I´m sorry but I won´t be able to help you anymore. You can read more details here:

http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_34199

Hi,

That website was one of the most known websites on this field. It is a shame it is down now. I hope they will be back. There was a small note a few days ago telling that due to some peoblems they hoped to have the website back again when they move to New Zealand. Maybe they had a problem with the hosting company and they were in the middle of moving to another country so they cound´t fix it.  

Just a small detail, Winmekmak does translate many conjugations correctly. This includes the narrative of present continuous tense (In English this corresponds to past continuous tense). 

Type gitmek, choose present continuous as the tense and choose narrative as modifier and it will show this:

ben gidiyordum

I was going

diği has already a personal suffix. It has the third person posessive suffix. We use possessive suffixes here. Here is a full conjugation:

ben geldiğim için

sen geldiğin için

o geldiği için

biz geldiğimiz için

siz geldiğiniz için

"onlar geldiği için" or "onlar geldikleri için"

Compare this to any possessive suffix: (It is exactly the same)

benim evim

senin evin

onun evi

bizim evimiz

sizin eviniz

"onların evi" veya "onların evleri"

This is possible but I wouldn´t put it that way. The -dik suffix has many different usages. This is only one of them. Here are a few:

geldiği için : because he came

geldiği zaman: when he comes

geldiğinde: when he comes

geldiği gün: the day he came/comes  

geldiğimiz uçak: the plane we came in

With için sentences you don´t need a comma. With çünkü sentences it is a matter of taste. 

There are too many sticky thread in language forum. I think we should remove a few but don´t want to remove other people´s threads. I think the best things would be if somebody would create a list of most useful threads.

I have added this topic to the sticky thread of mine called useful links.  

Long time ago I created my own tables because the ones I found all had mistakes. 

http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_2565

Team Turkey: Türk Takımı

Actually it means Turkish team but I think this is the best option. The ı´s have no dot. 

Of course names don´t change.  

Canlı,

The other way around of çünkü sentences is build with "-diği için".

Example:

İşe geç gittim, çünkü otobüs çok geç geldi.

Otobüs çok geç geldiği için işe geç gittim.

1 su bardağı means 200ml.

3.5 would be 700 ml.

Of course:

tümleç:

1. nesne

2. dolaylı tümleç  (yer/yön tümleci)

3. zarf tümleci

4. edat tümleci

complement:

1. object

2. indirect complement (location/direction complement)

3. adverbial complement

4. participle complement

Canlı, you are actually correct. The genitive case is sometimes also called the possessive case. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case

Canlı, I knew you would ask about the other components. This is why I suggested this topic is too complicated. I can´t even find an English term for one of the main components. Besides many verb sentences don´t have any object at all. Also all noun sentences exclude objects. I don´t think this is a verb useful topic for learners.  

The subject is biz. It is not insanlar. Biz is hidden subject (or dropped subject) here. 

"hem sözlü hem de sözsüz mesajları" is the object phrase. You take the whole phrase as object. 

 "aynı anda" is called "zarf tümleci" which means adverbial complement. Or just adverb.  There is another part at the beginning "insanlar arası iletişimde". This component is called dolaylı tümleç (indirect complement). A modern term is yer/yön tümleci (location/direction complement).

In short a Turkish sentence has three components:

1. the predicate (this can be a verb in verb sentences or a noun or adjective in noun sentences.)

2. the subject (this can be a hidden subject since we like to drop them)

3. the complement. This consists of four components : the object, the adverb, the location/direction indicator and the particles.  

Merhaba Doudi,

The -in suffix is the genitive case. It takes the n buffer. Ali´nin means Ali´s.

Arabası means "his/her/its car". It has a possessive suffix. "s" is a buffer letter.

The question means "Does Ali have a car?"

"var" is used for two things. It can mean "there is" or it can be used for ´have sentences´ (I made up this term.). In our example it is used for a ´have sentence´. The point is that we don´t have the verb "to have". Therefore, instead saying "I have" we say "there is my". Here is an example:

Benim arabam var.

I have a car.

Notice how we change from "I" in the English sentence to "my" (benim) in the Turkish sentence. If we had a "to have" verb this wouldn´t be necessary. Then we would be able to say "I have". The literal translation of "Benim arabam var" is "My car there is" but of course you don´t need to worry about the literal translations. You just need to know that "Ali´nin arabası" means "Ali´s car".

If we said "Bu Ali´nin arabası" you would translate as "This is Ali´s car". Here the languages are close to each other. But if we said "Ali´nin arabası var mı?". Then you would translate as "Does Ali have a car?". Here the languages differ because the lack of ´have´ in Turkish. 

sizce: in your opinion

I think now you might be able to understand the question "Sizce Ali nasıl bir insan?"

Thanks for correcting. Some English words are more difficult for us than others. Another spelling mistake is kalbini. Of course it is not kalpini. I have to create a pattern in my mind to spell difficult English words correctly, like business, continuous, bicycle etc.

if you only had one memory what would that be?

Eğer sana kalan sadece bir anı olsaydı bu hangisi olurdu?

Yes, "kalbini" is correct. The reason is actually the "a" sound in kalp. It is not the regular "a". Loanwords, taken from other languages have different vowel sounds. Another example is gol (in football) which takes also front vowels: golü, golden sonra etc.

Caliptrix explains correctly the idea behind this as pronounciation. Indeed pronounciation takes priority over spelling. With originaly Turkish words pronounciation is the same as the spelling so there is no problem. But with foreign words you need to think about the pronounciation and not the spelling. Here is another example: Manchester´da, Manchester´a.

Hi,

Somebody asked why we have used the n buffer in this sentence instead the y buffer. 

İşimi bitirdikten sonra ben kızkardeşimle spor salonuna gittim.

The reason is because the -u that is just before the -n buffer.

İşimi bitirdikten sonra ben kızkardeşimle spor salonuna gittim.

This -u is a possessive suffix. After a third person plural or singular possessive suffix we use the n buffer. Let´s quickly remember possessive suffixes and afterwards I will explain what a possessive suffix has to do in the above sentence. 

Example 1:

singulars

1. benim kedim

2. senin kedin

3. onun kedisi

plurals:

1. bizim kedimiz 

2. sizin kediniz

3. "onların kedileri" or "onların kedisi"

Example 2:

singulars:

1.benim evim

2.senin evin

3.onun evi

plurals

1.bizim evimiz

2.sizin eviniz

3."onların evleri" or "onların evi"

As you see only the third person singular and plural persons end with a vowel. Therefore only after the third persons you use -n buffer. Why the -n buffer? Well, this is a rule. After a third person possessive suffix we use the n buffer. With the possessive suffix itself we use the -s buffer (as you see in "onun kedisi").

Let´s repeat the topic with examples:

1. Arabaya bindi. (binmek: to get on, to board)

Here y is used because this is the dative case with an ordinary noun. "-a" suffix is the dative case. 

2. Ali´nin arabası var. 

Here the -ı is the third person possessive suffix and possessive suffixes take the -s buffer.

3. Ali arabasına bindi.  

Here the -ı is the third person possessive suffix and it has the s buffer. The -a is the dative case and it has the -n buffer because with all four case suffixes we use the n buffer if the case suffix comes after a third person possessive suffix. 

4. Ali evine gitti. 

Here the -i is the third person possessive suffix. There is no -s buffer because "ev" doesn´t end with a vowel. The -e is the dative case and it has the -n buffer. All noun cases take the n buffer after a third person possessive suffix. 

5. Ali evinde uyudu.

Here the -i is the third person possessive suffix. The -de is the locative case and it has the -n buffer because the n buffer is a little irregular and appears even if it is not between two vowels.  

Now, let´s return to the first sentence. "Spor salonu" is a compound noun. It consists of "spor", "salon" and third person singular possessive suffix.  Third person singular possessive is -ı, -i, -u, -ü is used to c onstruct compond nouns. Here are a few examples:

1. bebek arabası

2. Ankara Üniversitesi

3. otobüs durağı

4. futbol maçı

5. basketbol topu

6. şarkı sözü

7. arkeoloji müzesi

8. çocuk tiyatrosu

Some sources give this compound noun suffix a unique name. They call it compound noun suffix. I think this is unneccassy. As you see it is exactly the same suffix as the third person possessive and it takes again the -s buffer. Besides we use again the -n buffer after this coumpound noun suffix.  

"Ankara Üniversitesinde okuyorum."

Here the -i is the third person possessive suffix and it has the s buffer because üniversite ends with a vowel. The -de is the locative case and it has the -n buffer because it is used after a possessive suffix. If the locative case wasn´t used with a compound noun (Ankara Üniversitesi) then we would not use the -n buffer or any buffer:

"Üniversitede okuyorum."

In short, here is the rule:

Use the -n buffer with all 4 noun cases after a possessive suffix for third person singular or plural and after a compound noun because compound nouns also use the third person possessive suffix.    

You can put a comma or any conjunction between objects. So at the end you will have an object phrase with multiple objects. For instance you could say, "I have seen Ayşe and Ahmet". "Ayşe and Ahmet" will be the object phrase. A verb might apply to more than one item. 

The sentence below has five components. Can you identify three of them (predicate, subject, object) ? 

"İnsanlar arasındaki iletisimde, hem sözlü hem de sözsüz mesajları aynı anda kullanırız."

Canlı, I didn´t understand your question. Can you write down the sentence or sentences you are asking about?

Subject and predicate are two of the main components of sentences but the third (and last) component is called tümleç (complement). I´m not sure if there is a better translation for tümleç. Tümleç consists of four different elements. The object is only one of them. Besides this is only true for verb sentences. In noun sentences there is no object at all.

I see that you are trying to understand the accusative case. I´m not sure if sentence components are a good way for this. Sentence components are too complicated in Turkish.

Hi Carla,

The cheapest way possible is by flying to İstanbul with easyjet and taking a bus or another flight to İzmir. Easyjet flies only to İstanbul in Turkia. 

I just checked a return flight from London to İstanbul and it costs 59 pounds without check-in baggage and without insurance (both are included by default at easyjet website so make sure you exclude them). One way flights start from £33. 

I would first check travel options from İstanbul to İzmir before I book a flight from London to İstanbul. Make sure you pick a domestic flight from the same airport (Sabiha Gokcen Airport, İstanbul). Also check flight times of both domestic and easyjet flights. With a good planning you could get away with under 100 quid.

Cheers

Erdinç 

isim : noun

fiil: verb

yüklem : predicate

The subject and predicate are the main two components of sentences. The reason why we prefer to call it predicate is because in Turkish the predicate doesn´t have to be a verb. It can be a noun or adjective. 

Example.

Ben okula gidiyorum. > verb sentence. The predicate is ´gidiyorum´.

Ben öğrenciyim. > noun sentence. The predicate is ´öğrenciyim´. 

In the last sentence öğrenciyim has a suffix. It has the -im suffix. Some people have argued that this -im corresponds to "to be" in English. This is not correct. The -im in öğrenciyim is a personal suffix. In fact it is the same personal suffix we see in gidiyorum. Noun sentences share the same personal suffixes with present continuous tense and future tense.

Smillarly, we would say,  "Sen okula gidiyor musun?" and "Sen öğrenci misin?".

It is catwoman who organizes these classes so it is better to ask her. 

http://www.turkishclass.com/user_catwoman

The classes are not something where we teach the learners any lessons. The learners are studying the topics themselves and trhen they do the exercises. We only check the exercises and correct them. We also answer questions if there are any. The good thing is that there are some nicely written exercises specially for this project but of course they are available to anybody from the two links in my previous message. Bye. 

