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.

Langenscheidt Pocket Dictionary Turkish. I find this really useful. I did have a problem getting one and did finally obtain one off the internet, but they are readily available at bookshops ( kitapçılar)in Turkey and not expensive.

There are also online recources and software offered by Rosetta Stone.

http://www2.rosettastone.com/en/individuals/languages/turkish

Elementary Turkish by Lewis.V.Thomas.

Bought this book from Amazon.co.uk and find it a good book to start with, lots of exersizes to complete and a good vocabulary.I would reccomend this book, I find it explains suffixes well.

Turkish Grammar for Foreign Students by Mehmet Hengirmen
Engin Publishing

I don't know if this book is available outside of Turkey.

Also, see: www.milet.com They are a publishing house which publishes in many languages including Turkish. They also publish bilingual editions of Turkish writers. So, left page Turkish, right page English.

Hm.. maybe I'm saying something which is stupid because everyone knows.. but I just love the website tulumba.com .. Anyway, thnx for all the books, I might get one of them sooner or later First I'll see how far I get with what's on this website

Byeee

I would personally recommend this book:

"Adım Adım Türkçe" (Dilset Yayinlari)

You can buy the levels 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
You'll have the course book and the exercise book + cds.
It's very colourful, full of pictures, entertaining (jokes, dialogues, etc) and explains things very clearly.

Please Erdinc,... where i can find this program... i couldn't find it!
Thanks for your help.

I bought Colloquial Turkish: The Complete Course for Beginners by Ad Backus & Jeroen Aarssen, it's quite old now, you could buy the CDs and tapes seperately, but I bought the whole pack which included the book, 2 cassettes and 2 Cds.It only cost £25 , it contains conversations and is quite helpful, although at times I found it quite confusing. Although my cousin found it very helpful and would not even look at another book!
I also have Teach Yourself Turkish by Asuman çelen Pollard & David Pollard, which has already been mentioned, and I find that book to be fantastic, it really explains things so well.

I use the one I bought in Turkey in the summer: 'Yabancılara Pratik Türkçe Dersleri a practical course in Turkish' by Müfit Yıldırımalp. It offers a neatly organized units with texts, dialogues and grammar - level from beginner to intermediate.

When I went to Ankara in February I found something for people who want to improve their reading skills - books for learning...English! It's a series of books - abridged bilingual edition of English classics (but they're also available in many other western and eastern languages). The books are pocket size and they're called 'Ingilizce öğrenenler için Türkçe tercümeli basitleştirilmiş Hikayeler.' As far as I know there are six or seven levels depending on the difficulty of the English version. I've read two so far and I love them!

Greetings,
I know I should put the books in a list that were mentioned above but I have not much time and don't feel comfortable to list books before checking them myself.

I recently come across you a useful website that lists all kinds of language sources for all languages. Somewhere I had already heard about UCLA but didnt see this page till today:

http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/index.aspx

Choose language on top and then choose material type etc.

Yesterday I bought a Turkish set which is called "Colloquial Turkish".

It has a book that contains many dialogues and has the dialogues on CD's and at the same time on casettes. There are a few good Turkish books and this is one of them. I had heard good things about this book and I wanted to see if it is really a good one. I'm considering to write a review. My first impression is positive. There is a book and 2 CD's and 2 casettes. The casettes and CD's have the same contents.

There are a only few books that are accompanied by audio audio. Most of them are commercial and cheap, useless things for touristic Turkish. But this book is not one of them. I like it. The dialogues are well build. You could remember them if you have the patience to listen them as many times as necessary. The set costed me £26 and is widely available in UK bookshops.

There is also a book and its casette with the name "kayıp çanta" (the missing briefcase). It is one of Boğaziçi Unitersitesi publications. I have ordered this one from Turkia via an online retailer. Two copies are going to cost me £20 including delivery.

Hopefully I will be able to write more on these sources.

What do you think to this book???

I haven't seen this book. Maybe others did. I have no idea about it.

The amazon.co.uk link that you mention includes both the book and the CD's. £17.15 is the cheapest UK price. Whsmith has the same set for the same price if you go and collect.

