Here is an American person wishes to speak Turkish.
But I don't know how to explain these vowels.

She is mixing/confusing them with other sounds, and rarely can produce a real ı,ö,ü.

I know that there are no word having ı,ö,ü sounds in English(American Accent)

But please let me know if there are similar ones or
how to explain those vowels to her ...

You help is appreciated.
Thanks.

Ö fur, earth u, ea --> Close to IU or IO.
I doctor second o --> Close to O.
Ü cute u --> sound like YU more than Ü.

I saw them in another thread.
But I don't think that the words are correct.

What do American people on this forum think ?

(Especially the ones who know the real sound of I,Ö,Ü and can sound them correctly.)

Merhaba,

Check this out,it'll help to know each sound .

Turkish online

And i guess if you have her on msn or skype it will be better if you pronounce them for her specially the I vowel,because in my opinion that was the hardest one to learn because it doesnt have any similarity in other language such as German and French unlike Ö and Ü

I checked that site but it just gives the sound of the Turkish letters. I am a Turkish person so can perfectly sound as he sounds. She is doing well when we exercise those sounds together but she seems to lose the sound after some minutes.

---Actually I think he has a problem on I( ı ) sound on his site.
Sound like an (closed)E

Thanks for reply.

I mean I cannot connect those vowels to anything in her brain.
So she simply forgets

I heard somewhere that "I" is explained like the "o" in Washington or the second "o" in London.
Or:
Like the wovel of the suffix "tion" (connection, reaction, motivation etc.)

Well,i know how to pronounce them too,but when i start to read,or talk i sometime mix between Ü and Ö sounds in the word.
İt was easy for me to pronounce them becaue i know German a little,but not very easy to talk them because i dont know German much.

But as for 'I'you choose a word,it end with 'I ' that she know,and repeat it and she will never forget inşallah.

just remembered:
"Ö" as the "i" in "dirty", "sir", "girl"
or the first "e" in "perfect"

Why not record a soundfile for her to put on repeat? It's really hard to learn how to pronounce anything when explained in words.

Thanks guys !

The problem is we can only meet once a week.
That is why she forgets those vowels.

I will record those vowels as an MP3 file, and send it to her.
I will ask her to listen to them and then record her own pronunciation and compare the difference between 2 sounds.
If she feels/senses a difference between hers and mine then she will do it millions times till they sound similar or same.
Well, looks like a punishment more than a solution but...

That's a good idea (I think). But can a Turkish girl send her ı , ö , ü mp3 recording to me ?
Since my voice is a man's voice , I think a girl's voice will do better for her.

I have some soundfiles with pronouncination (from learning books)
One contains pronouncination and examples of c, ç, ğ, ı, ö, ü and v
Another with examples of words, clearly pronounced.
And yet another with pronouncination of all letters.

If you want them send me a pm with your email address

I am using Turkish pop music for improve my turkish pronounce, it is very useful. Especially when you listen the song a very few times. I am recommending the song KIRMIZI by Hande Yener for ı training.