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Turkish in 3 months

  Tags: Turkish
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
horshod
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India
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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 
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

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napoleon
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India
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Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu
Studies: French, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 2 of 7
02 October 2014 at 10:57pm | IP Logged 
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
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 Message 3 of 7
02 October 2014 at 11:26pm | IP Logged 
Hey, good luck!
I'll follow your progresses ;)
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kanewai
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United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
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Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 4 of 7
02 October 2014 at 11:55pm | IP Logged 
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 Ä°stanbul 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 5530 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 
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

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tristano
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Netherlands
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Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English
Studies: Dutch

 
 Message 6 of 7
12 January 2015 at 10:56am | IP Logged 
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 5530 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 
Thanks tristano!


1 person has voted this message useful



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