Kelebek,

There are only two groups for beginner 2 and both are full. You need to wait at least 6 weeks before the groups restart again. Hopefully there will be more groups next time. Other than that you can study the topics on your own:

http://www.turkishclass.com/tl_group.php?group_id=2

http://www.turkishclass.com/tl_group.php?group_id=1

Canlı,

You are doing fine. You have minor problems which will get better with time as you read more Turkish. The -li suffix is smillar to -ly in English. Sütlü-milky, rainly-yağmurlu.

"lazy day" is an idiom. People can be lazy, animals can be lazy but days can´t be lazy in Turkish. Days can be boring, long, hard, rainy or cold but not lazy. Therefore I suggested "Bugün tembellik yaptım" (I was lazy today).

"Bugün tembel bir gündü" sounds too artificial to me in Turkish.

Hi there. In one of the schools I´m working I have an adults Turkish class and the schools opens in a few days on 12th September 2008. This is my final year in this school and probably in the UK.

http://www.turkishschools.co.uk/southgate.html

Google maps

Sende Tijen´in telefon numartası var mı? Onunla bir şey hakkında konuşmam gerekiyor. Teşekkürler Erol.

"have you got Tijen´s phone number, I need to speak to her about something, thanks Erol"

Beğenmek is closer to ´like´ than ´admire´. But it can also mean to be satisfied with something. The dictionary here actually gives a good translation. As you guessed "Çay beğeniyorum" is not possible. Beğenmek is sometimes used when you pick one option over another.

Gelmek and gitmek works like in English. "Daha önce Türkiye´ye geldim." means the person who speaks is in Turkia right now. If you say "Daha önce Türkiye´ye gittim."it means you are outside Turkia right now.

"Hayır, Ayşe sinemaya gelmiyor." means the person who speaks is going to the cinema or is in the cinema right now. Imagine a few friends have met somewhere. They are planning to go to the cinema. Then somebody asks, "Is Ayşe coming?". Then you would say "No, Ayşe is not coming" in English as well.

The best way is actually to assign Turkish letters to your existing keyboard. This way all the existing keys, especially the punctiation keys will remain where they are. In fact everything will be the same except, you will be able to type Turkish letters with a key combination that you will choose.  This technique will work with any keyboard you have if you are using microsoft windows. http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx

For instance, you could assign ğ to "Alt g".

ı to "Alt i" 

ş to "Alt s" 

ç to "Alt c" 

ö to "Alt ö"

ü to "Alt u"

Merhaba,

What you can do is this:

1. Open this page: http://www.turkishclass.com/tl_turkish_classes.php

2. Click either on beginner 1 or beginner 2 according to your level.

3. There are titles which will you take to a lesson page and there are exercises. For instance if you are on the first topic in beginner 1, click both on the title itself and the exercise. If yoou press the shift key on your keyboard while clicking on a link, the link will open in a new window.

The only difference  will be that you won´t be able to submit your homeworks and therefore nobody will check them. But you can follow class forums.

http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitles.php?class_id=1

It is spelled as bebiş but I would use bebek instead. Saba is a strange name so I replaced it.  

I think this is a specially created exercise, possibly by a language teacher since it can mean three completely different things. All these three translations are possible:

Ayşe´nin bebeğini çok özlediğini duydum.

1. I have heard that Ayşe misses her baby a lot.

2. I have heard that Ayşe misses your baby a lot.

3. I have heard that you miss Ayşe´s baby a lot.

Using a comma will make things easier but still, even with a comma, the first version below has two possible translations.

Ayşe´nin, bebeğini çok özlediğini duydum.

I have heard that Ayşe misses her baby a lot.

I have heard that Ayşe misses your baby a lot.

Ayşe´nin bebeğini, çok özlediğini duydum.

I have heard that you miss Ayşe´s baby a lot.

I checked Garanti Bank´s website and the numbers don´t look very good. A very modest and old apartment flat costs at least 80.000 YTL. If I take a 80.000 YTL mortgage for 20 years I need to pay 1256 YTL each month for 240 months. This makes 301.440 YTL.

Also notice that the monthly payment is higher than a teacher´s sallary. You can do your own calculations here:

1. open this page : http://www.garantimortgage.com/DigerHesaplamalar

2. choose currency from first box. If you are earning money abroad it is fine to choose Euro or USD. If you are earning money in Turkia don´t chose a foreign currency.

From time to time we have what they call devaluation. Devaluation means the currency is reset to a lower value. We had devaulations in 1987, 1994 and 2001. Lastly in 2001 foreign currencies nearly doubled in value against Turkish Lira in one day. Many people who owned money to banks in a foreign currency have comited suicide because their debt doubled according their income.

According to statistics it is likely that two or three devaluations will happen during a 20 year period. Maybe there won´t be any. You can never know. It is a huge risk for people who earn money in Turkish Lira but take loans in a foreign currency. Your debt might double three times.

3. on the third box choose duration in months. As you see the higest is 240 months (20 years).

4. Then click ´hesapla´ (calculate) and a new window will open. The column that says ´taksit´ shows your monthly payments which is the same for all the months.

Here is another example:

80.000 Euro for 20 years means 782.65 Euro each month for 240 months. In total you pay  187.836 Euro. Maybe somebody can compare this to their own country.

If you earn money abroad it makes sense to get a morgage in a foreign currency.  

The problem with countryside houses is that many houses are not registered and don´t have building permission. The majority of villages (köy) in Turkia is like this. According to my calculation we have 4 million illegally build houses. Sometimes the person owns the land and builds there without a building permission. Many houses are like this. Especially in seaside towns there is no building permission very close to the sea or inside a forest area. But they still build and sell such houses or villas. Google "kaçak villa" and you will see many pictures.    

There are also houses where the person doesn´t even own the land but still builds a house. These are called gecekondu. They provide electricty and water to gecekondu but usually there is no sewer system.

Whatever you do don´t join any kooperatif. A kooperatif means there are no houses yet but you sign an agreement with a building company and start paying monthly payments. You are hoping that they will build the houses or flats in the given time which is one year or two according the agreement but this almost never happens. Usually they require higher payments than you agreed at first. Also the construction goes on and on for many more years and sometimes they don´t build anything at all for a few years. Sometimes they build 80 houses to the same land which should have 50 according the plan.

If you want to get scammed the easiest way is to join a kooperatif. Nobody is going to protect you against scammy building companies. Local councils work for them. Corruption is at its highest level. No law is going to protect you if you join a kooperatif.  Many politicians are ex building company bosses. The parliement is full with them and they only introduce rules that would protect themselves.

I always thought it is from Monday to Monday. Can you try beginner 2 again and see if it works now?

-i is the accusative case. The accusative case is used in many situations. This is one of them. Plural generic direct objects take the accusative case.

Direct object: This means there is a verb that applies to the object itself. These verbs are also called transitive verbs. In other words, we are not doing something with an object. We are doing something to an object.

Accusative case: -ı, i, u, ü takes -y buffer if needed

Plural generic nouns: This means simply any plural noun that refers to an entire class.

´Kediler´ in "Ayşe kedileri çok sever" doesn´t refer to certain objects. We are talking generally about cats.

More examples about this type of usage of the accusative case:

Churchill Türkleri hafife almıştı.

Churchill underestimated the Turks.

Güçlü bir fırtına şehirleri yok edebilir.

A strong hurricane can demolish cities.

Devlet fakirleri korur.

The state protects the poor.

Sanatçıları anlamak her zaman kolay değildir.

It isn´t always easy to understand artists.

Canlı,

It works like you mentioned. ´Hiç´ is dropped with affirmative answer. So these would be correct:

Hayır, buraya daha önce hiç gelmedik.

Evet, buraya daha önce geldik.

There is no train to Antalya or from Antalya. You can go by bus or you can fly there. I checked www.thy.com website and a return ticked was 198 ytl which is a good price.

If you choose to go by bus I suggest either Varan or Ulusoy. Picking a good bus company is critical in Turkia for comfortable bus trips. It can be very painful if you pick an ordinary company. Both have English websites:

www.varan.com.tr

www.ulusoy.com.tr

October tickets aren´t available yet for sale on their website. I think it will be available in early September. Alternatively give them a call. You can reserve a ticket on the phone and then collect from an office. Or you could wait a week or so and buy directly from their website. I have used the websites of both of these bus companies many times to buy tickets.

You can only teach in private schools and language courses. As far as I know they require any bachelors degree and an English teaching certificate like tefl or celta. Have a look at this page:

http://www.eslbase.com/jobs/turkey/

Yes you can say "Londra İstanbul kadar güzel" (London is as beautiful as İstanbul). But there is nothing stopping you from making the same sentence negative:

"Londra İstanbul kadar güzel değil." (London isn´t as beautiful as İstanbul.)

Now the meaning is the same as saying "İstanbul Londra´dan daha güzel" (İstanbul is more beautiful than London).

"Ali Deniz daha çok sebzeler yiyor."

Delidolu,

This is almost correct. We use the -den suffix in comparisions with daha.  Also the object should be singular here. So the sentence is, "Ali Deniz´den daha çok sebze yiyor".

You can also build a smillar sentence with "kadar" and negative verb. "Deniz Ali kadar çok sebze yemiyor".

It´s the same with noun sentences. Of course you make a noun sentence negative by adding değil, instead the nagative suffix in verb sentences.

Türkiye İngiltere´den daha sıcak.

İngiltere Türkiye kadar sıcak değil.

Military officers have a compulsory job obligation. I not sure how long this is exactly but I guess it is 20 years. They can not leave their job during this time. If they do they will face a very high fine that they can´t pay. Some of the officers realise that the army is not for them but there is no way out. They could consider running away to another country and changing citizenship. A foreign wife is like a visa to a foreign country. Therefore it is not allowed.

In your example the answer should be "Hayır, gitmiyor". I would never use "Evet, gitmiyor".

Yes, that´s right. We keep using hayır.

The word was zayıflamak. Corrected now.

Doudi,

They are using International terms in medicine. These are mostly latin terms. In Turkai in all medical faculties they are using foreign terms. It is not about the terms I was talking. I was referring to the actual classrooms.

Imagine a classroom full with Turkish students. Then the teacher comes in. He is also Turkish. But he starts talking in English. All the students talk in English as well during the entire lesson.  And this is repeated in all courses in that department. All the personel in that faculty, for instance in students registration office, students library etc. is also able to talk in English. All the paperwork, forms, id´s etc. for students are also in English. This is how a university works if they are teaching in English in Turkia.

We have a few universities that work completely that way. But none of them, if I remember correctly, has a medical faculty. Hacettepe University is mostly Turkish but they have a few departments, including a medical department that teaches in English.   

The first case sounds like a woman who is not working was shown as employed by a friends family company. The company is supposed to pay the contributions to social security department. Therefore she paid the money to the company herself and they send the money to the social security department. The reason they are doing this is because we have recently changed laws regarding retirement.

In the 80´s a woman could retire after 20 years employment. Therefore people could retire at the age of 38. Since the governments realised that this wasn´t a very good thing to do, since the 80´s they are trying to postpone the retirement age. There have been some changes to the law before over the years. I think the final change means that woman can´t retire before the age of 60 and man 65. So they are just trying to walk around the new law changes.

The second issue sounds to me like they are asking for the doughders diploma.  It is not a CV. In some fields you need to employ qualified people. For instance in construction field you need construction engineers and architects and they need to sign the projects. Smillarly a pharmacy can be opened only by a person who graduated from that department. On the pther hand even though it is illegal they are graduates who are selling their diplomas usage rights. So, basically you pay somebody some money to use their qualified status and trick the official departments.

In Turkia almost nothing that needs to be checked is checked. Nearly all official departments are crap and corruption is higher than ever. This is even true for department that are related to heath and safety.

Hello Henry,

Verbix gives an incorrect conjugation. Try winmekmak:

http://ipb.nu/winmekmak/

I have helped a little to improve winmekmak and I know that this program works very good. It can also go from conjugation to stem.

edit: Canlı, missed your post.

