Many people wonder if learning Turkish is worth it. Active relations between Turkish and Russian states, the opening of mixed companies and the holidays of many Russians in Turkey indicate the popularity of the Turkish language. Many people sign up for specialized courses to learn Turkish for beginners, but there are also many who do it on their own.
The main thing when learning Turkish is to understand and learn the strict rules of the language, as well as to have great motivation and perseverance. Many words in Turkish are heard and written the same, and there are no complicated cases or genders.
Is it difficult to learn Turkish?
All beginners, just starting to learn the language, have many questions: is it difficult to learn Turkish, how long will it take, but this is all individual. Each person has different linguistic abilities, perseverance, motivation, availability of free time and the desired degree of Turkish language proficiency. For vacationing tourists, a small vocabulary is enough, but for those who have their own business in Turkey, it is necessary in-depth study language with all the subtleties of business communication.
How to learn Turkish on your own
Self-studying the Turkish language involves purchasing the necessary educational literature or having daily Internet access to use online resources. The manual must be written in clear language, accessible, and all information should be presented in portions. You need to decide required quantity hours a day that will be spent on language classes.
When the initial course of learning the Turkish language has been completed, you need to start practicing, otherwise, why learn Turkish. The simplest option is when the student has friends who are native speakers of Turkish or who speak it perfectly.
Communication should start with correspondence on social networks; friends will be able to point out mistakes and correct shortcomings. During correspondence, the skills of memorizing a new language are honed - the student thinks about each phrase and tries to write correctly.
But not everyone can boast of having Turkish nationals as friends. Then you need to find an interlocutor via the Internet who speaks Turkish, who in turn trains his Russian, and together begin to improve each other’s languages. Online study is becoming quite a popular way to learn Turkish and other languages.
Additional ways to learn Turkish
All Turkish language teachers advise students to watch films in Turkish with Russian subtitles or television programs, as well as listen to Turkish music. Listening to Turkish speech every day helps you quickly get used to the language, its features and pronunciation. At first, even without understanding the meaning of what you heard, you just need to get used to the intonation of Turkish speech and the stresses. When learning any language, it is very important to immerse yourself in a new language environment.
Self-studying the Turkish language has many advantages over other methods, the main one being the absence of payment for the acquired knowledge. It is very important when studying at home to have good motivation and perseverance, which will allow you to get the necessary high level knowledge of the Turkish language.
Cost of Turkish language courses
The cost is calculated for a month of training (16 academic hours). Classes are held in Moscow. The teacher can visit your home.
Cost of corporate training in Turkish
Mastering a foreign language is a rather complex and time-consuming task. Studying one of the most common languages in the Arab world, Turkish, was no exception. Today it is spoken not only in Turkey: you can hear this rich language in Northern Cyprus, Macedonia and Bulgaria, Greece and Iran. Those who have ever visited Turkey are fascinated by the rich culture, ancient traditions, hospitality of the residents and the melodious sound of local speech. I would like to learn as much as possible about this wonderful country, and getting to know the language is The best way get to know Turkey.
Learn Turkish in a short time
Many people think that Turkish is an unusually difficult language to master, because most words are extremely difficult to hear. How to quickly learn Turkish? It is important to choose the right type of training and persistently pursue the goal.
- Master the basics of the language - learn the alphabet and basic rules. The letters of the Turkish language are written in the Latin alphabet and will not cause difficulties for those who are familiar with English. However, there are several specific letters that you should pay special attention to memorizing.
- Good language courses will help you. You can choose either a general training program or individual uniform. The efficiency of the latter is an order of magnitude higher. C language courses Dialogue is profitable and convenient, and a conversation club will help you consolidate your knowledge.
- Speak Turkish out loud from day one. You should not be afraid that phrases are constructed incorrectly and words are distorted. With a little practice, your level of language proficiency will improve every day.
Tips to help you quickly master the basics of the Turkish language
So, how to learn Turkish on your own?
