language

  • The Turkish-French connection

    Written by Melissa on September 6th, 2010 in Turkish Language2 Comments
    The Turkish-French connection
    Although French was not technically my first language, it was the language I spoke at school from the age of five. When you learn a language as a young child, you develop an innate rather than a mechanical sense of how things work and how words fit together. Although I can’t particularly explain French grammar in any meaningful way, I know what sounds right and what doesn’t. And when I look at French words written down, I don’t have to think about how they would be pronounced – it just comes automatically, even if the spellings may look illogical to...

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  • Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

    Written by Suzanne on July 28th, 2010 in Living in Turkey, Turkish CultureNo comments yet
    Let Your Fingers Do the Talking
    “Suzanne, come!” My boss barked at me, holding out her arm and shaking her wrist  downward, like she was nodding her hand.  My brain froze, unable to decipher the seemingly contradictory commands.   She grabbed my hand and pulled me into a classroom to hide me me from students she had told I was ill in order to free up my afternoon.  She placed her arms against the the door before raising a finger to her lips. “Shh,” she whispered.  “Be quiet.”  But there was no need, this was a gesture I understood. To my American eyes, when she had wanted...

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  • Do you speak Turkish?

    Written by Valantis on April 15th, 2010 in Living in Turkey, Turkish Culture4 Comments
    Do you speak Turkish?
    “Turkçe biliyor musunuz?”  This is a question that is asked a lot…by me!  It’s a simply a must.  For all those yabancilar, you cannot go forward learning the language by being comfortable or procrastinating.  You must build up your studies, and then break yourself down in different situations, where you reflect on the vocabulary and sentence structures that worked and didn’t work. Going to Turkey for the first time in 2008, I returned with a clear goal.  I was determined to learn Turkish and return to Turkey having a respectable awareness of the language.  I remember explaining to a few...

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