The mi suffix is attached after the word that we want to ask about. In the mentioned sentence the question suffix -mi can be in three different places:

Sen mi İstanbul´da yaşıyorsun?

Is it you who is living in İstanbul?

Sen İstanbul´da mı yaşıyorsun?

Is it İstanbul where you are living in?

Sen İstanbul´da yaşıyor musun ?

Is it living that you do in İstanbul?

Since we already know that the person is living, but we don´t know if that place was Istanbul, we put the question suffix after Istanbul.

Examples:

Sen evden mi geliyorsun?

Sen işe mi gidiyorsun?

Ayşe Ankara´da mı yaşıyor?

Çok zayıflamışsın. Spor mu yapıyorsun?

Çok terlemişsin. Çok mu koştun?

-Bugün işe gitmedim.

-Hasta mı oldun?

-Trafik polisi beni durdurdu.

-Hızlı mı gidiyordun?

"Nowadays" is also a good translation. 

bu aralar = these days

This is an idiomatic expression. Instead "bu aralar" it was possible to say "bu günlerde" but bu aralar is more casual.

bu aralar çok kötüyüm...

These days I feel very bad.

pmitride,

There is a sticky thread under this forum section called "useful links for learners". In that thread you can find a few more useful links besides verbix. Cheers.  

Erdinç

 Merhaba Özçelik,

It was me who wrote the homeworks about vowel harmony. When questions started pouring in here, I realized it must have been a little tricky. I will revise it after the current group is finished with them.

What you do is simple. First answer the four question that I asked above, in this thread.  Then looking at your answers have a look again to the original questions.

OK, here is some more help. But you need to do the rest yourself.  

back vowel = hard vowel = a, ı, o, u

front vowel = soft vowel = e, i, ö, ü

flat vowels = a, e, ı, i

round vowels = o, ö, u, ü

Now the question is very simple:

What vowels are back and flat at the same time?

What vowels are back and round ?

What vowels are front and flat ?

What vowels are front and round ?

Please don´t answer here since learners need to do the exercises themselves.

Hello,

I prefer to call them back and front vowels. Therefore the exercises and the lessons are using different terms. Anyway, it is like this:

back vowel = hard vowel = a, ı, o, u

front vowel = soft vowel = e, i, ö, ü

As far as I know very few universities are teaching medicine in English. I know around 20 univiersities and only one of them has English as teaching language. Here is it´s website.

http://www.tip.hacettepe.edu.tr/english/index.php

Have a look on this page about foreign students:

http://www.iso.hacettepe.edu.tr/iso/

yemek pişirmek: cooking

yemek yemek : eating

This is an advanced topic. It would take pages to cover all the details. I will give a very short summary.

These suffixes are used instead the relative pronouns ´who´, ´that´, ´whom´, ´where´. Here are a few examples:

1. the places where we have been : gittiğimiz yerler

2. the dog that barks : havlayan köpek

3. the car which broke down : bozulan araba

4. the man who just run away  : az önce kaçıp giden adam

Let´s take sentence three and look closer. To brake down is something that happaned to the car. It is a description or feature of the car.  The pronoun ´which´ is connecting this feature to the car. Since we don´t have this pronoun In Turkish, we add a suffix to the verb. I think now you have an idea about when to use these participle suffixes.

-en is the noun participle. -dik is the past tense participle. And -ecek is the future tense participle. But these participles are not limited to any tense. They are timeless.

One thing that is easy about this topic is that the verbal adjective (the word that takes the suffix) is always before the noun it modifies.

You also wanted to know how to decide which one to use. This is a detailed issue. In general:

a) -an, -en is used if the noun it modifies is the subject of the verb in the relative clause.

Example 1:

"The dog that bit me, run away."

Here the relative clause is "the dog that bit me..." The verb in the reative clause is ´to bite´. The subject of this verb is ´the dog´. "To bite" should refer to this subject. Does it? Yes, it does because to bite is a description or feature of the dog.

 "Beni ısıran köpek kaçtı".  

First, find the verb in the relative clause . Then find the subject of that verb. If you are describing this subject then you can only use -an, -en. The other two participles are never used that way.

b) Generally -dik or -ecek is used if the noun it describes is the object of the verb in the relative clause. -ecek is used if the relative clause (not the whole sentence) refers to a future situation.

Example 2:

"A person that I don´t know died yesterday"

First thing we do is to identify the relative clause: "A person that I don´t know ..."  You need to think this as "There is a person I don´t know". ´To know´ is the verb. ´I´ is the subject. ´a person´ is the object. So we use the -dik participle because it is not a future situation:

"Tanımadığım biri dün öldü."

Example 3:

"I received the book that you have send."

Relative clause: the book that you have send (think as "You have send a book.")

Verb in relative clause: to send

Subject of relative clause : you

Object of relative clause: book

The noun that is described in the raltive clause is the object of the relative clause. Therefore we use -dik participle:

Gönderdiğin kitabı aldım.

Example 4:

I have seen the car that you will buy.

Here the car is described as "the car that you will buy". This is our relative clause. Although the verb in the main sentence "seen" is not future tense, we use the -ecek because the verb in the relative clause is about a future situation and at the same time "you will buy the car" has the car as object. So -ecek is used.

This is only the half of the topic. So far we saw verbal adjective clauses. There are also verbal adverb clauses with the same suffixes. Examples: 1. İstanbul´a geldiğinde beni ara. 2. Hasta olduğum için işe gidemedim.

I don´t suggest to anybody to study these topics in detail. You will not learn it that way. When you need to build a sentence still you won´t be able to. My suggestion is, that you learn enough grammar to know roughly what is what and then read a lot.

No, it is kasırga. It is the first time I have heard of urağan. It´s not used at all.

The translation you got is pretty good.

Sui has too many students to help. Let me give a hand here.  

Shizuma,

There are some suffixes that have two versions:

plural suffix: -ler, -lar (example: arabalar, evler)

infinitive suffix: -mek, -mak (example: gitmek, koşmak)

locative case suffix: -de, -da (example: arabada, evde)

With two type suffixes we have two rules:

1. if the last vowel is a back vowel (a,ı,o,u) continue with the "a" suffix.

2. if the last vowel is a front vowel (e,i,ö,ü ) continue with the "e" suffix.  

What is the last vowel in İstanbul? It is "u". So I put a back vowel if I´m adding a suffix that has two version: İstanbul´da 

Some suffixes have four versions:

accusative case suffix: -ı,i,u,ü

present continuous tense suffix: -ıyor,iyor,uyor, üyor

question suffix: -mı, mi, mu, mü

With four type suffixes we have two rules:

1. if the last vowel is a back and flat (a,ı ) continue with the "ı" suffix.

2. if the last vowel is a back and round  (o,u) continue with the "u" suffix.

3. if the last vowel is a front and flat (e,i) continue with the "i" suffix.

4. if the last vowel is a front and round (ö,ü ) continue with the "ü" suffix.

The last vowel in İstanbul is "u". So I put the -u suffix : İstanbul´u seviyorum.

1. "Biraz Türkçeyi konuşuyorum." is incorrect.

2. "Biraz Türkçe konuşuyorum." is correct.

3. "Türkçeyi biraz konuşuyorum." is correct.

Kediler is a plural generic noun. The person is talking about cats in general.

"to me" doesn´t work that way in Turkish. The dative case is about direction. If you would say "Give the bag to me" here it would mean direction. So we would translate as "bana". In your sentence "to me" is not used in it´s ordinary way. It doesn´t mean direction.

Some time ago we talked about the Turkish terms for noun cases. The dative case is called "yönelme durumu".

Yönelmek means "heading or going towards".

I´m sending you two more texts. Both are about holidays. The text about Yasemin is for today and the other one is for monday.

Because it is to Ali dative used. Ali´ye ne oldu?

The first part of the translation looks pretty good. So let me give a try to the final part. 

I corrected characters and spellings. Also the last comma, which was missing, is important to the meaning. It would be better if ´sadece´ was placed after ´ömürboyu´ in the original text.

Hatıra could mean ´reminder´ but I assumed that two people haven´t seen each other in real life. So I took the literal meaning of ´memories´.  Although I´m not sure if this assumtion was correct.  

"İçimde sadece ömürboyu mukemmel aşkım olarak kalacaksın. Senden hiçbir beklentim yok.  Sadece seni tanımak istemiştim ve bende hiçbir hatıran olmadığı için bir de fotoğrafını,  ilerde bakabilmek için... "

You will remain lifelong inside me only as my perfect love. I don´t have any expectations from you. I only wanted to know you better. Also I wanted a picture of you so I could look at it in the future, because I don´t have any memories with you.

I didn´t write to you because I´m in love with you or because I want you back.

If that was the case I wouldn´t have left you.

I just missed an old friend, that´s all. It´s good to hear that you are happy.

Doudi, there is an example. If you check the example again you should be able to figure out how to complete that section for next week.

Have a look here:

http://www.turkishclass.com/tl_homework_assignment.php?homework_id=21

This is a different noun state. It´s called accusative case.

-e dative

-de locative

-den ablative

-i accusative

Also, there is a mistake in tjis sentence: 

Sen Ankara´yı seviyor musun?

Merhaba Christine,

It is called accusative case. It is part of beginner 1 lessons.

http://www.turkishclass.com/tl_homework_assignment.php?homework_id=21 

Here is the correct link:

http://ipb.nu/winmekmak/

Here is an online conjugation tool (although I suggest winmekmak):

http://www.verbix.com/languages/turkish.shtml

"Over all, i understand it,something like day come, i will make you a favor´"

It is very good that you understand the meaning of sentences. Don´t worry about the details that you don´t understand. Just continue reading and read more and more. We are talking here of more than 1000 pages. This could take 6 months.

Also extensive dictionary work is needed. You might need to check the dictionary twenty times in one page. With time as your vocabulary improves the number of unknown words per page will drop.

Possibly you should read stories that you like and would remember. If you can find something in a dictionary that´s fine. If you can´t find it, underline it or take notes and continue reading but don´t interrupt reading. More flexibility is needed.

A foreign language can be very different than yours. Many things might not make sense. Things could be in a completely different nature. If you simply accept that and move on, then it will be better. If you stop and fight with it until makes more sense in your language, then it will not be so good.   

It is a very good idea to read the same text again but only after a while. I would say second readings should be done at least after two months. 

In those sentences the only thing that you need to know is that anlamak takes -i case.

-i anlamak, bir şeyi anlamak : to undertstand something.

Instead "nihayet" I would suggest "son olarak" ( lastly ). For "evvela" you could use "önce" or "ilk önce" or "ilk olarak" ( firstly ). Bye.

Gezbelle, if we would help you, wouldn´t this be cheating? In general you did well. There are a couple of mistakes here and there but it is better to leave them so your teacher can see them and focus on these areas.

By the way, "evvela" and "nihayet" are a bit old fashioned. Did you pick these words?

Londra´u has two vowels but two vowels don´t come next to each other. Besides it doesn´t have the correct vowel according vowel harmony. İstanbul´u is correct.

Canlı, verbs take different case suffixes to their objects. These are pre defined. They don´t change.  

For instance sevmek always takes -i case.

Ali okulu seviyor.

Ayşe tenis oynamayı seviyor.

Başlamak (to start something) always takes -e case.

Ben okula başladım.

Ben tenis oynamaya başladım.

"Hoşlanmak" (to like) always takes the -den case.

Ben okuldan hiç hoşlanmıyorum.

Ben tenis oynamaktan hiç hoşlanmıyorum.

In these three sentence "tenis oynamak" is the object. It is not different than any other object. You might be confused to see that "oynamak" takes all case suffixes just like an ordinary noun. Is "oynamak" a noun? The answer is yes. Infinitives are the names of verbs. Because they are names they are nouns. They become verbs when they are conjugated.

