I ended my intro to Turkey by pointing out that most people probably think Turkish is an incredibly hard language to learn, if they know it's a language at all. That's not an unreasonable thing to think, though. I mean, look at the languages around it geographically. Neither, Arabic, Farsi, Greek, nor Bulgarian take the Roman Alphabet, so it wouldn't be ridiculous to assume that Turkey also uses some similar sort of non-Western alphabet, right? In addition, someone who knew a bit about the origins of the Turkish people might point out that they actually came from Central Asia, which is about as far from the birthplace of English as you can get, and that Turkish isn't even in the same language family as English. It's instead in the same family as languages like Mongolian, Japanese, and Korean, as well as its closer Central Asian relatives.
So, after all that, you might guess that Turkish may be one of the most foreign, bizarre, and irregular languages you might ever encounter, right?
In my opinion, not so. In fact, I consider it to be quite easy to pick up, even compared to the close relative of English I studied previously, French. Others might disagree with me on this point, but to back up this claim, I've offered a few simple reasons why Turkish is easier to learn that you think it is. Oh, I've also thrown in a lot of examples, so I can trick you into learning some Turkish while I'm at it.
Reason 1-3: Turkish uses the Roman Alphabet, and the sounds are not only incredibly similar to those in English, but almost entirely regular in their pronunciation.
As I mentioned in my first post, Turkish used to be written using an alphabet very similar to that of Farsi, but this was changed in the 1920s to a Roman alphabet. If you'd like someone to thank for that, send your regards to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (more on him at a later time).
In addition, possibly because of this late change, Turkish spelling is entire different from English in a very pleasing way: the spelling is completely phonemic, meaning that every letter makes the same sound every single time. No dealing with silent letters, or C's and X's that change sounds depending on where you find them. No more wondering what happened to the words schism or rhombus that made them that way. Instead the Turkish language almost always follows the sounds laid out in this alphabet:
A - an "ah" sound, like the vowel sound in pot, lot, John, and rob.
B - the B we all know and love, like in Bob, bet, or bits.
C - First difference, this is the sound we normally write as "J", such as in Judge Judy
Ç - First new letter, this is our "Ch" sound, like in cheddar cheese.
D - No difference here, D as in difference.
E - The Turkish E is always pronounced like the one in bet or lend.
F - Same F, as in fife, or fig.
G - Same G, like in giga or gag.
Ğ - This is where it gets tricky. This is a soft (yumaşak) G, which is silent and just elongates the vowel preceding it. For example, if you say the Turkish word değil (which means "not") it sounds like you're saying day eel (like a watersnake that's strictly on a 9 AM - 9 PM schedule)
H - Same H really, like in human or hah.
I - The ı (without a dot), is pronounced like the English short i, like in bit or fig.
İ - This i (with the dot), is a longer, back vowel, like the vowel in beet or leaf.
J - Another difference, this is pronounced like a "zj"sound at the end of garage or montage.
K - No differences, keep the K's the same.
L - No change, let the L's live.
M - Same, M's remain.
N - No difference, N's not affected.
O - Ok, so the O's are pronounced exactly as you would would say the letter O in the English alphabet, like the "O" in okay.
Ö - Here's where it gets tricky. To make this sound, start with the O I just described in move it to the back of your mouth. The sound is a lot like our vowel in bird, so the Turkish word dört (which is the number 4), sounds a lot like the English word dirt.
P - P as in polite, pink, or pottery.
R - R remains really close to our R.
S - The same, S is an S, like in sound or silent.
Ş - This is the "sh" sound we have for shoe, ship, or shawl.
T - T is the same, like in tit for tat.
U - The Turkish U is like our "oo", as in noose or goose. Also like the "U" in ruse or muse.
Ü - Just like the umlauted Ö, take the Turkish "U" sound and move it to the back of your mouth. It'll sound like the German or French "U." If you don't know it, look at Youtube videos of French people saying tuer or fuer. You can also liken it to the sound we make when we say few.
