If you are English your English is better than mine. So please tell me what this sentence means: "I love Turkey". If 1000 native English had heard this sentence would 100% of them understand what the speaker meant? What did the speaker mean by the way, can you tell?

I would like to know how you would feel if we put you behind a table next to many tables and on every table there is one person sitting and there is a sign telling the origin or that person. We read the words Italy, Greece, France, Germany and than we look at your table we read the word "LLama".

LLama is another silly animal. Would you be proud carrying that name. Can you wear a t-shirt with that name printed on it? If you send your children to school and other children call them llama, llama and they come home crying are you going to be more happy?
If the teachers asks your 8 year old son where is he from and then he replies llama. There will be children in that classroom your haven't your country name Llama but they have heard the animal llama. How are they going to ack? Aren't they going to make fun of this?

Is there another country that is named after a silly animal?

Scalpel is right about the ethnic background of those traditions. I mentioned the same thing in a more polite way in my post before Scalpel.

It's not the religion thats the problem but it's the people and traditions.

We have a serious problem with sex being a taboo in Turkia. If a girl would have sex without marriage and if she is living with her family then many Turkish families would have a huge problem when finding out about this.

For some very traditional families protecting a girls virginity before marriage is a matter of life and dead. You might think that a girl might have sex without losing virginity. This is very true and if it would happen then it wouldn't be a problem as big since it is easy to cover up as long as this information isn't public and on everybodies mouth.

The intellectual and aesthetics level among some locals is not very high unfortunately. They are considering girls as a gift to buy for their sons. Some time ago it was a common practice to pay money for this gift to the selling party. Usually the girl wouldn't even see the boy or the old man she is going marry. In some instances families have sold their girls to married and old men even if the girl was in love with a local boy. This is a common theme and we have many movies where these two run away.

Of course you can imagine what would happen among such mentalities if the gift turned out to be rotten. The buying party would get crazy. In some instance they would return it. I know all this sounds unbelievable but it is true. Again returning the boys gift is a theme of a movie and is well know. Of course this would be the biggest shame for the selling party.

I lived a few years in East Turkia in these small mountain villages far from any town. I know these people. You need to understand their mentality. Once I asked a farmer the number children he has and he said eight. I asked how many of them were girls or boys and he said these were only the boys. I asked about the girls and he said girls don't count but said that he had three girls.

Among some locals a girl is less valuable than a cow. They would not think twice if they have to kill to clear their name. In prison these killers are very welcome and highly respected.

Returning to the previous example of buying a gift and getting it delivered unrotten, after the trade now it becomes the buying parties business to protect the black box. What this means is that the girl might be beaten by her husband but should never run away or divorce since they need to have control over boxes.

Some time ago, there was a woman who got beaten continuously and she run away and wanted to divorce. But they didn't let her. Her husband found her in another city, she was in İstanbul and shoot her in the middle of the street. The woman recovered and told her story to newspapers etc.

I remember a man stabbing her wife in the middle of the street and there was a police officer and a lots of people and everybody was just watching. The man was stabbing her, and shout for a while and stabbing her again. The police, altough armed (all police is armed here) was just trying to persuade the man to stop. This continued for a few minutes and at the end there was only blood on the street and a dead woman. Some people thought she deserved.

In other ethnical groups in East Turkia these mentalities are common. Interestingly many foreign women find themselves these type men.

We are here to help. Right now I don't have time to investigate on this deep suject. There are too many details to consider when it comes to pronounciation. There are some secondary sounds of vowels. For instance genç and gen have different 'e' sounds. The first and second a is different in "daha". Future tense is pronounced different than written such as geleceğim is pronounced as geliceğm.

There are too many details. You are right. It would be perfect if we had these topics covered somewhere including sound files.

I see your point. These are too much detail I think. If you ignore any stress you should be fine. There is very little difference between "vardı" as "arrived" and "vardı" as "there was". Simply follow the syllables and say "var-dı" without any stress just simply straight forward as "var+dı", and you will be fine.

If you are trying to learn Turkish by following verbal language you are not going to make it. Ignore spoken language and concentrate on written langauge.

Spoken language has too many irregularities and it has too limited vocabulary. You need exactly the opposite. You need more vocabulary and smooth progress.

My suggestion is to read. Read like you would never need to talk in Turkish. If you build enough vocabulary and if you understand written sentences, no matter if you haven't talked to anybody şin Turkish, believe me all the verbal aspect of the langauge will be a matter to be solved in one day.

Distraction by extreme deatials is going to hold you back. Read a childrens book and if you understand half of it read another book and then another.

When I was learning English I was reading a new Sherlock Holmes book every day. At this time I had a good vocabulary plus I had a sufficient grammar, although I didn't study much, but I had no idea I was pronouncing many words incorrectly. For instance I didn't know that I couldn't pronounce the word "sure" correctly. I thought it was pronounced like the s in to sue. Did this stop me building up vocabulary? Not at all.

Pronounciation details will correct themselves immediately when the right time comes. All you need is vocabulary and you are not going to find it in verbal langauge.

We can't really change loan words that have been very strongly integrated into our language.

Changing 'futbol' to 'ayaktopu', 'televizyon' to 'göstergeç', etc. is very difficult after this stage. Long time ago, I think in 1960's there was a Turkish word 'refigiratör' but later we changed this into 'buzdolabı'.

This was possible because refigiratör was only known among posh İstanbul folks. It was not common and was relatively new. It looks like it is too late to change futbol. Maybe we can concentrate on yazıcı, tarayıcı, fare, ekran, etc.

I live in London and here nobody knows that doner and yogurt are originally Turkish words. Most people think doner is Indian and most yogurt in supermarkets is sold as "Greek Style".

Döner comes from dönmek (to turn) and yoğurt comes from yoğurmak (to knead). They are Turkish words. Abroad Turkia is pictured as an Arabic country and when somebody says mediterranean Turkia is probably the last place people think of. We are more mediterranean and European than we are Arabic but we need to stop being pictured with kebap, belly dance, baklava, hamam and wrestling.

Turkiye (with u) is never going to make it. I can not imagine the British Prime Minister pronouncing this word or reading this word on BBC.

Thinking as a Turk doesn't help. In English I don't know any word that ends with "iye" but there are many words that end with "ia". You need to think as a foreigner and how they pronounce the words.

On the other hand Turkia is very strong. It can be accepted as the official name if everybody starts using this name.

It is either "bekliyorum" or there is the continuation of that sentence.
"Seni düşÃ¼nüyorum ve bekliyorum" means "I'm thinking of you and I'm waiting."

"Seni düşÃ¼nüyorum ve ekliyorum" means "I'm thinking of you and I add up (something? unclear)."