- Install the Turkish language on your gadgets - new words will be an excellent exercise on the way to your goal.
- Watching films and TV series in Turkish will help you quickly learn Turkish at home. At first, it is better to choose films with Russian subtitles, and after gaining experience, move on to films with subtitles in Turkish. With a little practice, most of the dialogue will be understood by ear, and there will be no need for subtitles. In addition, Turkish TV series are not only useful, but also very interesting.
- Listen to songs in Turkish. Another way to help you master the basics of the language at home. Listening to the same song over and over again will improve your pronunciation and memorize phrases. You can find translations of your favorite compositions on the Internet, which will make it easier to learn grammatical structures.
- Read books in Turkish. You can start with children's books, and, developing your level, move on to more complex reading. If at first you need a translation of literally every word, then after a month or two of daily lessons from scratch, you will turn to the dictionary much less often.
- More communication. It's great if you have a trip to Turkey planned - you can practice your pronunciation.
You can meet a native speaker at social network or chat in our conversation club. Don't forget that spoken language may differ from the language in movies and TV shows. In addition, there is a whole mosaic of adverbs and dialects even within Istanbul itself - do not panic if you do not immediately begin to understand what the interlocutor is telling you, over time your hearing will adapt and any dialect will become intelligible.
Türkiye has become practically home country but you can't master the local language for one reason or another? Don't have enough time, skills or experienced instructors? The situation can be solved: you can start learning Turkish for free now under the guidance of specialists from the Dialogue language center!
Our experts have developed a special program that allows you to achieve amazing results in learning the Turkish language from scratch in a fairly short time.
We adapt to each of our listeners and provide the most comfortable conditions that allow them to learn Turkish in any convenient way.
Today we offer:
- individual sessions,
- training in mini groups,
- Turkish language lessons from scratch online.
Work out in a comfortable room training center or sitting at home personal computer, it's up to you to decide!
How are classes going?
Classes at our center are fun and easy, and we learn Turkish with you! Experienced mentors fluent in Turkish and Russian will help you overcome the barrier that separates these two cultures. By attending classes, you will learn about all the features of the Turkish language and master basic grammar in just 32 lessons! At the same time, our course will allow you to learn not only written Turkish, but also colloquial speech. Such a two-pronged approach is guaranteed to ensure success during your next trip to Turkey. After all, you will be able to communicate with local residents almost on equal terms!
Don't be afraid of apparent difficulties. Of course, learning Turkish is a process that requires some effort. But this is your goal! Therefore, strive for it, and you will succeed!
Obtaining a certificate
An additional incentive for successfully completing the Turkish language course from scratch will be the issuance of an official certificate of completion. Of course, after you pass the final test. After all, we must be sure that you have correctly mastered the material we have provided.
Learning Turkish can be your hobby or a necessity in life. The reason for such a desire is not particularly important. The only important thing is your desire to learn Turkish.
Training at the Dialogue center is the key to solid knowledge!
We guarantee the success of your training. The developed course is available to all students, including beginners, i.e. from scratch. If for any reason you cannot understand this or that material, we will arrange Additional session especially for you. After all, studying requires mandatory consolidation. And who, if not experienced mentors, understands this! Our teachers will be happy to teach those who are not indifferent to Turkey and want to learn the Turkish language.
You will not be alone on this path. We train beginners in learning this amazing language, again and again plunging into beautiful world cultural traditions of a great country.
In many ways it is extremely logical, consistent and understandable, despite the fact that it differs significantly from the system of European languages that we are accustomed to and therefore at first glance seems frighteningly confusing. Today we will look at those aspects of Turkish that are easiest for those who start from a “zero” level, and we will tell you how to make your life easier in mastering Turkish.
- A beginner's guide to learning Turkish
I spent several days looking through textbooks and manuals from the point of view of understandability for someone learning a language from scratch, and I realized that, undoubtedly, the best option will be “Colloquial Turkish: The Complete Course for Beginners” (authors Ad Backus and Jeroen Aarssen).
