanish, Greek, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, Russian

 
 Message 49 of 91
07 December 2010 at 8:31pm | IP Logged 
That's almost a perfect composition with a very minor mistakes but that I believe is due to the fact that you haven't lived in Turkey before (or at least a long time) I assume and don't have yet a native feeling for the language?

So here are the corrections:

* Bugün hayatımdaki en utanç verici şey hakkında yazmak istedim, ama o kadar kötü bir şey aklıma gelmedi. Correct

** Onun yerine, Vermont'a dönmeye beni heyecanlandıran birkaç şeyi listeye yazacağımı zannediyorum. Ilk önce, Matt, yani abimi, çok özledim. O benim en iyi arkadaşım olduğu için onunla Kuzey Carolina'ya taşınmayı planlıyorum.

Birkaç should be right before "şey" and because birkaç expresses quantity şey is without plural ending.

Instead of yapmak => yazmak

Onun = O (Here "he" is the object of the sentence so no need for a genitive marker)
If you had said "Because I believe/know that he's my best friend" then you would use "onun". Onun benim en iyi arkadaşım olduğunu bildiğim/inandığım için.

Instead of büyük I put iyi because this sounds better but büyük isn't wrong either, it's just a matter of feeling.

Planlamak takes the accusative hence "taşınmayı"

By the last sentence I understand that you and your brother are moving to North Carolina otherwise if you're planning to the same place where he lives right now the sentence should read like

O benim en iyi arkadaşım olduğu için onun yanına Kuzey Carolina'ya taşınmayı planlıyorum.


I've got to run so the explanation for the below sentences will come later!

*** Başka birtakım özlediğim şeyler DE var tabii- ÇILGIN PARTİLERE GİDİP ARABAMI AÇIK PENCERELERLE OTOYOLDA KULLANMAK GİBİ. Döndüğümde kış olacak, ama karda YAPILACAK bir sürü eğlenceli şeyler var... kayak yapmak, kızak KAYMAK, kartopu savaşI oynamak...


**** Ancak UZUN zamandan beri soğuk bir yerde yaşamıyorum. 10 dereceden daha AZ SICAKLIĞA ALIŞMAM İÇİN ÇOK ZAMAN GEREKECEK SANIRIM
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Sierra
Diglot
Senior Member
Turkey
livinginlights.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 7123 days ago

296 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: English*, SwedishB1
Studies: Turkish

 
 Message 50 of 91
08 December 2010 at 8:19am | IP Logged 
Many thanks for the continued corrections! :)

I definitely don't yet have an ear for what's natural-sounding Turkish and what
sounds like a direct translation from English (which in my case it usually is). I think
the best cure for this will be time and continued exposure. I noticed you added "de" in
one of my later sentences, which brings to mind a major problem I have in my speech and
writing. I know what "de/da" means, of course, but I can't for the life of me tell when
to use it appropriately. At least half the sentences I come across in my reading which
use it make me think "huh, okay, that makes sense but I sure wouldn't have stuck it
there." Are there any clear rules for when to use de/da or is it going to be more a
matter of waiting to acquire my "Turkish ear"?

Another item for the direct translations pile: when you say that someone put
someone else in prison, how would you express that? I'm tempted to use "hapishaneye
atmak" as the equivalent of the English "throw in jail" but I doubt that's correct.
Koymak (to PUT in jail)? Göndermek (to SEND to jail)? I tried looking it up and got
"hapsetmek", but is there another way to express this?

Aaaanyway, quick status update: I'm now at 950 level 5 words and 1077 total words on
Mnemosyne. I absolutely love coming across freebies (or at least discounts) in new
vocabulary. What's that you say? "Ivory" is "elephanttooth" (fildişi)? Why, how
mindbogglingly convenient.

Edit:

Oh right, a few more things I wanted to say.

First off, magister: What does ipuç mean exactly? I came across it in my reading the
other day and couldn't find it in my dictionary, and then you used it in your post. I
gather from context and from its parts (ip + uç, so maybe something you hold onto for
assistance?) that it means something like "clue" or "hint" but I'd love to know the
precise definition.

