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'â' and 'a'
(12 Messages in 2 pages - View all)
[1] 2
1.       Lilith
16 posts
 17 Sep 2005 Sat 06:57 pm

Merhaba,
I have a big problem. Could anyone please tell me the difference in pronunciation between 'â' and 'a'.

2.       sinanz
1 posts
 17 Sep 2005 Sat 08:53 pm

â is either a long a or (mostly) a 'thin (ince) a' as it is called like in 'hâlâ' which means 'still' like in 'Are you still waiting?' which is very different form 'hala' meaning 'aunt' in Turkish. The â is only present in arabic or farsî words.

The pronunciation of â is like subsequent 'e' and 'a' where the e (a Turkish pronunced 'e' of course) is somewhat hidden and has a very short duration.

3.       Lilith
16 posts
 17 Sep 2005 Sat 09:04 pm

Çok çok teşekkürler!!!!

I have stillsome problems with my pronunciation, but this was completely incomprehensible for me. Now I understnd the difference. Thank you

4.       erdinc
2151 posts
 18 Sep 2005 Sun 05:50 pm

Merhaba Lilith,
Turkish Class forumuna hoşgeldin.

The circumflex (^) in Turkish applies only to those words adopted from Arabic and Persian. The reason is certainly historical. In Ottoman Empire days those lands were part of the Empire and languages had an influence over each other.

Certainly this introduced new problems for Turkish. Now we have two sounds for some vowels (a,i and u) instead of one and the language has become unnecessariliy more complicated.
Also the foreign words are not of the nature. In Turkish you can invent new words from a root of another word and the meanings will be related in some ways. Therefore if it is pure Turkish many uncommon words even some academical terms can be understood by people who have never heard these words in their lives. More information on this issue can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language#Vocabulary

I think these above are the two main reasons why we are trying to get rid of Arabic words in Turkish. They have become much less with time, thats for sure.

Since I couldn’t find anything usefull on the internet I have prepared a sound file including the words below. The 290KB mp3 file can be downloaded here for a limited time:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=38YBZLPL
If it expires I can mail it to others.

As you will see mostly the â is pronounciated just longer except in ‘kâr’ which probably has a different origin.

âdet (tradition)
adet (number)

âmâ (blind)
ama (but)

âşık (lover)
aşık (a bone in foot)

dâhi (genius)
dahi (even)

hâlâ (still)
hala (aunt)

kâr (profit)
kar (snow)

related links:
http://tdk.org.tr/yazim/düzeltme.htm

5.       mara
145 posts
 18 Sep 2005 Sun 07:33 pm

WE have this letter in romanian too and once when i was trying to explain to a english boy how to say this letter i told him it is like the sound you make when somebody gives you a punch in the stomach . i don't know if this will help you but i can say it helped him so good luck but try not to hurt you too much

6.       Lilith
16 posts
 18 Sep 2005 Sun 08:39 pm

Sağol arkadaşlar!!!!

this helped me very much. Now I will be able to pronunce it more or less acurately.

7.       Lyndie
968 posts
 18 Sep 2005 Sun 08:58 pm

Hi I have a burning grammatical question please.

If 'yem' is food
and 'yemek' is to eat
and 'içmek^ is to take eat drınk etc^

why cant you say ^yem içmek^ for to eat?

ı guess ıts a stupıd questıon now I look at ıt, but I'd like to know really


8.       erdinc
2151 posts
 18 Sep 2005 Sun 10:21 pm

Merhaba Lynda,

'Yemek' has meanings:
1. noun: food
2. verb: to eat

So we normally say 'yemek yemek' which means having lunch or dinner (eating food).

'yem' is food for animals.

'İçmek'
1. verb: to drink
2. verb: to get drunk (to have alcohol)
İçmek doesnt have a meaning of taking or eating.

"Sigara içmek" is a term on its own means smoking. This term doesnt make içmek suitable to use with other things in a smillar way.

I hope I could help. You can always open a new thread for a new subject and others might benefit from it. Cheers.

9.       Lyndie
968 posts
 18 Sep 2005 Sun 11:35 pm

Tesekkurer ederim erdinc,
I understand now.

10.       erdinc
2151 posts
 24 Oct 2005 Mon 03:23 pm

The sound file mentioned above has been uploaded again to this location:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RC57NA2D

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