This textbook provides the most necessary grammar and basic vocabulary in all areas and topics in a logical sequence, which allows you to read full-fledged original passages in Turkish after the first chapters. In addition, the focus is precisely on, in contrast to the formal “academic” version of the language.
This manual does not repeat answers and translations of what has already been explained or analyzed once, which encourages you to turn to information that has already been studied and assimilated.
- Reading Turkish is very easy
The first thing to note is that Turkish is a phonetically written language, and modern Turkish uses Latin alphabet. Before the Atatürk Revolution and the reform of 1928, during which the Latin alphabet was adapted to Turkish pronunciation of sounds, the Turkish language used the Arabic alphabet.
So, in Turkish, each letter corresponds to one sound, there are no combinations of consonants (such as sh, ch, ght), so each letter is pronounced separately. The pronunciation generally matches what you see in written text, with the exception of the following points:
- c pronounced like English j (j am), so the word sadece(only, only) pronounced like sah-deh-jeh.
- ç pronounced like English ch (ch arge), not to be confused with French ç , which is pronounced like s.
- ğ – unpronounceable letter (lengthens the previous vowel sound)
- ş pronounced like English sh .
- ı - looks like i without a dot. What's confusing is that Turkish capitalizes ı - this is I (like I is capitalized in English), but capitalized in Turkish I- This İ , so the city where all the tourists end up is not I stanbul (Istanbul), and İ Stanbul. ı pronounced as a neutral vowel sound.
Umlauts ö/ü pronounced as in German.
Once you know these rules and exceptions, you should be able to read something in Turkish, although be prepared for the fact that locals may pronounce words slightly differently. For example, I discovered that the letter “e” in words was pronounced by many as “a”.
- You already know many Turkish words
I was very happy to find many familiar words in Turkish that I recognized instantly. As with all languages, you typically start with a base of thousands of words before you even begin learning the language. Turkish language borrowed a lot brands and technology terms from English, like most other languages.
But I found it much more interesting that Turkish has a huge number of borrowed words from other languages, the most surprising (and useful for me) are borrowings from French. One source I found claims that there are approximately 5,000 words in Turkish that come from French. By comparison, 6,500 words came from Arabic, 1,400 from Persian, about 600 came from Italian, 400 from Greek and about 150 from Latin. In many cases, a loanword has a Turkish counterpart, which is considered preferable in everyday communication, but in some cases the loanword is the only designation of a word or concept, and sometimes both words are used (as şehir And kent for "city", where şehir is a non-Turkish word).
Loanwords that I have personally encountered include kuaför, şans, büfe, lise (lycee), bulvar, asensör, aksesuar, kartuş, ekselans, sal ...and I'm sure there are many more. Of course, they are sometimes difficult to recognize, because they are written in accordance with the rules of Turkish transcription, but when pronounced they are very similar to French words(even though they don't have French nasals). Even if you don't speak French, you will certainly recognize many of these words, since many of them are well established in English.
It's funny that I even found out spanish word banyo in Turkish!
As for the vocabulary, which is unique and originally Turkish, it can be learned surprisingly quickly if you just apply effective methods memorization by or download a selection of basic vocabulary, load it into the application for memorizing and practicing words and launch it regularly to get used to new combinations of sounds as quickly as possible. The roots of words in Turkish, as a rule, are short, which makes them even easier to remember and then, based on them, to decipher more complex derivative words.
- Suffixes will help you expand your active vocabulary
Returning to derivative words, it is important to note that a key skill in working on expanding your vocabulary will be an understanding of how the structure of a word works and how the language “works”. In this regard, vocabulary and grammar are quite closely related to each other: you will not be able to look up most words in the dictionary as they are written in the text, but if you know the basic grammatical structures, you will immediately determine the root of the word and be able to look up its meaning in the dictionary.
