Hello,

I´m currently studying the writing of students from Turkey who are learning English. I hoped a Turkish speaker could help me with a few questions about some particular words my students used in English. I wanted to know mainly if there is a reason these words are so frequent (for example, maybe because they use these words a lot in Turkish).

Here is one of these words:

* situation: I looked this up and it looks as if "durum" is the main translation for "situation". Would a Turkish speaker use "situation" also for words like "dava" and "olay", or would they likely choose a something else? In short, why would this be a preferable choice over words like "event", "context", "case", etc.? Students especially used it in the phrase "this situation".

Yep it is very possible. I think using "bu durum" or "bu durumda" is popular in academical texts here. It seems "durum" has a wider meaning in Turkish. 

Thanks. So then dava or olgu might be considered somewhat less formal, or not suitable for an academic text?

Sorry--a followup question: and also dava and olgu might be more specific, and durum would be more general, catching more possible meanings, so to speak?

No I dont think so. Actually I would use them. Using  "situation" (durum) in a wider context makes me think the lack of vocabulary.

When you say "in this case", it has a similar meaning for me with "in this situation" (bu durumda). 

But if you use "case" as a term of law, then instead of "durum" I would use "dava." (bu dava)

Olgu means "fact". Maybe it is possible to say "this situation" instead of  "this fact"

Event means "olay". It can be said "this situation" instead of "this event"

I appreciate your taking the time to offer your thoughts. My suspicion was that the students lacked a variety of words that might also be used in place of situation. So I´ll now look at each of these examples in my essays and see whether other word choices might be more appropriate.

Another word I found students using a lot was point. I think in most cases the students are referring to an idea presented (as in "one point to support an argument"), so perhaps in English there isn´t really another word to use. Would you agree? What word would you use in Turkish for point in a phrase like "this is a good point"?

The last one is the word subject. I think words like topic, area, and maybe issue and matter would be good synonyms for subject, so maybe the students use subject because they´ve learned it well and the others they are less confident about. Is the word subject an "easier" word for Turkish learners of English?

Are point and subject the same in Turkish?

I think the cause of the problem is that English is a richer language than modern Turkish. After the purification attempt of old Turkish we discarded a lot of Farsi and Arabic words from our language and we couldnt fill their gap properly. So we use some words in a wider context in Turkish.

Point means "nokta" The name of a punctuation mark (.) If I say "bu önemli bir nokta" It means "it is an important point". In this context "point" means another thing. I would say "husus". "Bu önemli bir husus". But husus is an Arabic word. And I am not sure if youngers know this word anymore.

Konu and nokta dont look similar to me but maybe someone can use one for other

This point is very important.

This subject is very important.

what about mesele?  can you not use this!

bu iyi bir mesele  

Well;

Situation :Durum, hal, vaziyet, etc…

Context : Bağlam, içerik, durum, kaynak etc..

Event : olay, vaka, durum, etkinlik, hadise etc..

Case : Durum, kutu, dava, olgu, olay sorun, etc…

So as you can see, durum has a wider meaning. I think it is also true for the word “situation” in english. Situation has also a wider meaning. Isnt it?

In this Context : Bu bağlamda. This can be used in academic texts. Or you can also use bu anlamda. It can also be used in academic texts)

In this case : Bu durumda, bu kapsamda, bu çerçevede

So bu durumda, bu bağlamda, bu anlamda , bu kapsamda, bu çerçevede can be interchangeably used to mean, in this case, in this situation, in this context

So there are other vocabulary in Turkish for these terms. So I think yes your students lack a variety of vocabulary choice in my oppinion.