These past two weeks I moved on to Unit 2 of “Nerede?” with my language partner, Hazal. Nerede? Means where is it? Therefore, on this unit, we focused on locatives in particular. First, I learned specific words that signify a locative sentence or question. First, “var” means there is. “Yok” means we have or I have. “Nerede” means where is it. Finally, “kimde”’ means “who has it?”. We learned some representative examples, such as Sinifta kim var? which means Who is in the classroom. The sentence structure differs from that of English. Sinifta means classroom, kim means who, and var means there. Therefore, if literally translated, the sentence would say “classroom who there”. This may be a bit confusing, but luckily I speak Korean, a language that has a similar sentence structure to Turkish. Another concept that I had to remember was vowel harmony. For example, another question is “Masada kitap var mi?” which means “is the book on the table?”. Because we want to signify the table, we have to add “da” but because “masa” ends in a, we have to add “da” rather than “de”. “Da” means “on” or “on it”.
We also read a situational passage about a girl named Kate in a school. She was explaining the building in terms of what floor the school was on and what floor the office was on. She explained how many students and teachers were at the school. The passage included vocabulary words that I had learned earlier including “kitaplar, defterler, perdeler, lambalar, bilgisayar, and kalemler”. I have found that reading a whole passage in Turkish is extremely helpful for me. I can use context clues to figure out the definitions of words that I do not yet know. Additionally, I can further study sentence structure and notice concepts including vowel harmony and the plural system.
From the passage we read, we had to answer questions to make sure I had understood the passage. The questions asked basic locative questions such as Okul nerede? (where is the school), Okulda kimler var? (Who is at the school?), Ofiste neler var? (What do we have in the office?), Okulda kac sinif car? (Howw many classrooms are in the school?), and Ogrenciler nerede? (Where are the students?)
I have noticed that because the workbook we use is completely in Turkish, I have advanced a lot quicker than I had expected. In the beginning, it was a bit frustrating, but with time, I find myself understanding the directions before my language partner translates it for me. We also used the questions given to describe the classroom we were in. By having conversations with Hazal, I can improve my pronunciation and practice how to form sentences by myself. Hazal will often not only ask me questions but also allow me to ask questions, so I can practice both. Also, we focus on objects that can be found commonly in offices and classrooms to reiterate the vocabulary. By increasing the number of times I am exposed to the vocabulary, I found that I can actually memorize them rather than saving them in my short-term memory bank.
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