I think for the most part, the Turkish language has a lot of the same sounds as English, they’re just structured differently. The letters and the way you represent the sounds is different, as letters like o and u and i don’t exist in the English alphabet, but the sounds they represent are also found in English. The i in the Turkish word altı, for example, has the same sound as the ending syllable in the English word substantial. The only major difference I have found is the pronunciation of the “r.” In Turkish, the “r” is rolled slightly, similar to the Spanish “r.” We identified that as a tapping or trilling action in class on Tuesday. I don't know a whole lot of Turkish words, so I don't think I'm in a position to truly determine which phonetic sounds do or do not exist. All I have is my limited Turkish experience and a handful of vocabulary words.
I think the main challenge for me is not learning how to produce the sounds in Turkish, but learning to put the sounds together in unfamiliar ways. Even though Turkish and English have many of the same sounds, the rhythm of each language differs substantially from the other. The way words are structured and the order in which you put sounds together is unique to each language. I think learning to put sounds or phones together in ways I don’t usually speak will be a bit of a challenge, but that will come with practice.
Another thing I want to learn is the intonation and rhythm of sentences in Turkish. In English, we emphasize certain syllables in a word or certain words in a sentence, creating a very up-and-down speech rhythm. I’m not sure how Turkish functions, if it’s similar to English in that manner or if it more closely resembles the way French is spoken, with every syllable emphasized in exactly the same way and every sentence spoken in a very even manner. I’ll have to ask Merve!
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