V - Here's the last tricky one, it fluctuates between a "V" and a "W" sound, so the Turkish word tuvalet sounds very similar to its English cognate: toilet. Think of it as the V in the word voila.
Y - Here, it's just Y as a consonant, non of this "occasionally a vowel" monkey business. It's Y as in yams or young.
Z - And Z is essentially the same, as in zoo or Zap Zone.
"Alright, so what does all that mean to me?" you might wonder. Well, this helps make Turkish easy to learn for two reasons. First of all, the sounds are incredibly similar to our own, and many of the letters are exactly the same as we know them. This makes it Turkish fairly easy to pronounce as an English speaker, as long as you keep the pronunciation of each letter in mind.
Secondly, because pronunciation is uniform, it means that you can pronounce any word as soon as you see it. Imagine a non-native English speaker looking at the words tough, though, and thought. They would have no clue how to pronounce those words until somebody told them how. By contrast, even if you see the sentence Afyonkarahisarlılaştıramadıklarımızdan mısınız? (more on that later), you'll know how to pronounce it even if you've never heard it before.
Reason 4: Turkish is logical, structured, and almost mathematical.
The reason Turkish is so orderly is because it forms meaning by adding suffixes to word roots, whereas in English we would add completely different words. Many prepositions, grammatical structures, and changes in parts of speech are expressed through the addition of suffixes. Thankfully, these suffixes are always the same, and their place in the word is strictly rule-governed. There are very very few exceptions to these rules.
Unfortunately, this can lead to some dauntingly long words. The longest word in Turkish is the one I wrote above in the sentence Afyonkarahisarlılaştıramadıklarımızdan mısınız? The sentence roughly means "Are you one of those people that we could not make to be from Afyonkarahisar?" (The city's name translates to "Black Opium Fortress," but thankfully it is usually just called "Afyon.") The fact that two Turkish words can translate into 15 English words just goes to show how differently the two languages express grammar structures
That being said, this ordered nature of Turkish makes it quite easy to understand. After all, if I see a word I do not know, I can still figure out (or guess) what it means as long as I know the meaning of its stem, and the meaning of all the suffixes in it. For example, if I come across the word temizlenebileceksiniz (which I haven't, I just put it together a minute ago), I can still figure out what it means, because I know that temiz means "clean" (as an adj.), the -le suffix means "take that thing and turn it into a verb," the -n suffix after that makes it passive, the -ebil suffix means "can" or "able to," the -ecek suffix is future tense, and the -siniz suffix is for second person plural. So, by thinking it out, I can figure out that this word means "You (all) will be able to become clean." Of course, these are strange examples, but hopefully you get the point by now. If you know enough Turkish, you can look at a long word you've never seen before, and not only will you be able to pronounce it, but you can start to figure out what it means before you even ask someone or consult a dictionary.
Reason 5: Turkish contains cognates on top of cognates
For the last 900 years, Turkish people have been sandwiched between the East and West, and anything that went from one side to the other invariably went through what is now Turkey. As a result, Turkish contains loads of cognates with multiple other languages, including English, French, Arabic, Farsi, and Greek. One of my site-mates here in Malatya speaks Urdu, and as she's learning Turkish, she'll usually say "Ohh, that's the same as in Urdu." So the chances are, if you know English and another language, you probably already know a fair amount of Turkish words. The cool thing is, though, the spelling will always be changed to make sure the pronunciation matches the Turkish alphabet, leading to some interesting spellings:
Reception - Resepsiyon
Calcium - Kalsiyum
Military police - Jandarma (from the French gendarme)
Energy - Enerji
Photograph - Fotoğraf
TV - Televizyon
Comical/Funny - Komik
Lodgement - Lojman
If the pronunciation seems off on some of these, it's because most of them came to Turkish through French (according to some guy on the Internet, Turkish and French have over 7000 words in common), meaning that they reflect the French pronunciation. If you've taken French or Arabic, you're in luck. In addition, the more modern the word is, the more likely it'll be a cognate with English. So, if you're ever in Turkey, keep an eye out for these cognates. You'll be able to spot a good number of them if you're vigilant.