One of the most quick ways expand your vocabulary - remember standard suffixes. Many of them perform important functions: turning nouns into adjectives (or vice versa) or verbs (infinitives ending in -mek/-mak), or designation of a person who belongs to a particular profession, for example, using suffixes -ci/-ci (öğrenci– student from the verb öğrenmek- study).
Another important suffix is the possessive formation suffix. You will encounter it everywhere, so learn to recognize it. For example, Istiklal is the name of the main street/avenue, or cadde, next to which I lived, so the street is called Istiklal caddesi. Suffix -si here reflects the meaning of possessiveness, and the word Istiklal means "independence". (Consider English example: it turns out that in Turkish they prefer to speak Avenue of independence, but not Independence avenue). In the same way, the names of all universities (üniversite) in the city have university si .
Thus, Turkish suffixes express meanings that in other languages would be conveyed by separate words, for example, prepositions.
Another important observation regarding all suffixes and words in general: the laws of vowel harmony, which you just have to get used to. I also encountered this in the Hungarian language, but in other languages this phenomenon practically does not occur, so it is necessary to accustom yourself to a completely different way of thinking. Like many other aspects of Turkish, vowel harmony is easier than it seems, but takes time to develop the habit of lining up the vowels. in a certain order. By the way, on initial stage you will still make mistakes in conversation, but people will still understand you most of the time.
- Put words and sentences together like a jigsaw puzzle
One point that requires some “restructuring” of thinking with an orientation towards the Turkish language is that the usual verbs “to be” or “to have” simply do not exist in the Turkish language. This may sound absurd, but once you get a little used to saying “my car exists” instead of “I have a car”, you will understand what's what.
Another "weird" aspect of Turkish is word order. For example, verbs tend to come at the end of sentences. So, you say: Türkçe öğreniyorum- “I’m studying Turkish.” In my opinion, this is even more logical than in English, because what you study is more important than what you study it. It is very important to remember that languages have different ways of “processing” information, and not to panic if something in the language does not fit into our usual thinking model.
Once you think about some of the designs and understand how they work, they will become logical and obvious. For example:
Nerelisin(iz) means "Where are you from?" Let's look at it in parts: Ne-re-li-sin(iz): -sin= you, -siniz= you (polite form/form plural), -li= from, place suffix, -ne= what (or just nere= where). Because there is no verb be, the meaning of a phrase consists of individual significant components of the word.
The same is the case with the word nereye, which means “Where to?” ( nere+ e (To) and letter "y" to separate two vowels).
- The grammar will seem extremely logical to you
How it happened to me. There are so few exceptions in the language, and the conjugation and word formation are so consistent, that the system of grammar is very easy to get used to: simple past tense, two present tenses (one similar to the English continuous tense, the other is the standard present tense), future tense, etc.
One example of the formation of the present tense using the ending -er there will be a verb donmek(rotate), which is in third person form singular sounds familiar to everyone doner.
Yes, there are differences with English or Russian, but based on my experience of learning other languages, Turkish has far fewer exceptions and completely unimaginable and illogical constructions.
Moreover, Turkish has no grammatical gender, definite or indefinite articles, and there are no irregular plural forms (in some cases you don't even need to add a plural suffix -ler/-lar, if the meaning of the plural is clear from the context, for example, when used with a numeral).
The only case that may cause you some problems at the beginning is the accusative, which has already frayed a lot of my nerves in German. If the very idea of the accusative confuses you, then I strongly recommend that you study Esperanto for at least a few weeks: using the accusative in Esperanto helped me understand it better than any theoretical explanation in Turkish or German, plus it is almost the only “difficult” » to understand grammatical construction throughout the language.
Using ĉu in Esperanto also helped me intuitively understand the suffix/particle issue mi/mı/mü in Turkish. This particle is added to questions that require a simple yes/no answer (in English we would simply show this difference using intonation). This is actually very easy to understand, but not easy to get used to, so studying this phenomenon first in more in simple language can really give you a "jump" in understanding.
For example, the word çalışıyor means “it works” and çalışıyor mu? - "she works?"
