Selamlar Herkese

OK, let's make a list of useful book on this field.

If you own the book or have used it for a while please add a few lines of comments on the good and bad points of that book. Does it have a CD or casette? What did you and didn't you like about it? ect.

Here is a short review of some books I own.


Colloquial Turkish: The Complete Course for Beginners
ISBN: 041515748x > Book + 2 CD's + 2 casettes
http://gb.bookbutler.com/do/bookCompare?searchFor=041515748X&amountIn=gbp&shipTo=gb&searchIn=uk

This book has many dialogues and it has the audio of the dialogues on 2 CD's and casettes. There are some grammar summaries accompanying the dialogues. The grammar sections are more professionally written than the other book. There are very few pictures or drawing in this book. In general it feels a well organised and quality book. There are a limited number of fonts that give the impression of a seious book. The dialogues have their translations and vocabulary sections. One drawback are the CD's. There are voices of at least 3 different native Turkish speakers in the audios. On of the male voices has a bad accent. I think it is the accent of a Turkish speaker from an ethnical background. Obviously not a good choice for a language audio.

The contents of dialogues are not bad but they are very informal. When talking to a person we just met we Turks normally use the second person plural 'siz' even if it is only a single person. So we normally would speak like this:
-Merhaba, nasılsınız?
-Teşekkür ederim, iyiyim. Siz nasılsınız?

But instead the book has the informal version (page 5):
-Merhaba, nasılsın?
-Teşekkür ederim, iyidir. Sen nasılsın?

Usually each speech contains a few street slangs 16 year old's are likely to use. Examples:
iyidir, ne haber?, iyilik, görüşÃ¼rüz, merhaba dostum, nasılsın: fena değil amca, bomba gibiyim (p53), N'haber (p9, Git ya (p96), Ali koçum nerdesin ya (p96), ...

The level of this book is intermediate. From the begining on even though it starts with very basic things it progresses very fast. You can see below a picture of page 22 and even at this early pages the level is not very simple.

Another detail that I didn't like is the English voice in the audios. There are too many explanations in English which are maybe half of the audio contents.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/5103/cci000003fn.jpg
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/1274/cci000016jq.jpg



Teach Yourself Turkish
http://gb.bookbutler.com/do/bookCompare?searchFor=0340871059&amountIn=gbp&shipTo=gb&searchIn=uk

This book looks very nice in blue colors of ceramik tiles. It is kind of a little more commercial book. On the other hand paper quality is poor, something I don't like at all. There is only one CD and no casettes. The CD has only dialogues. This time there are more grammar issues included in this book. There are more charts of conjugations, suffixes etc. and there is more information on both basic and advanced grammar.
The book is devided into 16 sections named according the diaolgues. Just to name you a few here are the first few:
1. ekmek var mı?
2. İngiliz misiniz?
3. daha koymayın lütfen
4. şaka yapıyorsunuz

The grammar topics are sprinkled among those 16 sections. While the titles are suggesting a more friendly and daily language, the grammar issues look a little unorganised. I think they wanted to avoid this book look like a grammar book and wanted to make it look more easy.

There are more pictures and drawings in this book. Unlike its title suggests this book feels like a classroom book while the former book was like a self study book. There are too many fonts. Together with charts, dravings and bad paper quality all these are a little unnecessary.
I don't think there is enough reading texts in this book that could put together all the strong grammar.
This time the native voices have a clear accent.

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/4882/cci000020pt.jpg
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/3296/cci000031ye.jpg

"Turkish Grammar"
second edition ( 2000 )

Published by Oxford University Press - ISBN 0-19-870036-9

Available from Amazon

Saat on ikiyi on geçiyor

"201 Turkish Verbs fully conjugated in all tenses" by Talat Sait Halman. Barron's Educational Series,Inc.available from Amazon.
Excellent for reference.

for conguation there is the free program winmekmak and a website which conjugates any Turkish verb you write. Both are listed on sticky list of web pages in this very forum section.

To get to know which verb to use when, you need to read or listen the language. My suggestion would be reading.