For the sake of space, I'll leave out my Survival Turkish words for now and just make it a separate post later. In addition, I promise the next post will be actually talk about things I'm doing, and will include more pictures. Until next time, görüşürüz!
That means "See you later."
So, after all that, you might guess that Turkish may be one of the most foreign, bizarre, and irregular languages you might ever encounter, right?
In my opinion, not so. In fact, I consider it to be quite easy to pick up, even compared to the close relative of English I studied previously, French. Others might disagree with me on this point, but to back up this claim, I've offered a few simple reasons why Turkish is easier to learn that you think it is. Oh, I've also thrown in a lot of examples, so I can trick you into learning some Turkish while I'm at it.
Reason 1-3: Turkish uses the Roman Alphabet, and the sounds are not only incredibly similar to those in English, but almost entirely regular in their pronunciation.
As I mentioned in my first post, Turkish used to be written using an alphabet very similar to that of Farsi, but this was changed in the 1920s to a Roman alphabet. If you'd like someone to thank for that, send your regards to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (more on him at a later time).
In addition, possibly because of this late change, Turkish spelling is entire different from English in a very pleasing way: the spelling is completely phonemic, meaning that every letter makes the same sound every single time. No dealing with silent letters, or C's and X's that change sounds depending on where you find them. No more wondering what happened to the words schism or rhombus that made them that way. Instead the Turkish language almost always follows the sounds laid out in this alphabet:
A - an "ah" sound, like the vowel sound in pot, lot, John, and rob.
B - the B we all know and love, like in Bob, bet, or bits.
C - First difference, this is the sound we normally write as "J", such as in Judge Judy
Ç - First new letter, this is our "Ch" sound, like in cheddar cheese.
D - No difference here, D as in difference.
E - The Turkish E is always pronounced like the one in bet or lend.
F - Same F, as in fife, or fig.
G - Same G, like in giga or gag.
Ğ - This is where it gets tricky. This is a soft (yumaşak) G, which is silent and just elongates the vowel preceding it. For example, if you say the Turkish word değil (which means "not") it sounds like you're saying day eel (like a watersnake that's strictly on a 9 AM - 9 PM schedule)
H - Same H really, like in human or hah.
I - The ı (without a dot), is pronounced like the English short i, like in bit or fig.
İ - This i (with the dot), is a longer, back vowel, like the vowel in beet or leaf.
J - Another difference, this is pronounced like a "zj"sound at the end of garage or montage.
K - No differences, keep the K's the same.
L - No change, let the L's live.
M - Same, M's remain.
N - No difference, N's not affected.
O - Ok, so the O's are pronounced exactly as you would would say the letter O in the English alphabet, like the "O" in okay.
Ö - Here's where it gets tricky. To make this sound, start with the O I just described in move it to the back of your mouth. The sound is a lot like our vowel in bird, so the Turkish word dört (which is the number 4), sounds a lot like the English word dirt.
P - P as in polite, pink, or pottery.
R - R remains really close to our R.
S - The same, S is an S, like in sound or silent.
Ş - This is the "sh" sound we have for shoe, ship, or shawl.
T - T is the same, like in tit for tat.
U - The Turkish U is like our "oo", as in noose or goose. Also like the "U" in ruse or muse.
Ü - Just like the umlauted Ö, take the Turkish "U" sound and move it to the back of your mouth. It'll sound like the German or French "U." If you don't know it, look at Youtube videos of French people saying tuer or fuer. You can also liken it to the sound we make when we say few.
V - Here's the last tricky one, it fluctuates between a "V" and a "W" sound, so the Turkish word tuvalet sounds very similar to its English cognate: toilet. Think of it as the V in the word voila.
Y - Here, it's just Y as a consonant, non of this "occasionally a vowel" monkey business. It's Y as in yams or young.
Z - And Z is essentially the same, as in zoo or Zap Zone.