The infinitive is the noun form of a verb. The short infinitive (-me, ma) isn´t any different than the long infinitive (mek, mak) except that with most noun cases (dative , accusative) we use the short infinitive. Also the short infinitive can create permanent nouns that are used in compound nouns.

Here are some more examples with the short and long infinitives that take case suffixes :

Ben okumayı seviyorum.

Ben okumaya başladım.

Ben kitap okumaktan hoşlanıyorum.

Reading is a good idea. I wouldn´t worry about grammar as long as you understood half of what you are reading. It is more important to continue reading and to read lots more than studying grammar. You will learn many grammar points intuitionally with time. Plus you will learn lots of vocabulary and you will get used to sentence structures. The only thing I would worry would be to find something to read that I would like reading. 

I mean, don´t worry about the fine details. You can skip them. For instance a very small detail about n buffer is that it is also used with -den, -de case if these come after a third person possessive suffix. Example: penceresinden (from his window). The n buffer has irregularities.

Do you have to learn these detail to learn Turkish? Absolutely not. Even if you had learned all them it wouldn´t help much.

So don´t worry about the details. You needs lots more practice about the topics that you already know. For instance the basic grammar topics.

In short, I ´m suggesting much less detail and lots more practice. Reading, speaking, listening, writing and exercises are all practice. Practice should be spread over time.  

There will be repeating sessions.

Hello karekin,

All the information you will need will be available on the first message of this topic. New dates and times will be posted earlier before the lesson starts. For instance this week we had lessons on Tuesday, wednesday and saturday. I had posted times on monday. So there was enough time to plan ahead.

You don´t need anything except coming here and opening the first message before the lesson starts.

Hello natiypuspi,

Todays lesson started 3 hours ago and lasted a little more than one hour. So you are three hours late.

the lesson has just started . join the lesson now. check first message

alexblakeley,
Sure you can, as long as there is space and you can get in.

The capacity is 20 learners. Last two lessons we had 13 and then 8.

I haven´t written it yet. I need to think for a while how to make lessons more efficient.

"Ailem ile" is not totally wrong. But it´s not much used that way. It depends on the context. Sometimes "ile" used like "and". For instance "Ali ile Ahmet geldiler". In these cases we would prefer the word version. Otherwise the suffix version is prefered.

Another detail about -le, la suffix is that after a vowel it takes a y buffer. For instance "arabayla" (by car).

Cheers
Erdinç

Pansi, you are right. There was a typo in that question. I have corrected it now. Thanks for noticing and letting us know.

Its not a lie, on the contrary, my love is real for you. You are my everything. Take good care of yourself. I give you my word that I will be faithful to you. A man´s word. OK honey, see you later and don´t be upset if the text message arrives late.

When the season ends I coming to Poland. I can´t do without you darling. My eyes are looking for you everyday. My love for you is real. I´m coming to you. There is short time left for us to come together. Wait for me OK. Have sweet dreams and in your dream see me my darling, my rose faced.

If you exchanged pounds and you used to get 200 YTL for it but now you get less, then it means Turkish Lira has risen in value.

"781 takip numarasıyla başvuru yapmış olduğunuz gönderiniz konsolosluktan teslim alınmıştır."

I think it was written by the consulate and I think the consulate is using a bad Turkish. I guess what they are trying to say is this:

"The package with the tracking number 781 which includes your application has been received by our consulate".

They should have written it this way:

"Başvurunuzu içeren 781 takip numaralı gönderiniz konsolosluğumuz tarafından teslim alınmıştır."

Meltem is correct. By "konsolosluktan" they are trying to say "konsolosluğumuz tarafından". This is not a shorter form. It is just bad language. Employees at consulates are usually people who have lived in that foreign country for too long and have forgotton Turkish.

Well, you didn´t ask me what newspaper I read so I wouldn´t mention it in my answer. I would think that you are more interested whether or not I read newspapers. Maybe you want to know if I follow the news.

This sounds to me like asking somebody if the person listens a lot of music or smokes a lot.

The person who asks doesn´t say anything about a specific newspaper. If they were talking about a specific newspaper as object (like the newspaper on the table) or publisher (like The Times newspaper) then they would use accusatives.

Merhaba Christine,

There is no translation and it is likely there won´t be any at all for the following weeks.

What you do is, you go to this page, then click on a homework and answer the questions there. There should be button to enter your answer. For the first week we have these :
Homework 1: Ali and Ayşe
Homework 2: Complete Sentences
Homework 3: Add missing suffixes and words

On Homework 1, first you read a short dialog between the two and then answer the questions according the dialog.

Homework 2 is already pretty straightforward.

On Homework 3 you add a suffix after words with an underscore, like okul_ and put a word when there are three dots.

Display name is your nickname. You can type any nickname you want to be called as. For instance, you can type your first name as display name.

The second session just finished now. Unfortunately we had even more problems with microphones not working. Most of the time I did the talking. Only for a short time only one person´s microphone worked. We have one session left on saturday.

We need more people who have microphones. I suggest to buy a headset.

lesson starts in 5 minutes. Anybody can join now. Click the link on first message.

Doudi, yes you can. Please wait until exact lesson time so others will have already joined and then join the class if there is space left.

In the future we will apply a booking system.

The link to the current lesson will be posted now in first message.

9 years is too low. It should be at least 30 years.

mheart72,

Of course you can join. Anybody who is here at the right time can join. Right now we don´t have a booking system. Hopefully less than 20 people will come since thats the limit for the software. Last lesson 13 people came.

Si,
I´m thinking about this. During this first lesson we already had enough technical difficulties. The program itself has a recording feature but I haven´t tested it yet.

Maybe a special recording session with less learners or without learners could be considered which would also make the session more organized.

In my mind I have a Lynda.com sytle complete cbt set of videos but so far I have always thought I´m going to create them one day with flash which would give me more flexibility with movements.

Sometimes suffixes come inbetween other suffixes (for instance the nagative suffix -mi that is addes to gidiyorum) or sometimes a letter is dropped. I really would like to move around suffixes and words visually and create more atracting and easier to follow lessons.

What I do know is to talk on top of a slide show which is a bit dull. And in the meantime naturally people ask questions, some have trouble with hearing sounds, or can´t see the whiteboard. The chat window is active full time. And so on. So it is a little different than a self study video course. I need to think a little more about this issue. Of course your idea is a something that could be done easier, so it´s likely.

I also need to prepare further lessons. Many people already know vowel harmony but want to learn more advanced things.

teaschip,

If you have used webex before you might find dimdim´s free version a little amateurish. The features of the program aren´t as high as webex. But still for me it´s a good thing to experience with these things and see what can be done.

It is 10 a.m. I´m using 24 hour clock system since I never liked a.m.´s and p.m.´s.

We have just finished the first session. The number of attendees was 13 when it was maximum.

There will be two more repeating sessions for lesson1. Check times at first message.

I have posted the link to the first session of lesson 1 on opening message. If you have any trouble getting in I´m available on chat room here at turkishclass.

Hello Oana,

The system we use provides video conferencing option but I decided not to use it to keep learners focused. We will only hear each other and we will share visual presentations. There are going to be a few pages text that we will go through during the lesson. Those who don´t have a microphone will be able to communicate via an integrated chat option.

In the future somebody might decide to arrange a video conference. This could be an option for an advanced speaking class. Then you will be able to see those who have a webcam. Since it is free and fairly simple to use, anybody could arrange their own meetings as well. I suggest to have a look at dimdim.com.

Hi,

I didn´t think that more than 20 people will join a session. So my idea is to post the link in the first message 10 minutes before the lesson and let anybody join who wants to.

If it turns out that there are more than 20 people then people who have posted in this topic will take priority for this first week.

After this week if there is too much interest, then we will apply a booking system for the following weeks. Still I don´t expect this to happen. Bye

Si, I´m a big fan of camstudio 2.0 (which is better than 2.5) but I think I can do better than that. I´m also using flash pro 8 to create content. I will see what option will be the best. I need to start the lessons first and continue for a while to think better about it.

perfjenny,

All three sessions are the same lesson. You can pick the third one only and you will not miss anything. I have put there three sessions so people can pick one or another.

As you can see all three sessions are names "lesson 1" and the content is the same.

As for the lessons in video environment, this is of course possible. The software lets you to record lessons. We could put either these records or I could convert my power point files to a video format and add sound. Let´s see.

I´m now working on the power point file for tomorrow´s lesson.

That material will be mainly for those who joined the lesson but would like to restudy it. I strongly suggest that you join lessons. It is better than watching a video since you will be able speak and answer question as well. Also all the interaction during the lesson helps to remember things.

Hello si,

I have checked again on this page and it confirms that flash is needed. It looks like you are out of luck.

http://help.dimdim.com/activekb/questions/111/do+i+need+to+download+anything+to+use+Dimdim%3F

Kuzu, to prevent confusion I have also given GMT time of the lessons. Right now UK is GMT+1.

I suggest using this website website to find your location.

http://www.worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_UTC.aspx

People who have difficulty with time zones can simply mention their location and I will put the time in their local time as well. Cheers.

Kuzu, you don´t need anything to install. You need to have flash 9.0 or higher installed on your computer but nearly all computers already have this. So it is very likely that you have it as well. If you don´t have it the program will let you know and direct you to this website:

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=shockwaveflash

Hi Alameda,
I have just announced the lesson times. It wasn´t available at the time of your first message. So in fact you couldn´t see it earlier.

Hello Everybody. Please check the first message. Lesson times have been announced. You can join any of the three sessions.

Alameda,
I have put a weekend session hoping that it will be more suitable for the folks in the states. I´m also planning to repeat this lesson after a two week gap. Cheers.

It will work very simple. I will give you a short grammar explanation about a topic. Then I will show you some exercises that I will have prepared before, where you either give an answer to a question or you construct the question itself looking at the answer. I like the lessons more when learners speak more than me during a lesson.

Visitors, people who dont have a microphone or people who don´t want to speak won´t speak during a lesson. It will be like a real classroom environment with the difference that I´m teaching for 12 years in normal classes and I didn´t teach a single lesson in virtual environment yet. So it is a new thing for me as well. But don´t worry, it should be fine.

According alexa.com most of the users of this website are from USA. Second is Germany and third is UK. So I will try to arrange evening times for USA, Germany and UK. This way people who have a daytime job or school can join in the evening. There is only one hour difference between Germany and UK.

We could also add one repeating session for the weekend. So in total the same lesson would be presented at least 3 times during the same week and it would repeat continuously after a two week gap.

For instance for the UK, lessons could be 6 or 7pm on weekdays and 4 or 5 pm on weekends.

Hopefully other teachers here will follow this system and there will be more repeating sessions for the same lesson content.

The software I´m using allows uploading a power point slide show. I´m thinking to create slide shows for each lesson and give them to other teachers. This way they could teach the same thing themselves using that slide show.

Queent,

Don´t worry. This lesson is for complete beginners. It is not a high level course. Any complete beginner can join. Just check the first message in this topic to find out the lesson time.

I will arrange repeating sessions for the same lessons in case people from different time zones want to pick a more suitable time. I will also repeat the lessons over time once in a week or two so people who missed the lessons in the past will be able to join another one.

You can imagine this as a cinema movie. It will be shown in the morning and afternoon so you can pick any of them. It will also repeat after a week or two so newcomers can see it as well.

Right now the only thing that I´m interested is enough attendence. As soon as we have enough interest I will announce the lesson times.

We will be using the open source free service of dimdim.com. The attendee doesn´t need to download anything. It will be browser based for the attendee. The presenter downloads a small program. I have searched virtual classroom softwares and found out that dimdim is the best choice for our needs. A paid alternative is webex.com

The lessons are over now. We had lessons on 5,6 and 9 August and 13,8 and 12 people joined respectively.  We will continue with new lessons in the future. Date and time will be announced here.

