Imagine yourself with a swollen tongue trying to talk. That is what it is like speaking the Turkish language. I feel like I am constantly trying to speak tongue twisters. Too many times Turkish words are very long with many consonants placed next to each other which trip you up while speaking the word. What is up with that?!?!? Who created this language?!?!
In the beginning I struggled with this challenge. For example; Memnun Oldum, which means -nice to meet you. Who puts a "m" and a "n" right next to one another and think that people can enunciate each letter. It took me about a half an hour walking around the house saying the word over and over in order to speak it right without tripping over my tongue. Or tekrarlayin; pronounced ta crahr lahyeen, meaning repeat. Every letter is to be pronounced...easy for them to say. This has been the interesting part of learning the language; the enunciation.
Another interesting thing is that their words follow a situational context in order to say. For example; Gule Gule- means goodbye, but you can't say it if you are leaving. Gule Gule is a response you say to a person who said goodbye to you as they were leaving..... and you stay at your location. Hos cakalin; means goodbye, but is only said when you are the person leaving. AND after all have said goodbye you will finish your goodbye with a Gursurs which means see you later. Note there are more words for Good bye that have specific situational context to them.
It is the same thing with the word hello. There are many ways to say hello, but you have to think about the context and the situation that you are in prior to speaking the form of hello. There are hellos when answering the phone (Alo and Enfendim), hellos depending on the time of the day(iyi Aksamlar- good evening, iyi geceler- Good nigh) and hellos connected with your situation (Hos geldin- Welcome, Merhaba- hello). Turkish is all about the context.
Turkish has 29 letters in their Alphabet. Most vowels are pronounced differently than the English form. Several letters are also different. For example; the letter "c" is never a "K" sound. C is either a "j" or a "ch" sound, depending on if there is a squiggle line under the "c". Here is their alphabet; a, be, ce, çe, de, e, fe, ge, yumuşak ge, he, ı, i, je, ke, le, me, ne, o, ö, pe, re, se, şe, te, u, ü, ve, ye, ze.
As far as sentence structure; well that is also different. They speak their subject and object first, then the action. And instead of linking verbs or prepositions; you add the possessive, plural and such to the end of the action word used in the sentence. For example..... to say "I am" in the Turkish language you add a "yim" to the end of the word. To say, I am a student is Ben ogrenciyim- I student am. So, now adding to the end of the word makes the difficult word even harder to pronounce. You should hear me speak when I am learning new words and sentences, because it is hilarious.
Well, even though this is a challenge it is fun. I have met a couple of Brits, two Egyptians, a Filipino and a Korean. We are having a good time laughing at ourselves and learning a lot. It will take time for me to speak the language comfortably, but it is fun!
