For the last two weeks of class, my language partner, Hazal, and I transitioned our lessons to Zoom. This was a bit difficult because we could not work on the packet at the same time, but it led to more conversation. There was a bit of internet connection difficulty and time difference between me and Hazal (who was in Turkey) but we made the most of it!
We learned new vocabulary words under the theme of places. Eczane means supermarket, kasap means butcher, kuyumcu means jeweler, hastane means hospital, manav is a market but more of a vegetable grocer, postane is post office, kafe is café, magaza means shop, sokak means street, kuaför means hair salon, park means park, pastane means patisserie, firin means bakery, otel means hotel, market means market, and banka means bank. It was fun to see how some words such as market have the same spelling and meaning in Turkish and English. It was also interesting to see how I could identify some words because of the similarity in spelling. For example, as soon as I saw the words kafe, otel, and banka, I could identify their meanings.
I also learned isim cümleleri which are nominal sentences. This concept was a bit similar to that in the Spanish languages. There were different pronoun categories including ben which means I, sen which means you, o which means he/she, biz which means we, siz, which is a formal you, onlar which means them. There are different suffixes you add at the end for olumlu which means positive, olumsuz which means negative, olumlu soru which means a positive question, and olumsuz soru which means a negative question. I noticed that I had been using mostly the ben, sen, and o with my language partner when we have conversations. However, I had not used or seen the biz, siz, and onlar suffixes so it was very difficult to suddenly memorize the new rules. There was a chart on the workbook, which organized all the rules which was very helpful. Hazal and I practiced the biz, siz, and onlar that I was not used to seeing. For example, “neredesiniz?” is asking where are you for the siz category. The answer might be “Istanbul’dayiz” which means “I am in Istanbul” but I found it very important to recognize the ending “-yiz”.
To practice the concept, I filled in only the suffixes of words after identifying which pronoun category the stem belonged to. Then, I would fill in the suffix. After this exercise, Hazal asked questions in different pronoun categories. I then had to construct complete sentences in the correct pronoun category. This exercise was challenging because I had to identify the pronoun category by ear, but it helped me understand the concept and practice with my language partner.
In my last class with Hazal, we talked about me hopefully visiting Turkey one day and practicing the Turkish I had learned. I plan to continue my Turkish studies after graduation. I realized how difficult learning a language is, but also how rewarding is. I really appreciate Hazal for being so patient and enthusiastic.
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