This link below was is in the starting post as well. Please check the starting post again since I updated it with more information on those two books I have mentioned recently.

http://gb.bookbutler.com/do/bookCompare%3Bjsessionid=D2F8E7A08974C306A1C07F3CF3CE5695?searchFor=0340871059&amountIn=gbp&shipTo=gb&searchIn=uk

i have just passed my 6 months of studying Turkish
in that time i hve i think bought every Turkish Grammar and verb book mentioned on this site and other web sites
In honesty, i found them without exception a poor dull and uninteresting bunch especially when compared with what is on offer say in French or Spanish
If it had not been for the grammar pages on this site and John Guise's Manisa turkish I would have given up long ago
For other beginners,the only books I found that helped were
Mardin's COLLOQULAL TURKISH AND HUGO'S TURKISH IN THREE MONTHS .Both of these are out of print .I found Hugo suited me as the explanations were logical and kept simple but the book itself was unattractive
There is a great need for a book along the lines of the BBC publications for French and Spanish

Teach Yourself Turkish


Yes I recommend this book, I bought it without the CD, and is so helpful, the questions after each chapter are very useful and it explains things nicely.

Does anyone know of a VOCABULARY ONLY book?

I am looking for a (small) book that ONLY contains wordlists.. preferably ordered on topic, such as traffic, kitchen, politics, animals, environment, health, jobs, hospital..

It doesnt matter if its for English to learn Turkısh or for Turkish to learn English.. so a vocabulary book that might be used in prep classes at turkish highschools will do too!

We had such books at highschool for French and German, so İ figured maybe they have it in Turkey for English as well!

I found the Elementary Turkish book by Lewis Thomas to be completely useless as a beginner. For someone who is aqcuainted with linguistic terminology it might be helpful but even then I'm not so sure.

Turkish Grammar by Geoffrey Lewis is great for intermediate learners, it's not really an introduction though.

Teach Yourself Turkish by the Pollards is pretty good as far an an introductory book with audio component goes. I would recommend it for starters.

A NEW BOOK THAT IS AWESOME:
A Dictionary Of Turkish Verbs: In Context And By Theme
This book is amazing for intermediate/advanced learners... under each verb it gives idiomatic expressions which use it, including common proverbs/sayings. I haven't been able to dig into this one due to lack of time as much as I would like to but I can tell that it will be immensely helpful once I do. Note: you don't really use this like a regular dictionary...it's more of a language reference manual.

They have it at amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Turkish-Verbs-Context-Theme/dp/1589010574/sr=8-2/qid=1163037400/ref=sr_1_2/102-7246097-0076106?ie=UTF8&s=books

Milet Turkish-English/ English-Turkish Large Portable Dictionary (Paperback)

I have at last found a useful Turkish/English dictionary that you do not need a magnifying glass to read! From Amazon in the UK.

I second libralady's recommendation for the Milet dictionaries. I just received the gigantic "Milet Comprehensive Dictionary: Büyük Sözlük" from www.bn.com. The pages and the print are very clear.

Has anyone ever tried books, cd's, software published by Learnpracticalturkish? I think their website is very useful (and also very chaotic but I try to look past that..)
I wonder about that LPT's Broadband Edition 11.2 though.. It's more of a reference book than a course really. Anyone?

I have just entered the Dutch State-university of Leiden for Middle East Studies, Turkish language and culture. I thought that the 4 English books that are listed as study-literature, might be interesting for other learners as well. They all seem to have good reviews.
I do not know if they are already listed here, though.



01. The Middle East and Central Asia, an anthropological approach, 4th edition, - [Dale F. Eickelman, ISBN 0-13-03368-5]

02. A Concise History of the Middle Eastö 8th edition, - [Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. and Lawrence Davidson, Westview Press].

Dont be fooled by the word Concise, it is over 500 pages

03. A History of the Modern Middle East, third edition - [William L. Clevelandç Westview Press]

04. An Introduction to Islam, 2nd edition, [David Waines, Cambridge University Press].