Link to the virtual class will be posted here 15 minutes before it starts. Date and time will be announced much sooner though.

Greetings, Soon I will start online lessons in real time virtual environment. Of course it will be for free. You will be able to listen, to speak, to read and to type at the same time. We will use a voice conferencing system but you are not required to download anything. On the other hand you need a headset. If you have only speakers or headphones but don´t have a microphone you can still join but then you won´t be able to speak and I can´t ask you any questions. I will update this message and post lesson times here. (edit: see times above) Lessons will be 50 minutes. The first lesson´s topic is: Lesson 1: for complete beginners noun cases, vowel harmony, question suffix The first lesson could start tomorrow or the next day. I can accept up to 20 learners for a lesson. Who would be interested to join a virtual classroom? This is the first time we will do something like this on this website. Other teachers or moderators will be always welcome to join my virtual lessons as visitors.

It is the slang version of "iyi mi?"

The question suffix in Turkish is -mı, -mi, -mu, -mü. In fact there are many i type suffixes in Turkish and all of them have the vowels ı, i, u, ü.

The simple past tense suffix -dı, -di, -du, -dü and the present continuous tense suffix -ıyor, -iyor, -uyor, -üyor are just two other examples to the -i type suffix.

You pick the correct suffix according vowel harmony. Vowel harmony for i type suffixes means that :

a and ı is followed by ı
e and i is followed by i
o and u is followed by u
ö and ü is followed by ü

Examples:

Çay sıcak mı? (last vowel is a and a is followed by -mı )
Yemek güzel mi? (last vowel is e and e is followed by -mi)
Ali Türk mü? (last vowel is ü and ü is followed by -mü)
Türkçe zor mu? (last vowel is o and o is followed by -mu)

The other part to your question includes the personal suffixes. Here are the personal suffixes for different persons in noun sentences:

Singular
ben : -ım, -im, -um, -üm
sen : -sın, -sin, -sun, -sün
o : -
Plural
biz : -ız, -iz, -uz, -üz
siz : -sınız, -siniz, -sunuz, -sünüz
onlar : -lar, -ler, -

As you see the personal suffix is mostly an 'i' type suffix as well. They have the vowels -ı, -i, -u, -ü. Therefore they follow the same vowel harmony.

The third person plural is an 'a' type suffix or you could use no suffix for that person. Vowel harmony for 'a' type suffixes is easier:

Back vowels are followed by a back vowel and front vowels are followed by a front vowel. So a, ı, o, u is followed by 'a' and e, i, ö, ü, is followed by -e. Another example to the a type suffix would be the plural suffix -ler, lar or the locative case for nouns -de, -da.

A noun sentence is the type of sentence you would construct with the verb to be (am, is, are, was, were, have been, has been) in English. Instead in Turkish we construct them with those personal suffixes.

Notice that because the last vowel is ü in Türk, we use personal suffixes according vowel harmony to ü.

Ben Türk'üm.
Sen Türk'sün.
O Türk.
Biz Türk'üz.
Siz Türk'sünüz.
Onlar Türk.

"Siz Türk müsünüz?"

In this sentence we have the question suffix -mü and the personal suffix -sünüz. Because the personal suffix at the end is already telling us which person it is, we can drop the personal pronoun 'siz' from the sentence.

As you might have noticed the personal pronoun (siz) and the personal suffix (-sünüz) are doing exactly the same job. If we had the chance to recreate the language we would drop the personal suffix and make the language much easier. Unfortunately this wasn't the case in the historical development of Turkish language.

There is no such Turkish name or anything smillar to it. The name could be Irona. This sounds to me like a Russian female name. If the name is Irona then Irona'm would mean my Irona, -m being the possessive suffix.

Iroda appears to be an Uzbek female name, not used in Turkish at all.

Hello,

I received a message from a TC member asking me about Turkish schools in London and I decided to post some general info about London area.

In London we have many Turkish weekend schools. Sometimes they are also called community schools or suplementary schools. They all work the same way. They are voluntary organisations managed by Turkish parents. They hire a regular school building for the weekend to organise a Turkish school. Most of the students are Turkish children but there are also classes for adults.

These weekend schools have a yearly school fee to cover costs but it is a reasonable amounth that is usually less than 100 pounds per school year starting from beginning of September until the end of June each year.

On the left side of this page you will find a list of most of these schools. I work or have worked in the past in most of them but not all have adult classes.
http://www.turkishschools.co.uk/membersc.html

Grange Park School (Saturday mornings 10:30-12:30 ) and Southgate School (Fridays evenings 18:00-21:00 ) are two of the schools where I will have adult classes for the next school year. Both are in North London.

Among that list you might find some other schools in other areas in London that have adult classes as well.

Schools have closed now as usual at the end of June and they will open again at the beginning of September. Next year is also my final year in the UK. I have been working for many years in these schools.

Bye
Erdinç

There isn't really. I have lived many years in those areas. Anybody who considers himself a Turkish citizens and shows the least respect to the country (by not using a different flag, by not using a different country name, by not using a different city name, by not carrying pictures of terrorist leader, etc.) is never oppressed.

The musician we were talking about uses the same language as the terrorists. Basically he makes songs to be listened by the terrorists on terror camps. He uses the same fictional names. He makes songs about a country that does not exists but that they want to create by taking a part of our land.

There is a huge difference between making Kurdish songs and making songs that support separationalist terrorists. We have nothing against Kurdish language or culture. You can be a Turkish citizen with Kurdish ethnical origin. In fact there are many who live happly like that.

On the other hand being a terrorist supporter and being understanding to terrorist supporters is not something we can tolerate and should not something you do either.

Catwoman you know very well what I meant when I wrote loyalty to homeland in that topic that needed to be removed.

We have a problem in out homeland. There is a terrorist organisation that wants to separate a part of our land. They give names to that part. On maps they show it divided from our country. They gives names to regions in that part. They give names to cities. They use a so-called flag. They even choose the so-called fictional majors for those places. They use those fictional foreign city names in their songs. They are the same people who fight agains the state.

It is not a matter of supporting Turkishness or not. It is just a simple citizenship requirement to be respectfull to your homeland. This means that you cant support the terrorists and use the same language as them, use the same fictional country, region, city names as them and them expect to get away with that.

What we expect from our Kurdish origin citizens is that they simply are respectfull to the state, the law, the government and they don't support terrorist organizations that want to separate a part of our homeland. What has that to do with Turkishness?

While you know very well that I was referring to terrorist supporters I fail to understand why you would argue against something that I wrote.

Of course being a citizen of a country means being loyal to that country.

You can read the requirements for US citizenship:
http://www.us-immigration-attorney.com/citizenship.htm

The people I was referring are Turkish citizens with different ethnical background who don't even accept the existence our Turkia in some parts. They think it is another country.

From that page above:

Yes, it is kg. Also we use the Turkish words kilogram, gram, metre, kilometre etc. with Turkish pronounciation.

Kilogram is usually shortened as "kilo".

"Sen kaç kilosun?"
"Ben 80 kiloyum."
"Bugünlerde çok kilo verdim."
"Çok kilo aldım."

Merhaba Tazx1,

I wouldn't worry at all about spoken language. Instead I would read and then read more. You can completely ignore spoken Turkish until the very end. Improving vocabulary and getting used to sentence structure is the key.

Basically there are two ways to learn a language. One is the communication based strategy where you learn dialogues and phrases and talk about simple subject related to real life issues and the other is the text based strategy.

If reading is easier for you than talking then I would say the best thing to do is continue reading and ignore talking completely. When you have a vocabulary around 3000 words and you are used to sentence structures (which comes again with reading) then speaking will be just a small addition you need to add at the end. You need to keep the progress. You can not stop now because speaking looks difficult to you.

When you master the written language good enough you will start speaking as if you were speaking Turkish all your life.

I choose the text based strategy myself when I was learning English. I started at the age of twenty four. I was reading Sherlock Holmes books a few months after I started as a complete beginner. I studied little grammar but I read a lot. I think grammar is tiring down learners. You don't need too much grammar. If you understand the sentences that you read, then your grammar is sufficient.

When compared to written language, spoken language looks very poor to me.



Deli_kizin,

The second sentence should have "aileleri" instead "ailelerin".

Korktuğu comes from korkmak (to be afraid of, to fear) while korkutan comes from korkutmak (to scare, to make them fear).

Çocuk kaçırma, zengin ailelerin korktuğu bir suçtur.
Child abduction is a crime that rich families fear.

Çocuk kaçırma, zengin aileleri korkutan bir suçtur.
Child abduction is a crime that scares rich families.

Niçin, niye and neden are all very common question words and usually they are considered interchangeable. Neden has a wider usage since it can be an ordinary noun (the cause)that takes case suffixes (nedeni, nedeniyle, nedenden dolayı etc.) or together with olmak, "neden olmak" (to cause) it can be a verb.

Apart from those extra usages, as a question word it is pretty much close to the other two. There is a discussion about this subject here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Turkish-FL/message/981

I'm not very sure what defines which one we pick in a certain situation. I think the etymological differences are nowadays not the factor. I belive when we pick one of them we make the desicion according common phrases. Certain words go better together than others. For instance we usually say "neden olmasın?" (why not?).

To me the question word niye also implies a little more casuallity and opposition. In a casual speech when you disagree with something you tend to use niye, implying a little disagreement. You were probably hoping that the oppsite would happen.

On the other hand this subject is very tricky. Most of the time changing between neden, niye or niçin is perfecty fine.

Now I can hardly fit to the door entry where two of us were sitting comfortably when I was a child. It looks like we are left on our own as we grow older.

Masrafları paylaşmıyor musunuz? Konut giderleri her zaman önceliklidir. Ben bu şekilde biliyorum.

Ayasofya, which is a museum today, was built by the Byzantine emperor J in the 7 th century.

Bügun müze olan Ayasofya, 7 yüzyılda Bizans İmparatoru J tarafından inşa ettirildi.

So this church is the oldest building in Istanbul that is(still) standing.
İşte bu klise İstanbul'da bugün hala ayakta olan en eski binadır.

A lot of legends and fairy tales are told about Ayasofya.
Ayasofya hakkında çok efsane ve masal vardır.

There is a column inside of it that is always wet.
İçinde her zaman ıslak olan bir sütun vardır.

People who can not have children, stick their finger in a hole in the column, and then touches their face with their wet finger.

Çocuğu olmayan kişiler o sütundaki bir değile parmaklarını sokup sonra da ıslak parmaklarıyla yüzlerine dokunurlar.

Mesajını alınca kendimi çok kötü hissettim. Tam da şimdi dua edip geldim. Onlar için dua ettim. Bu duruma çok üzüldüm. Allah aileye yardımcı olsun.

Şiirin oldukça yumuşak ve zarif. İçinde bir parça hüzün de var. Hani, o anın geçip gittiğini, geride kaldığını ve asla tekrar geri gelmeyeceğini bilirsin.

There are a few sentence parts here :

Bir fincan kahve hatırına ...
For the sake of a cup of coffee ...

Bir yudumluk aşkın beni sarhoş etti.
I'm drunk with one sip of your love.

Neyim var ki senden gayrı.
What else do I have except you.

I've never heard that one. On the other hand it sounds like a short version of the male name Abdullah. Only a very close female would call his friend Abdullah as Apoş. It sounds too flirty.

A male wouldn't call his male friend Apoş since it is too girlish. But it is possible that it might mean something else in a different language spoken in Turkia.

Merhaba Anne,
Kartını iyi günlerde kullanmanı dilerim. Türkiye'deki yeni ailemin bütün üyeleri ile tanışacağıma çok seviniyorum. Babama ve abime selamlarımı söyleyin. Umarım hepiniz çok iyisinizdir. Yakında görüşmek üzere. Sevgilerimle.

