So sweet. I am wiping my tears. I also paid attention to unohtaa and uurastaa, but until now nukkua slipped my attention. This is an example of what a creating mind can produce.

Seriously, I don´t know if these similarities in grammar make it easier to learn a new language. Maybe in the beginning you understand the system with less struggling but as you continue you very soon will have to deal with the differences instead of feeling relaxed with the similarities. If I was asked, key point in any learning is motivation. If you are motivated enough (or you can fool yourself there is nothing more interesting than this) you can just walk through the walls.

I was always wondering how these were made:

Sultan´s Lokum (Turkish Delight)

Ingredients:

200 gr of butter or margarin

2 water glasses + 1 heaping full table spoon of flour

1 litre of milk

2 sparse water glasses of granulated sugar

1 packet of vanilla

coarse-crushed walnuts

1 tea glass of cinnamon

cocos flakes

toothpicks

Instructions:

1. Fry the butter or margarine together with the flour until a roasted taste rises from the pan.

2. Add the sugar and keep frying for a while.

3. Add the milk little by little and mix. Continue mixing until the dough gets thick.

4. Add the vanilla and whisk in the mixer for 8-10 minutes.

5. Put the dough into the refrigerator and let it cool well.

6. Take 1 dessert spoon of the hardened dough. Blend the walnuts with the cinnamon and and add one or two pieces of walnut into the spoonful. Roll the dough ball in the cocos flakes.

7. Put the lokum to the serving plate and sting it with a toothpick.

8. Prepare all the lokums the same way and keep them in the refrigerator until you serve them.

     Yes, si++, my mother tongue is Finnish. The similarities between Turkish and Fenno-Ugric languages, which you probably know, are remarkable: agglutinated grammatical elements in the end of the words, vowel harmony, similar consonant changes, word order SOV (which is actually lost from Finnish due to Swedish influence), various participle and infinitive structures (even though in modern language indoeuropean type subclauses are preferred), lack of grammatical gender and articles.

     Yet the historical connection, if there is one, cannot be proved. What bothers me the most as an amatour is lack of old common vocabulary. There is none as far I know. You know, there is nothing humiliar to my ear in Hungarian, but in the bottom there is a group of very basic words which occur in both languages.

      Sorry, I´m getting off topic (actually I did a long time ago) but the other day I amused myself and checked the Turkish loan words in Finnish. They were just a few: kasakka (English Cossack, I don´t know what the origin is), kauhtana (kaftan), kaviaari (havyar), kioski (köşk, ´a small shop´ and musliini (muslin). All these probably came through other languages. But there is one word which was taken straight from Turkish to Finnish: kalabalık. Carl XII´s soldiers took it with them from a fight against the Osman army which took place in Rumanian village called Bender in 1713. Until today we even conserved the meaning: when there is a terrible mess and tangle, it is called kalabaliikki.

Thank you, si++. I am very interested in modalities. They were a central subject in my own studies (in the time of dinosaurs). What is fascinating about it is that there are very strong universals between historically non-related languages in the way that meanings like obligation, ability, probability, certainty etc. are expressed. I can easily find counterparts for both -meli- and zorunda olmak and their negated forms in my own language. It´s something in the human logic which works for all of us.

I came and I saw: nothing changed. That´s where I understood life passes here very quickly and very much in vain. You make a good value of your time.

(Learner´s try.)

Cool. Thanks.

----

Yani, zorunda olmak roughly answers to both needs (even though it is maybe more concrete in meaning) but -meli- goes for obligation only. What about a sentence like

                                 Babam şimdiye kadar evde olmalı.

Can -meli- be used as expression of certainty (what is said in the sentence must be true)?

How do you make the difference between must not and doesn´t have to?

i. = isim ´noun´

s. = sıfat ´adjective´

z. = zarf ´adverb´

Apple Dessert with Milk Pudding

Ingredients:

6-7 apples

1/2 a water glass of sugar

1 water glass of walnuts

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

1 tea glass of coconut (flakes?)

1 package of Petibör bisquits

Cream filling:

1 litre of milk

9 tablespoons of sugar

3 tablespoons of cornstarch flour (heaping full)

1 tablespoon of rice flour

vanilla

Directions:

1. Mix all the cream filling ingredients together and cook them.

2. Peel the apples and cut them into slices. Then pour the sugar over the slices and boil on a lower heat until water dissolves from the mixture.

3. Arrange the bisquits onto a glass tray. Pour part of (?) the cream filling which you prepared over the bisquits so that they get covered.

4. Later compose the apple slices over the bisquits in a nice way. Sprinkle over them the coconut flakes and cinnamon together. Cover the dessert with the rest of the milk pudding. Decorate the top as you like.

5. Let the dessert cool in the refrigerator for 4-5 hours and serve. Bon appétit.

kirstygulten11,

start with the verb: görmek, past tense -di-, sg. 1st, question:

................gör|dü|m mü?

The verb needs an accusative object:

Sen|i................gör|dü|m mü?

Bring the other stuff to the picture:

Seni daha önce buralarda gördüm mü?