Merhaba

I want to become perfect in turkish so thope to know about phonetics and linguistics and language skills

...and Ý want the moon from the sky....

The very best of luck - we would all like to - but there´s not much hope of being ´perfect´ unless you are born Turkish - which would be a great help towards your goal but not a foregone conclusion as not even all Turks speak perfect Turkish!  

 why?

why what?

You can never speak perfect turkish but this isnt a reason not to try

Indeed not

 why iam not english native but ican speak like native why icant do that in turkish?

Nifrtity your English is obviously quite good but you would never be mistaken for a native - sorry

But if you work a lot you can speak turkish very well.

Not disputing that Reyhan  - My son speaks German well enough that he was mistaken for a native both when he was in Germany and by a German-born Turk he met while visiting us!  So yes - of course it´s possible to speak any language really well with dedication - plus a ´knack´ for languages is helpful too.

 Merhaba Lady in red

iwas studied english for 17years and iknow anther  languages like french ,arabic ,italin, german and iwant to study turkish bec i like it iam not say ican become like native but i hope that why you are not belive that ? and you are need to say to me that is impossibol for me why?

yeah, sounds like native english all right 

 Some real natives make even more mistakes.......

 what is make you laugh?

 Honey, I´m not a native but I do notice you make very, very many mistakes.

Nifrtity - you said you could speak English like a native - what I said was that you would never be mistaken for a native English speaker.  I admire your aptitude for languages and congratulate you on your ability to speak so many languages but that doesn´t alter the fact that no-one English would mistake you for a native speaker.   I think it is a little arrogant of you to assume they would.

Sadly very true

Now that does actually surprise me!

 She said she can speak like a native ..not write like one ...

 Why?

this actually reminded me of a part from pink panther the movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BFh90GTFOM

Because I thought you were a native speaker of course!

 Shall I make some mistakes to prove I´m not?

I like the one where Joey from Friends is trying to speak French - it is like the other side to the video you posted.  Unfortunately, I can´t seem to get the link - so Trudy is going to add it for me!  Thanks Trudy

 Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqwzvtjeYBQ

I hope you can open it.

Henry Piaget answers your question, he proposed that there is a special phase in a childs mental development where the brain accords itself to the wovel positions, fundamental syntactic rules and a set of other properties specific to one´s own native language. Once this language acquisition window is closed it may be virtually impossible for an individual to truely acquire a language. Bilingualism or trilingualism is possible in practice but in reality no matter how many languages one can speak, only one of them is his/her native language. It is generally accepted that the language that you do the calculations with is your native one.

Unless, you are giving up your identity or thinking of working as a spy in another country, don´t ever think of becoming a native speaker.  There are a lot more to add on top of the mastery one gains in the early years of life. These include local dialects, thinking patterns, accents, jargons and slang...

ok, but if you believe what Vygotsky says about people making sort of an "inner speach", loudly as a playing child, and silent as an adult, then how Piaget would explain that what ever language inviroment people are in, they are THINKING in that language, too, building their sentences inside themselves in the language that they are surrounded with (although it´s far from being their native language)? 

That does not stray from the basic tenet of Piaget at all. Of course, language acquisition theories are too voluminous to comprehensively discuss here. According to Piaget, a baby learns how to use its tongue just as the way it learns how to use its other organs.  Many skills and talents are learned the difficult way, just like the way blacksmith makes a sword on anvil by pounding on it with his hammer for hours. Once formed, it becomes perfect. All native speakers are thought to have a perfect command of their languages unless they are impaired. You might argue, there must be a difference among people´s language skills according to vocabulary use and the level of eloquence. True but all the extra skills are indeed extras and they reside in the intellectual capacities of individuals rather than in their linguistic proficiency. A garbage collector can not speak like say the President but on the other hand the President will not be able to realisticly mimic a garbage collectors use of the language either.