İşyerindeki stres sana yazmamak için pek iyi bir mazaret değil. Ãœzgünüm. Aslında sana her gün yazmak istiyorum ancak şu an Türkçem yeterince akıcı değil. Özellikle herhangi bir yardım almadan yazarken, senin anlayabileceğin, düzgün bir mesaj yazmak için epey uğraşmam gerekiyor.

İkinizi de çok özledim. Keşke burada Amerika'da yanımda olsaydınız ve birlikte bir şehir turu yapsaydık.

Ben hala daha iyi bir iş için araştırma yapıyorum. Eğer birşey bulursam size ayrıntıları yazarım.

Bu haftasonu bir arkadaşla birlikte hastaneye gidip yaralı askerleri ziyaret edeceğiz. Onlara ev yapımı kurabiye götüreceğim. Onlarla konuşacağım için çok seviniyorum.

Umarım iyi bir hafta geçirirsiniz. HoşÃ§akalın.

This is a good test. Although there are some English explanation, the questions themselves don't have any non-Turkish parts and they are self explanatory.

Would you mind telling the source for this test?

Hello,

Your second translation is perfect.

"Çocuk kaçırma, zengin ailelerin korktuğu bir suçtur."

In this sentence, although it is possible to use the third person plural version "korktukları", I too would use the singular version like you did. This is a more modern approach. I think your grammar is very advanced.

Notice that, instead using the past participle we could use a verbal adjective suffix which would create a sentence that is slightly different in meaning.

"Çocuk kaçırma, zengin aileleri korkutan bir suçtur."

The sentence structure you have shown on your first version has the emphasis on "çocuk kaçırma".

Both your sentences use the same past participle "korktuğu", so your question is more about the complement "-dir" and about emphasis. The first version you have shown isn't very likely since the sentence structure isn't in harmony with the meaning. But I changed it. In such a sentence that word order would make sense:

"Zengin ailelerin korktuğu bir başka suç da çocuk kaçırmadır."

In general, your level of Turkish is very advanced. All you need is to read a little more and master the written language.

Ona öyle sinir oluyorum ki, ama bu onun kaybı. Onlara ben kendim iyi bakar ve iyi bir hayat sağlarım. Umarım daha iyi hissediyorsundur. Yakında gelip seninle ilgileneceğim. Ailene saygılarımı ilet.

Lady_Metal,
If you didn't post that second message a translator would have found out sooner that this was not translated yet.

Kandiliniz mübarek olsun. Umarım Allah önünüze altın kapılar açıp orada size umut dolu, problemsiz ve sonsuz bir hayat sunar.

If you asked I would barrow and send some money. You say you love me but this is only in words. Now, I have tested your love. It appears everything was a lie.

Eğer sen isteseydin ben borç alır yine yollardım. Seviyorum diyorsun ama hep lafta kalıyor. Seni sevgini denemiş oldum. Demek hepsi yalanmış.

Hello Tazx1,

Yes it is sometimes difficult with the N buffer. Both with -lerini and -diğini the rule is that if it is second person then it must me -in possessive suffix and no buffer. But if it is third person then it must be n buffer after i possessive suffix.

Zorla is an adverb. So it modifies the verb temin etmek. The -le, -la suffix in zorla is a typical adverb suffix. We have also, güçlükle, zorlukla, güzellikle, kolaylıkla, etc.

"Temin etmek" is a little old fashioned. These days we use "sağlamak". "Geçim" is the object of that verb.

geçimini temin etmek: to earn a living
geçimini sağlamak: to earn a living
geçimini kolayca sağlamak: to earn a living easily
geçimini zorla sağlamak: to earn a living hardly

On the other hand, in your particular sentence there is a long adjective clause that modifies the subject:

"Geçimini zorla temin eden" : adjective clause
(one that makes a living in a hard way)

fakir: adjective (poor)

"yumuşak huylu" : adjective (gentle tempered, easy going)

"bir adam": subject (a man)

vardı : predicate (there was)
The word "var" is an adjective. We put adjectives and nouns into the same category. They both build noun sentences.

There was a poor and gentle man who earned his living hard. He hardly spoke...

This is an idiom. So I would use another idiom to meet this:

"Ektiğini biçersin" (You will harvest what you plant)

Evet, böyle ara sıra uğruyorum. Görüşmek üzere tekrar.

caliptrix,
You beat me on this. I missed your message as I was writing the below.

Hello,

"Ağzı var dili yok" (having a mouth but no tongue) is an idiom. It means the person hardly spoke. The person didn't speak much.

The word "geçim" is a noun. It means 'living cost' or just 'living' if the word is used in the same context. For instance the sentence, "What do you do for living?" could be translated as, "Geçimini nasıl sağlıyorsun?".

geçim+i+n+i :noun+third person possessive suffix+n buffer+accusative case

If we conjugate the noun with possessive suffix it will be like this:
benim geçim+im
senin geçim+in
onun geçim+i
bizim geçim+imiz
sizin geçim+iniz
onların geçim+i

After possessive suffixes we use the n buffer instead the y buffer. The n buffer is necessary to devide two vowels. The -i that comes to the very end of that word is the accusative case. We use it because sağlamak (to provide) takes the -i case. Temin etmek (to provide) takes the -i case as well.

In other words, the accusative is part of the following verb, sağlamak. "-i sağlamak" (to provide something) would take the -i case no matter what noun we would use as the object of it.

There are countles examples to this rule.
-i görmek: to see something
-i bilmek: to know something
-i düşÃ¼nmek : to thing about something
-i sevmek : to like something
-i sağlamak : to provide something
-i temin etmek : to provide something

In Turkish we have 'y', 'n' and 's' buffers.

Y is used with case suffixes and tense suffixes that don't have a possessive suffix:

Kediye bak. (kedi+y+e : noun+y buffer+dative case)
Bu kediyi çok seviyorum. (kedi+y+i : noun+y buffer+accusative case)
Bu küçük kedi yakında yürüyecek. (yürü+y+ecek : verb stem+ y buffer + future tense suffix)

S is used with possessive suffixes :
Bu Ali'nin kedisi. (kedi+s+i : noun + s buffer + third person possessive suffix).

N buffer is used with case suffixes where the noun has a preceeding possessive suffix:
Ali'nin kedisini hiç sevmiyorum. (kedi+s+i+n+i :noun + s buffer + 3rd person possessive suffix + n buffer + accusative case)

One detail about the N buffer is that it can nly be used after third person singular and plural possesive suffixes because only those end with a vowel.

As for the other word, the nominative is 'ağız' (mouth). The rule is that, (generally, but not always) words with two syllables (therefore two vowels) that have a flat second vowel will drop that vowel if they take a suffix that starts with a vowel.

Flat vowels are ı,i,u,ü. Ağız, alın, burun, beyin, etc. all have two vowels. All have a flast second vowel. Therefore all will drop that second vowel when they are followed by a suffix that starts with a vowel.

Lets use the first person possessive suffix as an example:
ağız> benim ağzım (instead ağızım)
alın> benim alnım (instead alınım)
burun> benim burnum (instead burunum)
beyin> benim beynim (instead (beyinim)

Aynı dili konuşmamak öyle can sıkıcı ki. Aklımdaki pek çok şeyi seninle paylaşmak ve sana bir sürü soru sormak istiyorum ama aramızda şu dil problemi var.

Her zaman seni düşÃ¼nüyorum. Umarım çok canın sıkılmaz. Her şeyin daha iyiye gitmesi umuduyla.

Aşkı bulup kaybetmek hiç aşık olmamaktan iyidir.
It is better to finding and losing love than not loving at all.

My version:
On Wednesday, 12th March 2008, you have been invited to Netlog, the social community of millions of young Europeans.

Call up times (summons) for military are four times a year: February, May, August, November.

I don't know anything about deleted messages, just in case you were wondering.

Political parties in Turkia and Europe are operating with different rules. If we manage some day to change the rules on how leaders or parliament members are elected, then we will have less problems and party cloesures will drop. Currently party leaders are selecting the parliament members.

The public is voting but votes only decide on the number of MP's. It is the leader who decides on the names.

In other words, in our system a party leader selects those people that are going to obey him, support him, don't question him and elect him again as leader. This system is wrong. Gangs operate like this, not a parliament.

Most of the problems are caused by this corrupt system. This is also the reason why we have such a weak CHP today. Because nobody can question the leader and if somebody dares they will show the door. In fact they do.

Another problem is that parliament members are exempt from law enforcement even for serious crimes. Both the election system of MP's and their status agains the law are problems we need to address. When something goes wrong we request the same standards for parties as they have in Europe but we don't have the same rules applied to them.

The parliament is to blame because they didn't do their job for decades to proivide a fair election system where a leader is not God. The public is to blame because we didn't push the parliament to do their job.

If the political parties were regulated in a reasonable way, we would have more choices. Being choiceless is something very hard to deal. At one side you have a gang of corrupt politicians who want to fill their pockets and help their own supporters, at the other side you have another gang. Neither is any better.

We need to address the problems correctly. People voted for the AKP not because the support Islamism but because there is no better choice. We all knew that politicans are going to steal but we were hoping that those Islamists would maybe steal less. You need to be honest about this. This is how an average citizen things on politics in Turkia.

A small note to non-Turkish members who are unfamiliar with the Turkish law: There is a law that gives the members parliament an untouchable status in law. They are untoucable even for serious crimes.

They can beat somebody in public and police can not touch them. I'm serious. Once an MP slapped an air hosstess. They all carry guns. They are also untoucable to any crime you can imagine including all economical crimes.

Buying a bank and then giving away credit to your own companies is very common. When the bank goes bankrupt the state pays the money to account holders. The companies get away with it. We have seen half a dozen of such banks. The two mainsteam parties involved in these were DYP and ANAP. The same people who rubbed the banks out of money are free and even some are in politics today.

Whom are you going to vote for if there is so much corruption?

The parliament didn't establish good grounds for cleaner politics and people were choiceless. Corruption increased the power of Islamists. Now, the supreme court is going to clean the mess caused mainly by the parliament.

No, it works very good.

First we closed the Refah Party and then it sister party Fazilet was closed. Those two were more dark Islamist parties compared to the AKP.

After Refah and Fazilet was closed it was understood by everybody that there is no way an extremist Islamist party may be in lead in our country. Afterwards AKP was born. They are more of a kind of conservative party that shares some ground with the old extremists. Some of their members were transferred to AKP.

When you look into this topic you will see what I wrote almost a year ago:
http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_7_16492_-1

On message #51 I said:

We are going to protect our secular republic against Islamists no matter what price it takes. This is a very happy event in our history that I'm proud of.

Hello Janette,

We pronounce all Turkish words according syllables. Syllabling is one of the most critical and most overlooked topics for Turkish learners.

I have explained this topic here in detail:
http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_6_1466

I have just called. Nesli is at home. Antonio didn't even let us talk. He was like he lost his mind. I hope nothing bad happens to my sister. I'm very upset.

I'm telling the truth. Because the things you did last year XXX doesn't want you anymore. He is now engaged to an English girl. They are together right now. They rented an apart hotel. They are on holiday. You can ask whoever you want. He is engaged, really.

Esra, neler olup bittiğini ben de bilmiyorum. Nesli'nin arkadaşları Franca ve Patrizia şu an onun yanında olmalılar. Çok kaygılanıyorum. Eğer bildiğin bir şey varsa lütfen bana da söyle. Antonio aklını kaçırmış. Beni öldürmek istiyor.

Yes, you are right. Corrected now. Thanks.

The text is almost meaningless. It is very unclear. There are lots of misspelled and unrecognizable words. Also there is no punctiation. Here is a roughly translation:

"What is important is that you hide him/her/it away so that its value will grow. I'm sure you will find him/her/it new to buy but it will have no value. I love you. I don't love rose. Understand."

