Let's try another sentence.......although I have to say I have spent about four hours trying to construct this sentence. Have I got it right?????

"Teşekkürler aşkim için dün sen hoş akşam yemeğim pişirdin"

i think i understood what you meant more or less.. can you give it to me in english

Hopefully Bod, someone with a little more expertise than either of us will intervene and tell us both how its done properly!

ok ok! as i am using more than turkish.. becoz of my school.. i am havins some misstypes so dont worry.. yeah akşam must be gece and you can put aşkım after teşekkür ederim teşekkür ederim means thank you... more formal and gentle way of teşekkürler.. bla bla bla

Bod, the easiest way to make it would be in two sentences.

"Aşkım, sen dün çok hoş bir akşam yemeği pişirdin. Teşekkür ederim."
Honey, last night you cooked a very nice dinner. Thank you.

If you want to thank "becuse" she cooked the dinner this will be another story. Actually you are stepping into one of the most advanced ,issues here. When we want to say "because you cooked the dinner" we can not say it like this in English without adding any suffixes. "because you cooked" will be "pişirdiğin için". "pişirdiğin için" is an adverbial clause of reason.

the soft g (ğ ) is not a buffer letter. In Turkish ğ is never used as a buffer. "pişirdiğin" in the above sentence has this suffix: "-diği". "pişirdiğin" doesnt come from pişirdin. It is one of the suffixes listed in 2 below:

1. Verbal-Adverb (clause) of time:
-dikçe (indikçe)
-diği (gün, zaman, an, vakit, etc) (indiği gün, indiği zaman, indiği an,...)
-eceği (gün, zaman, an, vakit, etc) (ineceği gün, ineceği zaman, ineceği an,...)
-meden (önce, evvel) (inmeden önce)
-dikten sonra (indikten sonra)

2. Verbal-adverb (clause) of reason:
-diği (için, -nden, -nden dolayı ) (indiği için, indiğinden, indiğinden dolayı )
-eceği (için, -nden, -nden dolayı ) (ineceği için, ineceğinden, ineceğinden dolayı )

3. Verbal-adverb (clause) of comparision:
-dığı gibi (indiği gibi)
-diği kadar (indiği kadar)
-eceği kadar (ineceği kadar)
* diye (indi diye)

I have explained this issue here before:
http://forum.seslisozluk.com/showthread.php?t=6367

It can also be a verbal-adjective with the suffix -dik. But in this case it is placed before a noun like this: "pişirdiğin yemek".
In other words when I say "pişirdiğin yemek" and "yemek pişirdiğin için" the two pişirdiğin here are different things and have different suffixes.
But this is another story. I would suggest simple and shorter senteces for now. For instance make it like this:

"Sen yemek pişirdin. Yemek çok güzel oldu. Teşekkür ederim."

Sounds childish but will help better. Dont bother for now with verbal-adjectives and verbal-adverbs.

Be careful what you wish for heheheh

Are you using some kind of guide to learn Turkish? I mean like a self-study book? I could advise you this: Teach Yourself Beginner's Turkish
It was recommended to me by a girl on TC (Sertab! Neredesin?? ) and I have to say that it helped me a lot. I think it is a great start, it has a book and a cd. The book has easy dialogues that you can start with, and when you feel more comfortable you can go further from there.

I agree with Elisa - the book she recommended is really useful! Another book I really liked was "Colloquial Turkish" by Sinan Bayraktaroglu. I think once you get about half way through any text book, it's a good idea to start running another one alongside it. As for children's books - this is a nice idea. I did this, but I got mine dirt cheap in a supermarket in Turkey - which isn't much use to you! But I did once upon a time get a Turkish children's book off Ebay - maybe you could look there? Or perhaps an imaginative Turkish native off this site will write you a story?! Then we could all try to translate it!

I found kid's books in the local library. There were books that had the story in Turkish on the top of the page, and the English version on the bottom of the page. Very useful! The story is a bit basic , but well, you have to start somewhere in order to be able to read Orhan Pamuk in Turkish
(which still will take quite some time for me )

Elisa

Good idea Elisa. Now, knowing me, I could be dreaming about this one... But, I'm sure a while ago I came across a website for Turkish children - which had childrens' stories online - if I can ever remember the link for it, I'll post it! There must be such a site though - as there are so many sites with children's stories in English online - there surely must be some Turkish ones.

You should do that Natlisa! I'll look for those kind of sites too, never thought about that!
You know I learned counting in Turkish when I was watching a kid's program on Turkish TV? They had to do some kind of hopscotch game. Well, by the end of the show I could count to 10!

This looks like quite a good site:

http://www.cocukca.com/index_fla.html

It has fairy tales on it

Bod - definitely try www.cocukca.com/index_fla.html and go to "masallar ve öyküler" - after all with New Year's eve approaching - fairy stories could be appropriate

According to a French website I've just been reading, this is the most popular Turkish children's website:

http://www.atlikarincam.com/

It also has links to others kids' sites on it.

I'm waiting for the photos which appear in the New Year...! "The day after the night before"!

Some messages have been removed because the mention of a propagandist religious website. I wouldnt realise it if Meltem hadn't warned about this.
Thank you Meltem for that warning. I wish everyone would act as responsible as you did. Only if modern Turks rise their voice as much as the extremists do, then there is hope for the future.
Please don't write anything argumentative on this issue as I will delete them and will lock this topic in that case. Cheers.