There are situations where I can overwhelm say a New Jersey woman with my knowledge of vocabulary. She may not understand the meanings of a number of words I might say but on the whole my command of English is not even comparable to hers.  She will always feel more comfortable in English. People will always understand her with greater ease and she will perform her daily tasks a lot more easier than a non-native speaker. In the evening, I may draw a volume of Paradise Lost by Milton  from my book shelf and enjoy reading it. Many native speakers can not comprehensively read a book like that. This l however, will not change the fact that my English is poor by their standards.

 i´ll save it to my computer...maybe it will help me in january (exam)...now back to book, next chapter - Bloom´s Taxonomy... but thanks, you are telling those things much easyer than my book (about 750 pages ).

 what is the mistakes.?

 if ihave any mistakes that is because iamwritting fast and iam angry so ican write good

Do you know iam English teacher in my country!

 Do you really want to know? Ok, I´ll show it to you in your post above.

 And I didn´t mark your lack of using capitals. (BTW if there are things I overlooked or did wrong, I´ll be happy to be corrected by a real native speaker.)

 Merhaba saskia1970

iam writting fast and iam angry because we make that for me

what is wrong?

in my first question how ican be come perfect in turkish?

so are you test me in english to talk that you are like me not native

what is problem ?

SO Do you know iam english teacher in my country

that is the prove of my mistakes becomes because iam angry and nerves

 Saskia1970

that is too much  why you are do that?

My friend also is english teacher...but this doesnt prove anything about her english. All i can say about her english that is better than mine. Nothing else.

Nothing else matters - by Metallica

very good

 thanks ReyhanL

you are really good friend so your english is better than me that is true

second time thank you

 Ã said that my friend´s english is better than mine.

 All i can say is that even my own native language i cant speak it perfectly.

I´ve learned English at an early age and I used to be mistaken for a native, since I made ´native´ mistakes. Native doesn´t mean perfect. It means you make common mistakes. Only after I studied English, instead of learning it naturally, my English became much better. So, yes I do think you can become perfect in Turkish, but to become perfect would mean years and years of practice. Also, you would have to spend some years in Turkey to fully understand some undertones in the language, and the double meaning of certain words.

A good first step is to watch Turkish tv a lot. You will hear spoken Turkish that is not as ´proper´ as you hear it on learning-tapes. Listen to stupid Youtube videos to hear how people speak. Sure, you have to dive into a lot of books and courses to train your skills in Turkish, but don´t forget the ´real world´ either!

 sorry 

I Want to say for all we make me very angry

what ido for you to make that?

that is too much

 Your English is good enough. There is no need for criticizing you for the mistakes you make. After all, you built your part of the bridge to close the gap of communication with the lazy half of the world who cannot speak any other language than their own. With so many non-native people speaking English today, a new form of language called International English has come into existence. We can claim to be the native speakers of that language. 

International English was a dream for the first British merchants who had been sending English language newspapers abroad, now the dream has come true. English may have won the contest thanks to its simplicity. Now is the time to peek fun at non-native speakers. The web is full of examples.  

 thanks

So you are basically saying that to be able to teach a language you don´t have to be able to speak it properly??    Just that you need to be ´better´ than someone who isn´t a teacher??

 Nifrtity I really don´t see why you are getting yourself all worked up and angry!  If you declare yourself (without modesty) to speak English like a native, then of course you are leaving yourself open to criticism, because you writing IS NOT perfect English.  This does not mean that you are not talented and clever, and I admire ANYONE who can speak well in another language, but to declare yourself perfect was asking for trouble!

Exactly what I tried to say to her about 30 posts ago!!!  

 offffffff ok ok!! Was just putting my 5 cents in too

I will add a couple of smileys and exclamation marks to indicate that I was agreeing with you not complaining about your post.

at this dictionary you also listen the pronounciation of the words. I think you´ll like the phonetics of turkish. you read what you write.

http://www.seslisozluk.com/

 Nifrtity said she is english teacher but ...you see how good is her english.

 Hi all, I was just looking at the above website and noticed some letters I havn´t seen before, â, ä, ß, actually the first letter I have seen in a previous thread containing the word hâlâ, but the last two I have not come across in Turkish, can anyone tell me if they are Turkish letters and if they are commonly used in words please?