"Alright, so what does all that mean to me?" you might wonder. Well, this helps make Turkish easy to learn for two reasons. First of all, the sounds are incredibly similar to our own, and many of the letters are exactly the same as we know them. This makes it Turkish fairly easy to pronounce as an English speaker, as long as you keep the pronunciation of each letter in mind.
Secondly, because pronunciation is uniform, it means that you can pronounce any word as soon as you see it. Imagine a non-native English speaker looking at the words tough, though, and thought. They would have no clue how to pronounce those words until somebody told them how. By contrast, even if you see the sentence Afyonkarahisarlılaştıramadıklarımızdan mısınız? (more on that later), you'll know how to pronounce it even if you've never heard it before.
Reason 4: Turkish is logical, structured, and almost mathematical.
The reason Turkish is so orderly is because it forms meaning by adding suffixes to word roots, whereas in English we would add completely different words. Many prepositions, grammatical structures, and changes in parts of speech are expressed through the addition of suffixes. Thankfully, these suffixes are always the same, and their place in the word is strictly rule-governed. There are very very few exceptions to these rules.
Unfortunately, this can lead to some dauntingly long words. The longest word in Turkish is the one I wrote above in the sentence Afyonkarahisarlılaştıramadıklarımızdan mısınız? The sentence roughly means "Are you one of those people that we could not make to be from Afyonkarahisar?" (The city's name translates to "Black Opium Fortress," but thankfully it is usually just called "Afyon.") The fact that two Turkish words can translate into 15 English words just goes to show how differently the two languages express grammar structures
That being said, this ordered nature of Turkish makes it quite easy to understand. After all, if I see a word I do not know, I can still figure out (or guess) what it means as long as I know the meaning of its stem, and the meaning of all the suffixes in it. For example, if I come across the word temizlenebileceksiniz (which I haven't, I just put it together a minute ago), I can still figure out what it means, because I know that temiz means "clean" (as an adj.), the -le suffix means "take that thing and turn it into a verb," the -n suffix after that makes it passive, the -ebil suffix means "can" or "able to," the -ecek suffix is future tense, and the -siniz suffix is for second person plural. So, by thinking it out, I can figure out that this word means "You (all) will be able to become clean." Of course, these are strange examples, but hopefully you get the point by now. If you know enough Turkish, you can look at a long word you've never seen before, and not only will you be able to pronounce it, but you can start to figure out what it means before you even ask someone or consult a dictionary.
Reason 5: Turkish contains cognates on top of cognates
For the last 900 years, Turkish people have been sandwiched between the East and West, and anything that went from one side to the other invariably went through what is now Turkey. As a result, Turkish contains loads of cognates with multiple other languages, including English, French, Arabic, Farsi, and Greek. One of my site-mates here in Malatya speaks Urdu, and as she's learning Turkish, she'll usually say "Ohh, that's the same as in Urdu." So the chances are, if you know English and another language, you probably already know a fair amount of Turkish words. The cool thing is, though, the spelling will always be changed to make sure the pronunciation matches the Turkish alphabet, leading to some interesting spellings:
Reception - Resepsiyon
Calcium - Kalsiyum
Military police - Jandarma (from the French gendarme)
Energy - Enerji
Photograph - Fotoğraf
TV - Televizyon
Comical/Funny - Komik
Lodgement - Lojman
If the pronunciation seems off on some of these, it's because most of them came to Turkish through French (according to some guy on the Internet, Turkish and French have over 7000 words in common), meaning that they reflect the French pronunciation. If you've taken French or Arabic, you're in luck. In addition, the more modern the word is, the more likely it'll be a cognate with English. So, if you're ever in Turkey, keep an eye out for these cognates. You'll be able to spot a good number of them if you're vigilant.
For the sake of space, I'll leave out my Survival Turkish words for now and just make it a separate post later. In addition, I promise the next post will be actually talk about things I'm doing, and will include more pictures. Until next time, görüşürüz!
That means "See you later."
