Over in this thread Jo_Anne asked about how I go about learning Turkish. But I think we need a seperate thread to discuss our ways of learning and hopefully help each other with our study methods.

I have been learning Turkish since November 2005. When I first started learning, I bought a CD-ROM of beginners Turkish (TalkNow) and I discovered this website! I started by trying to learn some voccabulary from the CD-ROM and by trying to learn the vowel harmony rules from TC. I then studied the four main Turkish tenses (past, present continuous, aorist and future) and tried to get used to constructing very simple sentences.

In hindsight, I would advise any new learner to become familiar with vowel harmony - but not to learn it off by heart as it quickly becomes second nature to use the correct vowel forms. Plus, if you get it wrong, it is generally still totally understandable.

Right from the beginning I was determined to practice everyday - something that gets easier as you learn more. By "practice" I don't necessarily mean sit and study - I started by practicing vocabulary and personal possessive suffixes so I would say to FlossDog "arabam" and point to "my car". As I have learnt more, I still use this method and try to translate every simple sentence I use around the house into Turkish. For example - if I ask my girlfriend if she wants more coffee I will often say "biraz kahve ister misin?" (although be warned - this drives her mad ). Having the dogs to talk to helps as I tell them what I am doing in Turkish - if you don't have dogs perhaps consider a teddy bear or doll to talk to as talking is very important to boost confidence.

The other thing I have done recently is to buy "Teach Yourself Turkish" which I find an excellent book - I really wish I had bought it sooner as I think I would be far more advanced than I am. I certainly recommend it.

But the most important things I have done are to make sure I practice everyday without fail and to keep translating simple sentences into Turkish - either out loud or in my head. I am now in the habit that I do it so often I hardly have to think about doing it. It is just the translations I need to think about

So come on - let's hear other people's techniques for learning

Thanks Bod,
I am sure we will all benefit from this type of discussion.

I started by asking for a drink or saying hello in Turkey.

I got linguaphone Turkish PDQ and also the rough guide to Turkish. I learned cases and vowel harmony and tenses although I do get them wrong still so I go back and re-learn.

I speak to my husband and he learns from that picking up some words. If I ask him if he wants more coffee I say "Bir daha" Suppose it's wrong but Turkish people understand and say it, it means one more.

Where I need help I think is in how to put the cases etc to the words. My vocab is quite good now. In a sentence which words to attach suffixes to.

A classic mistake I make is eg I am going - gidiyorum or gittim, I think gittim must be I go.

I am starting a beginners class in October and then will carry on from there.

Turkish class really helps and is great but I think I try to understand things too advanced for me and get disheartened.

I will certainly get the books you recommend Bod, could I ask where they were from.

Lets all us beginners help each other by sharing our mistakes and successes. After all non of us are perfect ..I am far from it.

Jo-Anne

Merhaba,

I decided to learn turkish this year (march or april), so i'm still a very beginner.
First i called a language school here in my town, but they didn't teach turkish. Some other did, but they are quite expensive
I tried to find a good book in french, but i only found the assimil method, that i don't really like (i need the grammar first to understand what i'm supposed to do, and they do the opposite). But I found a quite good one in Dutch (Turks op niveau- a book with tapes), and i bought a german-turkish dictionnary that seemed much better than the french-turkish one (Well, in Belgium we speak 3 different languages ... ).
I also found a turkish radio in Belgium (in Brussels). As there 's a chat on their website some people there promised to help me. So i first learnt to understand, to write basic sentences but i don't feel at ease when i want to speak. i 'm usually not shy in foreign languages, but i needed someone to speak to ...
I June i've heard that the language school i first called would organise a turkish class too. So, today i had my real first turkish lesson with a real teacher. He does exactly what i needed : first we learn some grammar (very basic, of course) and vocabulary, and then asks us questions. First we hesitate, we need to think about it, but after half an hour or so we answer without searching for our words.
He uses the "hittit" method, the one that is used in Turkey for the foreigners.
I never thought about talking to the cat, but i'll do it too.
So i'll go on with my book, with this website (your questions are always interesting, Bod... i'll learn a lot from them and from the answers, of course) and with the class that makes me speak a lot.
But you are right : we need to learn every day, and speak as much as possible (my mistake is that i didn't do it from the beginning)

I just read all of your posts and they made me smile and want to learn turkish even more!

I am studying for my AS levels at the moment so it is hard to find the time to try and learn Turkish but I still want to as I love it so much. I started learning a little at the beginning of July(ish) and although I am still EXTREMELY limited as to what I know I must say this website is extremely helpful as are the people who use it and I also think that as you have all said, the best thing to do is practice as much as you can!

Thankyou for inspiring me people!

I started with Teach Yourself Beginner Turkish, and it was good, but I wish I had bought Teach Yourself Turkish instead, since it seems to be quite a bit more comprehensive, and is still suitable for beginners (as it was, I just had to steal my roommate's copy at every opportunity). And the most helpful thing was obviously living in Turkey and trying to communicate face to face.

But now, all my practice comes from reading (and occasionally writing), which I've found extremely useful. I still don't have enough vocabulary to read much on my own, but with a dictionary, I'm getting better and better at decoding the grammar.

Arkadaşlarım dediği gibi, yavaş yavaş...
(As my friends say, yavaş yavaş... is that right?)

hey guys,
i started learning turkish in about end of july this year after i came back from turkiye.

i bought the book "colloquial turkish: a complete guide for beginners" which came with cds.

there r 15 lessons in the book, so far i have done 6

but i have found tc very useful and some of the native turkish speakers on here have been great in helping me. sometimes i chat to them all in turkish, i must be saying all kinds of rubbish coz i just look up the words in my dictionary and try to put them all in a sentence. but they r good in correcting me.

i have found that since i dont have much conversation practice, my listening and talking turkish skills is nearly nil, but reading and writing basic turkish is fine so far.

most times i look at the translation threads and get disheartened coz i cant understand everything, but then it gives me more determination to keep learning so that i do understand.

i know we will all get there eventually

Hi Guys,

I want to share some of my observations here.

I once met a French Lady who spoke so very good Turkish that I was really impressed. Who was married to a Turkish guy and was living in Turkey for about 4 years when I met her. I couldn't believe how good Turkish she spoke for only 4 years.

Again I met another French lady, married to a Turkish guy and she was living in Turkey for about 1 year when I met her. Her Turkish also impressed me considering that she began to speak Turkish one year ago only.

I met another a German girl travelling in Turkey with his bf and she was OK with her Turkish and she said that she attended a 3-month Turkish course in Istanbul and that was it but her Turkish was really OK for 3 months training.

I think the progress they achieved depends mostly on exposing themselves to a foreign language in the country in which the language is spoken and speaking their native language very limitedly during that period.

The same thing happened to me when I spent several months in US not speaking Turkish during that period. The progress I made during that period was noticed by many people easily.

On the other hand I know one person living in Turkey more than 10 years maybe but he cannot make a simple Turkish sentence at all. He can only utter some Turkish words from time to time and that's it. He can use English during his daily life here so apperantly he didn't bother himself understanding the language of the country in which he lives for more than 10 years, what a pity.

And by the way, Turkish is the most regular natural language (so esperanto doesn't count) in this world in my opinion. So you have an advantage here really. When you learn a rule, usually there is no (or a few) exceptions to it. And the rules are very simple and clear indeed, compared to the other languages. This fact is also supported by the fact that Turkish children are the fastest at learning their native language.

http://www.zaman.com/include/yazdir.php?bl=national&alt=&trh=20060502&hn=22321