These past two weeks in Turkish have given me a better understanding of where I am presently as a language learner. I am an intermediate level speaker.
Two weeks ago Hazal and planned to sit down to do a test of my language skills for a scholarship (ARIT) to which I had applied for summer language study. I was aware that the scholarship wanted advanced-level speakers from the beginning, but was unsure what was meant by advanced. I initially turned down the suggestion when my history professor recommended it to me, but later thought that by the time I would have finished this class that I would be at the advanced level. I was not aware of a test being required for the scholarship and that it would have to be done so early in the semester. On test day, I read over the instructions of the test and, after some wavering, told Hazal it was too much. Hazal told me that the test used many obscure words with which even she had trouble. This was somewhat comforting. That night I emailed the director of the scholarship that the test clearly showed I was not at the level which they desired. I also cancelled the assessment interview I had scheduled with her. She was encouraging and asked me to apply again for next summer, inshallah. Looking back to why I am not at that level now, when my classmate from 2018 very well may be, I think to the large temporal gaps in my language study. Because this program allows me to study, for the first time, during the semester and my graduate program will have Turkish language studies within it, I will never have to have such a gap again. That night I applied to University of Indiana’s summer program. While there will no doubt be overlap with what I am studying with Hazal, I will ensure that I can study this summer, regardless if I get accepted into the other summer language study scholarship to which I will apply shortly.
Hazal and I have been working from the book recently. The great deviation was our lesson on cuss words, which I am told bazaris tell tourists are words for objects. Imagine that you don’t speak English but can ask “What is this?” and the shop keeper tells you “it is a ‘go fuck your mother’”—that kind of prank. The tourist would then go around to other shops asking how much a “go fuck your mother” is. I will be watching and taking notes on a movie that Hazal has selected because of its heavy concentration of cuss words. Personally, I favor using phrases with “god” or “allah” in them—allah allah!, vallahi!, etc—which are Arabic with a Turkish accent. The book has been helpful. It has presented many different words following particular themes. In the readings it uses those words in context. Thus a chapter on moving somewhere new talks about rent, air conditioners, transportation, and real estate and has a list of “nouns (adjectives and nouns” and verbs on these topics. This has been very helpful. My biggest issue, however, is memorizing vocabulary.
For Persian, I have carried this method of language learning over from Turkish. We focus mainly on nouns, adjectives, verbs, and sentences, but he has also given my phrases that I should watch out for such as when someone might tell you to stop, freeze, or not to move, all phrases that are possible for a visitor of Afghanistan today, I imagine. We have organized the vocabulary such that it is thematic. On each session, he gives me 15-20 new words. Colors or animals, body parts, or sayings of salutations have been past themes. I have begun the habit of staying at VCU after my Arabic class ends to review these words. The method I use is one that I acquired from Arabic. Since the script is different than that of Turkish, I have to accustom myself to the shapes of the words. I think this is a process of training the eye and the hand to recognize a form. This has to do with knowing what letters make up the word, but also the general shape of the word all together. My goal is to be able to glance at a word while reading and to know what it means. The distinction to be made here is that one does not need to dissect a familiar word into letters to identify it. One simply glances at it and the meaning is evident. It is as if you know the word by seeing its first two letters and the general shape of what follows. Perhaps you can even guess the phrase. To do this, I have been very neatly writing the words Habib has given me on the school white boards. I write them slowly. I think it is this attention to form that helps most. Habib sends me photographs of the words he has presented to me. When at the VCU whiteboard, I transcribe these words and say what I remember Habib saying when he read them to me. Once I am done writing these words, I guess at their meaning and then erase those I know. I look up or reference Habib’s definitions, photograph the whiteboard, and erase it. Then I rewrite the words and repeat the process. Words I cannot get after round three or four, I write into a sentence. These sentences are those that I send to Habib.
All together, I am happy with the course of my studies at present. My biggest concern is with Turkish and my inability to memorize words and the seeming ineffectiveness of Quizlet for this task. It is almost as if Turkish might be easier to learn if it were still written in the Persian script.
Replies