Merhaba!

I would like to know what has seemed to you most challenging in learning Turkce? What "issue" has posed you problems and seemed difficult to grasp?
and....how have you succeeded in understanding it?

Tesekkurler,
Julia

Good question.
I have been studying by myself for over a year and I can tell you which subjects were the easiest and hardest of turkish for me

Easiest:
- Vowel Harmony (I just got it when I realize HOW LOGICAL IT WAS!)
- Plurals
-Object pronouns
-Personal endings

Hardest :
"when clauses"
- Conjunctions!! (Although , in spite of , because of this
- Adverbs and their multiple usages

What I cant understand 100% yet
- Participles
- "dik" object participle , used in reported speech
- "ki" (stand alone word)
-Conditionals!!!
- "Dilek"/ wish

The only way to understand the above mentioned is studying and studying then practicing as much as possile and dare to post your own translations because ONCE CORRECTED you WONT make the same mistake again!!!
Kolay Gelsin!!
Dilara

i found and still find suffixes extremely difficult to grasp as well as applying various tenses.winmekmak has helped me in dealing with this as before i didn't use it..after a few times of using it i can remember the way of constructing the words using various tenses etc and i am slowly building up my knowledge

accusative suffix -(n/y)i (-i/-ni/-yi) and 3rd sing. person possessive suffix -(s)i (-i/-si) is a cause of confusion for the learners.
Example:
ev-i (could be accusative of ev or ev followed by 3rd person possessive suffix)
evi görüyorum = I see the house
evi büyük = his/her house is big

Another difficulty is the accusative suffix becomes -yi after a wowel but if it follows a possessive suffix it becomes -ni after a wowel.
Example:
deve-yi (accusative of deve)
deveyi görüyorum = I see the camel
deve-si = his/her camel (deve + 3rd person possessive suffix)
deve-si-ni (accusative of "deve-si")

After a combo of 2nd and 3rd person possessive suffix, accusative can be confusing.
Example:
ev-i = his/her house
ev-i-ni (accusative of "ev-i")
but
ev-in = your house
ev-in-i (accusative of "ev-in")
So
"evini görüyorum" could mean
- ev-i-ni görüyorum = I see his/her house
- ev-in-i görüyorum = I see your house

If there is also plural suffix "-ler", it could be more complicated.
"develerini görüyorum" could mean
- deve-ler-in-i görüyorum = I see your camels
- deve-ler-i-ni görüyorum = I see his/her camels
- deve-leri-ni görüyorum = I see their camel
- deve-leri-ni görüyorum = I see their camels

Turkish can freely order the elements in the sentences. This may cause confusion when there are embedded clauses.

Ali benim bu kitabı okumak istediğimi biliyor
Ali knows that I want to read this book

It's possible to scramble the elements of the clause. The following can be understood by a native speaker but it's very hard for non-natives:
Bu kitabı Ali okumak istediğimi biliyor benim.

As seen, the underlined clause is cut into three pieces.


Turkish is an exclusively suffixing language. Sometimes we can see a lot of suffixes in just one word.

çiçek-çi-de-ki-ler-in-ki = the one that belongs to those who are in the flower shop

gör-üş-tür-t-tür-ül-eme-yebil-ir-di = it could not have been made possible for he/she to have someone to get someone else to meet

Oh Gosh! What can I say about that. Everything's absolutely unknown for me. I feel like a baby at the age of one. I just know how to say "baba" ve "anne" Anyway, let's keep studying.