Those who have been to Turkey probably know that in almost all large hotels and retail outlets There are English or Russian speaking staff. Therefore, while relaxing and buying souvenirs, no discomfort should arise. However, the tourist must have in his vocabulary at least a minimum set of Turkish expressions.
Why does a tourist need to know Turkish?
If you want not only to sunbathe and swim to your heart’s content in the warm sea, but also to learn the culture and characteristics of the country, you definitely need to know the Turkish language at least to a minimum extent. The basics for a tourist do not include much information that will allow you to communicate with the local population.
Another factor that speaks in favor of the need to take a Turkish language course is that unforeseen situations may arise during travel. When faced with the staff of hospitals, police or other services, you are unlikely to meet a person who sufficiently speaks English, much less Russian.
Features of the Turkish language
First you need to figure out what the basics are for a tourist; they may seem quite complicated, but this is only at first glance. The thing is that in terms of grammar it is very different from Russian. Pronunciation may also cause some difficulties. Thus, we can highlight the following features of the Turkish language that will be useful to tourists:
- in 90% of cases the stress falls on the last syllable;
- most of the concepts related to scientific and technological progress, are borrowed, so they do not cause difficulties in understanding;
- Turkish speech is filled with many set expressions that are associated with traditions of politeness, superstition and religion;
- no matter how long the sentence, the predicate is always put at the end;
- Turks often violate the rules of syntax when it comes to emotional speech or poetry;
- Despite the fact that the alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, some letters may cause difficulties for tourists. Here are some of them:
How to learn Turkish?
Of course, for short term It is simply impossible to learn Turkish. The basics for a tourist include a minimum set of rules and words that will allow him to at least superficially communicate with the local population. IN in this case you can go several ways:
- take a Turkish language course at a linguistic center or school (this is one of optimal options, giving the fastest results);
- hire a tutor or take lessons via Skype;
- study with the help of a self-instruction manual, as well as materials posted on the Internet.
Whatever method you choose, it is important to base your goal on learning Turkish. The basics for a tourist should include the basics that will allow you to express yourself politely and competently in the most common life situations.
How to understand Turkish by ear?
Communication involves not only speech, but also auditory perception. Any foreign language It’s not so easy to understand, and Turkish even more so. To learn to understand fluent speech, theoretical knowledge alone is not enough. You need to use additional techniques:
- Listen to songs in Turkish. And don’t just listen, but try to recognize and translate individual words and sentences. If the task turns out to be overwhelming for you, find the lyrics of the song on the Internet and read them while listening to the song.
- Watch Turkish films. Thanks to them, you will not only learn to perceive speech by ear, but also become familiar with its basic intonations. Ideally, you should use the video without translation (in extreme cases, with subtitles).
Sign language
One of the most mysterious countries is Türkiye. It is very important for tourists to know so as not to get into an awkward or even conflict situation. Here are the main points:
- A thumbs up signifies approval. But it’s better for girls not to use it, and even more so, not to catch a car in this way. Such a gesture can be misinterpreted by hot Turkish men.
- Do not use when wishing good luck. The Turkish may think that you do not want to continue communication.
- A clenched fist with an extended little finger symbolizes resentment towards a person.
- If a Turk pulls back his lower eyelid with his finger, this means that he has noticed the deception. This is a kind of manifestation of mistrust.
- Never use the "OK" gesture. In Turkey it is associated with homosexuality.
- “Dulya,” which in our country is considered a fairly harmless gesture, in Turkey is equivalent to raising the middle finger up.
- Nodding your head means denial.
Body language is quite insidious, so unless you know its meaning thoroughly, it is better to behave as reservedly as possible.
Some common phrases
When going on a trip, many take a Russian-Turkish phrasebook with them. This is an important acquisition for a tourist, but you also need to learn the most popular phrases in Turkish:
These, of course, are not all the words a tourist needs. Start small and the Turkish language will surely follow you!