"Artık bu yalanlar canıma yetti. Gerçeği bilmek istiyorum. Bu durum beni hasta ediyor. Lütfen bana onun nerede olduğunu söyle."

Antonio has loced up Nesli inside the flat. He doesn't let her call anyone or the police. Please help her. Please send the police or do something yourself. Please send the police to Nesli's house immediately.

Sensiz bir gün
Bensiz bir gündür
Beni olduğum kişi yaptığın için
Ve olmak istediğim

Sensiz bir gün
Işıksız bir gündür
Gökyüzümü aydınlattığın için
Ve hayatıma ışık kattığın

Sensiz bir gün
Sessiz bir gündür
Çünkü kulak kabartıyorum
Etrafta seni duyabilmek için

Sensiz bir gün
Neşesiz bir gündür
Ben güldürdüğün için
Ve hiç üzmediğin

Sensiz bir gün
Göremediğim bir gündür
Gözlerimi sen açtığın için
Ve dünyamı ışıldattığın

Ama sensiz bir gün
Asla var olmayacak
Çünkü inanıyorum sana
Ve beni hiç kırmayacağına

I'm missing you too my love. If you are going to come at the end of this year we can stay together. My illness isn't anything serious. It's just that I have a cold. I love you. Kisses.

Hello Catwoman,

Everything is fine. Thanks for asking. Cheers.

Hi teaschip1,
I'm not actually 'back', just passing by. Yes, I'm still in London. I will return back to Turkia when my job finishes. Bye.

Hello,

This is a lyric of a Müslüm Gürses song. Müslüm Gürses is the king of arabesk music, which I call 'music of pain'.

This song, being a typical Müslüm song, has all the characteristics of sadness. The translation above is pretty good actually.

The first line could be translated as: "I don't feel like living anymore. I'm so troubled, so sad."

"Merhaba Hayatım. Nasılsın? Uçak biletlerimi aldım. Ben gelmeden önce sana ait bir daire var mı yok mu öğrenmem gerekiyor. Eğer yoksa ben kendime kalacak bir yer ayırtırım ama önceden bilmem gerekiyor."

Hello Folks.

I'm back and I look forward to have some nice discussions with our fellow members. But be careful. You might get banned if you are using a language that is too argumentative or slang or implies a religious perspective. I'm sure we will be able to find a forum rule you are violating.

Just kidding. It's nice to be remembered. Cheers.

Last updated on 07 Aug 2008. Hello, Here is a list of online sources on Turkish language. If you feel like contributing to the list please post your links in this topic and they might be added if the website is not too commercial. Regards Erdinç

-----------------------------------------------------------

Online Turkish Language Sources:

1. TurkishClass Grammar Pages

2. verbix.com A Turkish Verb Conjugation Tool.

3. Some Online Lessons. http://users.pandora.be/orientaal/classroom.html

4. All you need to learn about Turkish Grammar. Navigate through the menu the left. http://www.turkishlanguage.co.uk/

5. A List Of Most Popular Websites on Turkish Language On the Internet http://www.alexa.com/browse/general/?&CategoryID=559196&mode=general&Start=1&SortBy=Popularity

6. Explains grammar, gives examples and then tests you. http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~guvenir/CATT/GrammarTutor/

7. Scroll down to see the contents. This website is unfortunately not very well organized. http://www.practicalturkish.com/learning-practical-turkish--table-of-contents.html

8. Some Language Related Games http://www.ic.arizona.edu/ic/babur/home201_2002.htm

9. Turkish lessons at the University of Arizona. You can listen to some simple conversations. http://cali.arizona.edu/maxnet/tur/

10. The website explains some basic topics with many examples. The navigation isn´t the best but you can listen to the sentences and see the translations underneath. http://www.princeton.edu/~turkish/practice/tlepss.html

11. These are fragments of some Turkish films. Click on lessons on top and choose first lesson. Very useful listening material. http://www.international.ucla.edu/turkishtutor/pages/home/blackborder-fs.html

12. Basics of Turkish grammar, explained clearly. Look for the list of all suffixes. http://www.cromwell-intl.com/turkish/Index.html

13. List of Suffixes, formulas and functions with examples. You can click on a a suffix on the alphabetic list on the left and it will explain what it is and will also show some examples. http://www.dnathan.com/language/turkish/tsd/

14. This is a small, nice and clean website that offers lessons for intermediate and advanced learners. You need to navigate from the menu on the right panel. You listen to a text and than answer a few questions about what you have listened. http://babel.uoregon.edu/ylc/selfstudy/turkish/lessons/

15. This website has some puzzle games with audio. http://cassandra.sprex.com/teachionary/Turkish.html

16. English-Turkish Vocabulary Quizzes http://iteslj.org/v/tr/

17. WinMekMak: The Magic of Conjugating Turkish Verbs http://www.ipb.nu/winmekmak/

Scroll down and click on the link for the latest version. There is no installation. Simply put the exe file somewhere on your computer and double click to run it. For instance, save the program on your desktop and leave it there. This program is for free. I strongly recommend it. I have contributed to the last version myself. I think it works great. It recognises the verb while you type. Type an infinitive and it will give you full conjugations. You can also type a conjugation and it will tell you the infinitive. To do this, run the program and press F3 on your keyboard. A new window will appear where you can type the conjugation. Here is a screenshot:

18. There are many test on this website to test your Turkish level. The interface is not the best. http://www.dilmer.com/practice/

19. This online tool replaces Turkish characters with with English letters. For instance, it will replace ç with c, ş with s and so on. It works perfectly. Simply paste your text and press ´submit text´ button. http://www.hlst.sabanciuniv.edu/TL/ascii.html

20. This is the opposite of the previous tool. This will recover Turkish characters where they are missing. It works with average precision. http://www.hlst.sabanciuniv.edu/TL/deascii.html

21. "Sevgili Murat" is an instructional film for Turkish learners. There is a sample movie on this page. You´ll need to order the DVD to watch it. This is movie is for advanced learners only. http://www.nmelrc.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=16&MMN_position=38:34

22. Here are audio recordings of some stories. http://korler.bilkent.edu.tr/archive/SesliKitap/ The stories were selected from the book, ´99 stories from 99 authors. Selim İleri, a Turkish novelist pick famous stories from our literature. These are defianetly for advanced learners. This is the book: http://www.tulumba.com/storeItem.asp?ic=zBK982739QA392 http://www.ideefixe.com/kitap/tanim.asp?sid=KC50FQ0P4M5RNE6LF4BQ

23. List of Turkish words that English speakers are able to understand. Thanks to our members who helped me on this mission: http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_6_1710

24. A new, small website. http://www.learnturkish.bravehost.com/

25. Tenses in Turkish:

http://www.turkishclass.com/forumTitle_2565

----------------------------------------------------------

Dictionaries

1. Our dictionary. You can also access to this dictionary by double clicking on words in this website. Try double clicking on any word you see, right here in this topic. http://www.turkishdictionary.net/

2. A Turkish dictionary with sound. You need to click "dinle" (listen) to listen the sounds.

http://www.seslisozluk.com/ The sounds are very correspondant to the actual sounds.

3. An interesting multifunctional dictionary by Sabanci Üniversity

http://www.hlst.sabanciuniv.edu/TL/ It has an Morphological Analyzer of words.

-----------------------------------------------------------

About Turkia:

1. Many articles and news about Turkia http://www.mymerhaba.com/en/main/index.asp

2. http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/

3. e-book about Turkia in English. I have downloaded this e-book myself. It has lots of good articles accompanied with pictures. I think it gives a good picture about the country. http://www.globaled.org/announcement050227.php

4. There are many articles in English on this page from an official website. http://www.byegm.gov.tr/YAYINLARIMIZ/kitaplar/turkiye2003/content/english/index.htm -----------------------------------------------------------

In French

1. http://malenki.mon-asso.org/turk/

2. http://coursdeturc.free.fr/index.php

3. http://pagesperso.laposte.net/hbayard/apprentissage/cartes/fabric/liens.php -----------------------------------------------------------

In Russian

1. http://www.franklang.ru/tr.html On this wensite you can find books in Turkish, links to online libraries, Turkish dictionaries, Turkish grammar, pronounciation, Turkish short stories, Turkish poetry (translated to Russian and English), Turkish songs translated to Russian. This link was mentioned by Slavica.

2. http://www.turkce.ru/ This link was mentioned by renatka.

-----------------------------------------------------------

In German

1. http://www.berin.de/turk.htm

2. http://www.tuerkisch-lernen-online.de/

-----------------------------------------------------------

Here are some pictures from İzmir rally.
http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/modules/gallery/070512izmirmiting/

"Mandy'nin annesi dün akşam öldü. Mandy'i çok kötü etkilendi bu. Hayat öyle kırılgan ki!"

Yes, others explained it correctly. The -arak -erek suffix applies only to verbs. Therefore it doesn't apply to araba or otobüs which are nouns. You can identify verbs by looking whether or not they have the -mek, -mak version.

These are verbs as you can see from the infinitive suffix (-mek, -mak):
yürümek - to walk
koşmak -to run
gülmek -to smile

Now you that suffix and it makes adverbs out of these verbs:

yüyüyerek
koşarak
gülerek

An adverb is a word that tells us in which way an action was done.

Here are examples:
Okula yürüyerek gitme, otobüsle git.
Ahmet koşarak geldi.
Çocuk gülerek gitti.

I think the picture is real. The numbering is understandable.
It says:
women's desk 1
women's desk 2
men's desk 1
men's desk 2

This picture shows a classroom in Pakistan. I think classrooms in Islamic countries are generally like this. Pictures on
this page on the other hand, were taken ten days ago in Turkia. These are primary school students aged from 5 to 12 gathered together for a birthday celabration of the Islamic prophet. The event was carried in a sports hall with permission and attendance of local authorities and instead with out national anthem it started by kids reading Quran.

People from poor backgrounds who have not much hope for a better life have reserved their hopes for the afterlife and have found consolidation in religion.

Canlı,
In the Islamic countries you have been so far how were boys and girls sitting at primary schools? Where they sitting mixed or separated? I'm sure you are going to dance around this question and wont give any information.

The desks on that picture are devided by sex as men's desk (bay veznesi) and womens desk (bayan veznesi). Not the poeple on that picture but the mayor of Istanbul led by AK party is doing wrong here.

This is a water payment desk of Istanbul council and is an official department.

You might think this is very normal but according their belive men and women need to be separated everywhere including classrooms. They want to start the separation in first class in primary schools.

Maybe those who claim to know a lot about other Islamic countries will tell us about their primary schools. Are girls and boys sitting mixed or not? Tell the truth.

Many Islamic countries are hundreds of years behind civilization. In many Islamic countries females are considered like objects to be bought and sold. They have no rights at all. They have no right to chose the man they are going to marry, no right to vote, no right for inheritance, no right for modern education, no right to work, no right to chose where they live, no right to divorce (asking for divorce would be main reason for killing them).

In many Islamic countries even a cow is considered more valuable than girls. Females are not even counted as children of a family. In many of those countries if you ask a man how many children he has he might say five. This means he has five sons. They don't count the girls. Girls will be sold when they become 13.

Ottomans have ruled those countries for hundreds of years. Those are our neighbours. We have a responsibility in those lands to help our neighbours. We need to help them to become more modern.

For now let's solve our domestic problems but in the future we are going to help our neigbours. Don't worry, with time we'll fix them.

Here is my source for imam supervisor on eduactional department: http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=60233

Here is my source for imam supervisor on hospital:
http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/4851097.asp?m=1&gid=69&srid=3041&oid=4

This newspaper article mentions the planned ban on alcohol:
http://www.milliyet.com.tr/2005/12/30/siyaset/axsiy02.html

Here is an article that mentions a moscue advertising their marriage office:
http://www.bianet.org/2006/08/24/84113.htm

I could go on for ages. The thing is that with their actions they are alowing radicals to spread and they encourage radicalism. They are just hiding right now but they have many times said things like changing secularism to a new system.