Also, I'm starting a two-part writing regimen. I have to admit that the bits of Turkish
I've been posting here and on various correction sites are pretty carefully
investigated despite the many errors which slip through- for example, I'll Google a
phrase if I'm not sure it's commonly used. On the side, though, I'm starting to do some
computer/dictionary-free writing, which forces me to express what I want to say without
looking anything up. I did it yesterday, retelling the story of Robin Hood (the source
of my prison question), and I found it helpful enough that I plan to continue. I think
it'll help me significantly on the grammar front. There's something to be said for
using all available resources to produce the best composition you can, but I believe
it's also going to be helpful to force myself to write without aid. Puzzling over
grammar for ten minutes, writing down my best guess, and looking it up later should get
these things to stick in my mind better than if I just Google them immediately. That's
the theory, anyway.

Edited by Sierra on 08 December 2010 at 9:34am

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magister
Pro Member
United States
Joined 6602 days ago

346 posts - 421 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Turkish, Irish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 51 of 91
08 December 2010 at 3:16pm | IP Logged 
Haklısın. İpuçlar are tips, tricks, or hints. But note that I am a mere learner -- I have not acquired the "Turkish ear," so it's entirely possible a native wouldn't use this word in this particular context. Hakan?

What dictionary(ies) do you use? And are you familiar with seslisozluk.com?
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slhdn
Diglot
Newbie
Turkey
Joined 5730 days ago

20 posts - 33 votes
Speaks: Turkish*, English
Studies: French, Arabic (classical)

 
 Message 52 of 91
08 December 2010 at 4:49pm | IP Logged 
Sierra wrote:

Another item for the direct translations pile: when you say that someone put
someone else in prison, how would you express that? I'm tempted to use "hapishaneye
atmak" as the equivalent of the English "throw in jail" but I doubt that's correct.
Koymak (to PUT in jail)? Göndermek (to SEND to jail)? I tried looking it up and got
"hapsetmek", but is there another way to express this?


"Hap(i)se atmak" sounds most appropriate.

İpucu means tip, hint (literally "tip of thread")

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Hakan D
Tetraglot
Groupie
Turkey
Joined 5100 days ago

45 posts - 77 votes 
Speaks: Turkish*, Icelandic, English, German
Studies: Spanish, Greek, Swedish, Hungarian, Mongolian, Modern Hebrew, Russian

 
 Message 53 of 91
09 December 2010 at 3:09am | IP Logged 
Yes, hapse atmak as slhdn says the most common one to use... "Hapse koymak" gives me a feeling like it's more that the person is taken hostage and he's put in jail. But that's what I think I can't tell for sure. Hapse göndermek is probably not used though logically it makes sense... On the other hand I'm sure there are usages if you say "Sanık mahkemeden sonra hapse gönderildi" - "The culprit was sent to prison after the court"

the DE that I added in "Başka birtakım özlediğim şeyler DE var tabii" merely comes from the meaning "too". You mentioned the first thing that you missed was your brother and then you went onto saying other things therefore to say "de" sounds better. Nevertheless if you don't use "de" there is nothing wrong.

(I don't want to hijack your thread but a minor thing, I don't know whether you've seen my recent thread. I've challenged myself with "10 languages 2000 hours" (you can see under the same name) with an aim of getting them into real good fluency levels. If there's any of the languages that you are familiar with already I'd like to hear your recommendations also.)

By the way I'm using jMemorize and find it rather useful, I've heard about Anki here and I guess you're using a similar programme Mnemosyne. Have you checked the other two? Is there any reason that I should change mine?
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Sierra
Diglot
Senior Member
Turkey
livinginlights.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 7123 days ago

296 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: English*, SwedishB1
Studies: Turkish

 
 Message 54 of 91
09 December 2010 at 8:56am | IP Logged 
Thanks for the help, Hakan, magister, and slhdn!

Magister: I've been using turkishdictionary.net, which I like quite a lot. I just
checked out seslisozluk.com, though and it looks to be even better. I may have to make
the switch.

Hakan and slhdn: Interesting to know that you "throw" someone in prison in Turkish as
well! I thought for sure that was going to be an Englishism. The more you know...

Hakan, I'll definitely check out your thread! I don't have much experience with any of
the languages you're learning except Swedish, but I'm interested to watch your
progress.