I didn´t realise before but it´s because Seslisözluk works multilingually Ally.  That letter ´ß´ is a german one representing ´ss´ and I just typed in the German word ´Schloß´ to test it - and came up with the Turkish word ´Kale´ (castle).  Presumably the ´â´ is for the French as well as Turkish.  Can´t think what language the ´ä,´ is used in though - but it´s not Turkish.

nooo,we never use ä and ß.   but â is a minor probem of turkish being phonetic. it´s the long a, but doesn´t exist in the alphabet.

 thanks for your help lady in red, im pretty sure that ´ä´ is actually spanish, was just starting to worry that id learnt the wrong Turkish alphabet

 thanks tccio, yes i had looked up that â in a turkish dictionary i have at home that explains the phonic sounds of letters and some grammer, at least i wont get a shock if i come across that letter again

btw letters ä (sounds like turkish e in some cases...ben...sen...in some regions i have heard myself they pronounce it a little different from clear e - so this e there is our ä ) and ö and ü and õ (sounds exactly like turkish ý) we use in estonian and ö ä ü also in german don´t no nothing about french though 

Possible and extremely easy...Try

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 WOW!!!!  THANK YOU 

True but those who have gone through the hardships of learning a language know how disheartening even the slightest criticism can be. Some learners tend to be proud of their command of the target language while some may be extremely pessimistic about it. Learning  a language is a long term commitment and it requires a lot of motivation. Let us not dishearten them.

We should accept that unless they live in our society for years they can´t be expected to be on a par with our native language skills.

For example, after so many years of learning, speaking and practicing, I am still not very happy with my own English.

When they designed the Turkish alphabet they considered ä as it would be consistent with the other vocals

dotless: a ý o u

dotted: ä i ö ü

Later they chose e instead ä because it was well established in Latin Alphabet.

Well - I don´t know what your spoken English sounds like Vineyards - but you only made one tiny mistake in 3 paragraphs of text (and that was from a British English spelling point of view!) which looks to be a pretty good command of the English language to me.  

 I agree, Vineyards´ English is very very good.  I make more mistakes than him actually (but that is due to difficulties typing with my nail extensions! )

Personally I don´t  care whether my English is good or bad. All in all it´s only a communication tool for me and it serves my purpose. I speeak it with my Turkish accent and with my limited vocabulary, no problem at all.

 Good for you!!! Don´t lose that Turkish accent....

Of course, would I?

Only a fool would lose it - girls love the Turkish accent

 My ex boyfriend once said that he has bosfor pain (boðaz)

 I definitely agree, my Turkish boyfriend now speaks wit a distinct Irish accent!! Totally my fault  and has also picked up a lot of the Irish bad habits in speaking, including saying ´like´ about 10 times a sentence lol

Oh yes,  long extensions may cause problems and occassional embaressments ! 

Generally speaking only a person of Jewish or Turkish descent can become perfect in Turkish. THere may be rare exceptions.

 Nopes.

Spanish never uses ä, in fact we don´t have any umlauted vowels, we only have the 5 basic vowels, a e i o u.

it is used in German, and as you stated it is called A-umlaut=)

Does perfect mean without any accent? No accent is not possible in my opinion. If you listen to an Australian, isn´t his English perfect? Is only the British upper-class accent perfect English?

The same question for Turkish... I think if everybody can understand you, your grammar is perfect, THEN you are perfect in a language. I´ve never met any Turkish person that didn´t have some sort of accent.

Of course it is - I´d forgotten the ´a´  

Even native speakers do not necessarily have perfect grammar What natives have is intuition to judge certain phrases/structures as correct basing on "feeling" rather than being able to come up with a rule. There are moments when you just know something either sounds natural or not, and usually you have to be a native speaker to state it. Some structures, although correct grammatically, sound dash. Thus, no matter how good you are at a language, it is almost impossible to master it to a native speaker´s level. And native-like pronunciation is even harder to achieve...

Perfect commnd of a language does not necessarily require perfection in its official grammar, though the two generally go together.

Perfection comes, when you can think in that language.

 Dear Lady in red and all

May be Idont know turkish or english as natives.But there no problem from improving my language,or tell me what the purpose of making all this sites of teaching languages .

In my opinion i think if iwant  to do some thing and i need it i will make all my effortes to do my best in it .

I was expecting from you as aturkish to encourge me as you used to do.

Thanks

Nifrtity

I love people half capable of a single language, critisizing those who can probably get away in three or more languages, don´t you? 

How many languages do you have in your pocket, nifrtity?

Dear Nifrity,

I´m not sure if you are aware of it or not, but both the persons you addressed your message to are British, not Turkish.

i am native geyik as well lol