Ömer Dinçer, undersecretary of the prime ministry said that the republic and secularism should give way for Islamic coalescence. The high court ruled that his views were agains the constitution. Source:
http://www.hukuki.net/haber/index.asp?id=601

Our Supreme Court has ruled that the first round of prime minister elections are invalid.
http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/406777.asp

What this means is that Islamic politician Abdullah Gül won't become the new president.

The presidency is a critical place for Islamic politicians because it has the power to assign supreme court members and university presidents.

Islamic politics is very easy to understand. This is what they want to do step by step:

1. Critical administrative units will be occupied by Islamic rooted people. (this has already happened in most areas. Imams are in charge on top positions of eduactional departments or healt departments or even on fire department. Everywhere you see them. These days you can't even become a headteacher in any local school in Turkia if you are not close to Islamic politics).

2. headscarf will be allowed at universities for students. That will be the breaking point if it happens.

3. headscarf will be allowed for lecturers at universities

4. headscarf will be allowed for teachers at public schools

5. headscarf will be allowed at secondary schools for students

6. headscarf will be allowed at primary schools for students. Imagine even one generation (10 years) kids growing with the religious education, all brain washed.

A few years ago I was a teacher in a school in Ankara and there comes this new maths teacher into the teachers room wearing a headscarf. We were all shocked and told her that she can't go into the classroom like that. She become mad and said she was a ring of a chain and would fight for their ideas and didn't care for the rules not even for the constitution. Off course she was reported and dismissed from the job.

7. weekend days will be changed to friday and saturday so it will include the holy friday.

8. Working hours will be changed according praying times.

9. Number of prayer rooms (mescit) will increase in official departments.

10. Islamic marriage (imam nikahı ) will become legal and equal to official marriage.

11. Polygamy will become legal. Already many of the AK party members have multiple wives.

12. Alcohol will be banned.

13. Wearing swimsuits will be banned for females.

14. Islamic police department will be established.

Edit:
I forgot to mention what would happen if the Islamists would get the presidency. The president has the power to assign presidents of all state universities and members of our central higher education administration. So everthing would be set to allow headscarf in universities.

We will fix the problems. Don't you worry. Those Arab admirers in Turkia can be sure they will pay for their actions.

Hello everybody. Thank you all who wrote on this topic. It has been a nice read.

Without a doubt my experience on this website has increased my interest on online communities and web sites. It has been a good experience for me.

This website has evolved on its own unique way. It has become an online community of members who like to visit the forums regularly and share their ideas on different subjects with other members.

There are topics here on a wide range of subjects. While this is only natural for such a community it was not exactly within my style of interacting with people or being a part of those interactions. Unfortunately I didn't have the authority on this website and nor the technical talent to make big changes on the ways how the site operates.

Once we tried an editorial way of publishing new articles and we picked some editors for cultural forums but this project failed because most of our editors were to shy to write a few lines on their own field.

Currently I'm more focused creating content for future projects and I'm trying to avoid unnecessarities.

As Turks we have some good and some not so good values. Cultural changes that started with the Internet age have been challanging some of our good values. I think Internet can exist in a different way than most Turkish youths are understanding it to be. We constantly need to work on new and creative solutions to rise the level on Internet based intellectual communications.

If cultural disruption is a truth for todays ipod-msn generation then it is even a more real problem for Turkish youths. As somebody who made these topics an issue of his own life, I might have read things differently then those who are used to a more formal and distant approach.

Well, things change and time passes. We need to move on.

I decided to move this topic to a more appropriate and less eye catching place.

Slavica,
You have certainly put a nice collection together. Thank you. There is very little to add. I sometimes think what is left behind is only a few harmonious words. I wish I had more chance to find them. I sometimes tried. Maybe my army experience can be added to your list.

I think I will spend more time in the future translating a few of my favorite poets and musicians. Maybe I can manage to put those together on the internet somehow. I, unfortunately don't have much talent on creating web sites. I have always avoided becoming a technical person. It is dangerous to dip to much into technicality and to become a technical person. I'm sometimes struggling how to approach todays technical World. Finding a balance is challanging in many ways.

I guess I'll be still around now and then. Bye.

In my opinion, -sene or -sana after verb stem, like in koşsana, baksana, alsana, gitsene etc. ads the meaning "why don't you ...".

When people are stuck in traffic it is common to hear the phrase "yürüsene kardeşim".

"Feragat belgesi" is correct for "withdrawal statement". It is a bit old fashioned but those legal terms are like that in Turkish.

'Haktan vazgeçme' is the action not name of the document. hak: right, vazgeçme: give up.

We use "Feragat belgesi" in this case.

'İstifa mektubu' is completely wrong since it strictly means "resignation notice" which is what you give before you quit a job.

Yes, it is but the literal meaning of an idiom is not important.

When you had said "hit the sack" and I would start asking you about hitting sacks and why people are hitting them or how they are hitting them, it would not make sense. You accept idioms as they are. But yes, this one has a hidden meaning:

(Allah) "Sizlere ömür" (versin): (May God give a long life 'to you', but he didn't give to him and) "he passed away".

The hidden part I have put inside paranthesis. Sizlere refers to "to you" in that hidden part.

Hi,
This is an idiom. It means "he/she passed away". It will be misleading if you are trying to translate idioms word by word.

This is how the majority of Turks understands this issue:

England > İngiltere
Scotland > İskoçya
Wales > Galler Ãœlkesi
Northern Ireland > Kuzey İrlanda
United Kingdom > İngiltere
Great Britain > İngiltere
Britain > İngiltere
United Kingdom of Great Britain > İngiltere

As you see the last four are incorrect. The correct translations would be as follows:

United Kingdom > Birleşik Krallık
Great Britain > Büyük Britanya
Britain > Britanya
United Kingdom of Great Britain > Büyük Britanya Birleşik Krallığı

If I know corectly (still a little confused) these are correct:

a. "United Kingdom" covers England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
b. "Great Britain" covers England, Scotland and Wales.
c. "Britain" covers exactly the same as Great Britain.
d. "United Kingdom of Great Britain" covers exactly the same as "United Kingdom".

Anyway the average Joe, "sokaktaki adam" (the "man on the street" we say) thinks like I have shown in bolds. They consider these as different countries (e.g they consider England, Scotland and Wales as different countries).

To be honest, I was surprised to read United Kingdom on my visa when I got my first visa. I was expecting to read England.

I work for the Tukish Government as a Turkish teacher and during all the paperwork, applications the word UK, Britain or their Turkish translations was never used. It was always İngiltere where they were sending us. Even in offical issues we use the term İngiltere only. For instance we say 'İngiltere vizesi'. We never say 'Birleşik Krallık vizesi' or 'Britaya vizesi'.

hmm

edit:
There are too many kids around.

Hi Sibel,
That is the German pronounciation. There are lots of Germans in that area.

Welcome to the kindergarten.

edit:
It's nice to see kids having fun

edit:
Too many kids.

buzdolabında

Here it goes. The whole letter:

"God damn you you cr**k. I wish from God every bite you eat gets stuck in your throat. The money you have screwed from us shall be cursed from you and from those if there are people who have helped you or who are hiding things.

You have planned all this from the beginning on but wait you are going to pay for this you cr**k. You have to pay back stick this into your big head. I have talked you as if you were a man but you not a man.
Because of your stupid businesses and stupid promises, as if you were about to put the things straight, as you were waiting for those things you never asked how we are doing, how we find the money to pay you.
Then, wahat happened? Where are you know you low-minded cr**k.
Done't even consider sending stupid and meaningless apology emails starting as my dear aount and uncle. Make a phone call and talk about real things. Send the money.
We understand know your heart is worth sh** but your low level cunning brain, start using it.

You have fooled my father, who has never done any harm to anybody until this age and needs some peace now at 60 but he is owes money to others because of the money you took, and there is also my mother who has lost all her desire and hope to plan a better future and the house we are living in with my brothers and sisters we have risked losing it still how can you keep your silence?

I wish from God that the small brain you have in your big had will start working. How kind of a an are you? Seyma ( a girls name[translators note]) and I have send so many emails. Honestly, you have been the shame of your family. You swallowed all this. To let them know, I'm forwarding this email to everybody of you family whose email address I have. Now take a step after all this."

This is too strong. So I can only do partly. It is about fraud. The person is very angry for being screwed. It starts like this:

"God damn you you cr**k"

The truth about this topic is that the government has never done anything to prevent crime but on the contrary they have done only things to encourage crime. For instance they have released all prisoners including rapists and murderers and thieves from prisons in a general discharge which was a desicion by the parliement. The reason was that prisons were full. Of course the majority of the criminals come back to the prisons but this time they have come back after commiting another crime whether it was rape, murder or robbery.

If you were a victom the last think you would want to see would be to see the criminal to be released. This is a huge problem. If somebody kills a person and you go to court you will know that the person will be released after a few years and will come back after you. They have no fear to tell you exactly the same thing in the court room.

A murderer or rapist shouts in the courtroom to the witness and says "don't say anything you ... I'm going to come after you". You would expect the authorities to do something about this but you are mistaken. They will give a 20 year sentence to the criminal. In Turkia a 20 year sentence means 6 years in prison according execution law which says you stay 30% of what you get. So the criminal is going to be release after 6 years? No. You are wrong again. There is a national discharge every few years. It has never taken 6 years between two discharges. So the person will be release in 3 or 4 years.

And he is going to come after you. Why? Didn't you already understand yet. It is only another 3 years for him which is nothing.

Crime levels have been low in Turkia over the years because the Turkish citizens, majority of them are ethical and considerate. On the other hand a very very bad justice system has increased crime levels considerable. Every criminal who goes to prisons comes out and goes again and again. Some o fthem do this for 15 times or even 20 times.

Where is my topic about magandas. It would suit well here.

As for the people from Turkia, because you haven't had a problem with the word Turkey in the past does this mean you should automatically think it is OK. What about the Turks who live in an English speaking country?

As a self respecting person I think our country's name in English is wrong and needs correction.

kai,
You are still walking around and around but you don't answer the question. Would you be happy if you were in a foreign country and the natives make fun of your children because you children said in the classroom they are from LLama or they said they are from Hen.

Can you blame other children for making fun out of this since they didn't know about Republic of Hen and Republic of LLama?

It has been reported by Turks in the United States that other children at school make fun of their kids and call them turkey, turkey.

Kai, if your last name had been Turkey I doubt you would say the same things like you say know. Imagine your last name is Turkey. You go to some departments, schools, to somewhere , to anywhere and you continuously have to use the word Turkey because it is your last name. Are you going to be happy this?

If we follow your logic a person with the full name "Llama Turkey" would feel alright.

-What is your name sir?
-LLama Turkey.
-Oh, how nice. Where are you from sir?
-Republic of hen.

If you are English your English is better than mine. So please tell me what this sentence means: "I love Turkey". If 1000 native English had heard this sentence would 100% of them understand what the speaker meant? What did the speaker mean by the way, can you tell?

I would like to know how you would feel if we put you behind a table next to many tables and on every table there is one person sitting and there is a sign telling the origin or that person. We read the words Italy, Greece, France, Germany and than we look at your table we read the word "LLama".

LLama is another silly animal. Would you be proud carrying that name. Can you wear a t-shirt with that name printed on it? If you send your children to school and other children call them llama, llama and they come home crying are you going to be more happy?
If the teachers asks your 8 year old son where is he from and then he replies llama. There will be children in that classroom your haven't your country name Llama but they have heard the animal llama. How are they going to ack? Aren't they going to make fun of this?

Is there another country that is named after a silly animal?

Scalpel is right about the ethnic background of those traditions. I mentioned the same thing in a more polite way in my post before Scalpel.