Anyway, not much to report today. I'm up to 1088 words on Mnemosyne, of which an
infuriating 999 are level 5. I posted the first installment of my attempt at Beauty and
the Beast on Lang-8 yesterday and it was amazingly not as riddled with errors as I
thought, considering it was one of my dictionary/Internet-free compositions. Well,
okay, there was at least one error in every sentence, but mostly they were small
things. Endings trip me up a lot. I think today I'm going to work on getting the second
part up.
1 person has voted this message useful



Sierra
Diglot
Senior Member
Turkey
livinginlights.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 7123 days ago

296 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: English*, SwedishB1
Studies: Turkish

 
 Message 55 of 91
10 December 2010 at 7:19am | IP Logged 
Quick update while I wait for the shower to heat up (hot water is in the
Internet/electricity/pretty much everything category of Things Which Either Don't Work
Or Are Far More Complicated Than Usual In Palestine).

I'm up to 1025 level 5 words on Mnemosyne, a full 275 more than I promised myself by
the 20th, so I think I can safely consider that ball knocked out of the park. That
said, time for new goals!

I'm going to start keeping a casual record of how many words per page I'm missing in my
reading, and hoping to see this number decrease steadily.

I'm also going to keep up the writing. I feel like I've progressed by leaps and bounds
just in the past few days, since I started doing this. Not that my finished
compositions are significantly more comprehensible or correct, I think, but it's
definitely taking me a noticeably shorter amount of time to produce each successive
one. Writing- far, far more than reading- is having the lovely and oh-so-welcome effect
of Turkishizing my mind. Constructions that mere days ago would have tripped me up now
make total sense to me, and I can produce them without a second thought. I'm also
finding that I can easily actively use a lot of the vocabulary I've been drilling,
which is nice.

My short- to middle-term Turkish goal is to bring up my skills to an equivalent level
with my Swedish. I want to be able to:

-converse easily and with a minimum of errors, about pretty much any topic. I'm not
shooting for a scholarly level yet, but I want to have more or less effortless basic
and intermediate conversations.

-read Harry Potter-level books for fun rather than study. I'm not far from achieving
this- maybe another month or two should do the trick. It's going to mean, mainly,
bringing up my reading speed. Comprehension is already pretty good, but I read
relatively slowly and it tires me out in a way that reading in English definitely
doesn't.

-read books like Lord of the Rings and novels by Orhan Pamuk for study. I have no idea
how far I am from this goal, as I don't have access to anything like this yet... maybe
after Christmas I will? :)

-Listening comprehension! The biggest thorn in my side. I don't have a strategy for
improving this yet, short of listening to hours and hours of Turkish radio, but by God,
it's got to happen some way or another.
1 person has voted this message useful



Sierra
Diglot
Senior Member
Turkey
livinginlights.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 7123 days ago

296 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: English*, SwedishB1
Studies: Turkish

 
 Message 56 of 91
11 December 2010 at 6:40am | IP Logged 
I did, indeed, keep notes on how many words per page I was missing in Twilight
yesterday. I only read nine pages, though.

Most words missed on a page: 6
Fewest words missed on a page: 1
Average words missed: 3.0

I did some more random reading yesterday as well- a women's issues blog post on
harassment, which gave me words like terbiye, taciz etmek, and tecavüz etmek. Then an
article on common misconceptions about sex (oh shush... need to keep things
interesting, right?) which supplied me with some great vocab, including "hamile kalmak"
(to get pregnant), which I couldn't believe I hadn't come across before.

I posted another installment of my Beauty and the Beast story on Lang-8 and was again
pleasantly surprised by how few errors I'd made once someone corrected it. Well, okay,
there are a lot, but only one or two of the "uhhh... this is barely even
comprehensible" variety, and mostly just things like -i where I needed -e and using the
wrong verb with certain nouns (like I said "serbest etmek" instead of "serbest
bırakmak").

I did have kind of an oh-God-oh-God moment while writing it, though, when I realized I
didn't remember how to conjugate verbs for negative ability in the past... like "he
couldn't see" or whatever. I had to look it up. Oh shame, and with such a common form,
too. Perhaps embarrassment will now prompt me to remember that it's stem + a + ma +
endings.


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