Turkish:
I met Hazal for the first time officially on Thursday. It says something about the importance of continuously using a language that I was waiting for her for an hour the day prior because I mixed up the two Turkish words “Çaršamba” and “Peršembe (Wedneday and Thurday, respectively).”
She has taken an active role in forming the class. Having met once prior to discuss the structure and goals we would follow, she came prepared with review material, a passage, and two printed songs. The meeting lasted around two hours and twenty minutes and was, all in all, successful. This meeting will be a rough template for meetings to come.
When I met her in her office, she said hello and I said Merhaba. I wanted to speak Turkish as much as possible. Thinking back to last summer, I had learned practice in speaking is the only way to build confidence in my ability to speak. We conducted around eighty percent of our communication in Turkish. Toward the end this became harder to continue, as I had not eaten for several hours prior and the room in which we were working was small, windowless and yellow. Next time, I will eat soon before the meeting so that I do not tire on account of hunger.
After a Turk kahvesi, we worked on simple vocabulary and dialogues. I was familiar with around ninety percent of the material, which made me fairly confident. I learned there is a different locative(ish) suffix for parts of the day. Whereas if I want to say “at four o’clock” I would say “saat dörte,” If I wanted to say “in the morning” I would say “sabahın.”
Beside small grammatical concepts such as this, vocabulary is my greatest obstacle. It is not uncommon for me to underline four to seven words of a sentence of ten words. I think we can create a good deal of exposure to new vocabulary by the method we have taken up, which is to develop particular vocabularies by reading works on particular topics. In this way, we are developing my historical vocabulary by beginning to read history. I will try to keep this as the central topic of the readings so that I will be able to read Turkish books on Ottoman history later on.
Altogether, I think the method we are using will be helpful. Classroom immersion, focused readings, the ability to ask what a grammatical concept expresses, will help my speaking and reading capabilities. My only concern is that when reading passages with many new words, it is easy to look them up, but much harder to memorize them, especially when new words occur at such a frequency. I plan to use Quizlet to compile these words, but expect the quantity of new words to become overwhelming. My hope is that exposure to new words and the act of employing them in speech will help solidify my memory.
On the second day we met, we spoke mostly about Turkish culture, after reviewing various colloquialisms. She spoke most of the time and I listened. It was interesting to hear about someone from her backgound's view of recent events and of Turkish politics today.
In regard to Persian:
Habib and I met for the first time over Facetime this Thursday. Our goals are more modest and slower paced than those that I am pursuing with Hazal. I had already familiarized myself with the Persian alphabet, having taken a course in Arabic and reviewed the differences between the Persian and Arabic alphabets. He informed me that some of the sounds used in Arabic such as “he” and “ha” are pronounced the same in Persian. What is different is the spelling ه ح , a difference akin to “ph” and “f” in English. For now, however, I will just continue with the Arabic pronunciation of such letters. I am also happy to begin using letters such as آ پ گ چ, which were used in Ottoman. ڭ is the last letter in Ottoman that have not formally learned.
We spent a decent amount of the hour dealing with technical issues. I leaded that I should use my phone or tablet instead of my computer.
We decided that we would work together translating sentences. This would build a basic understanding of grammar and syntax as well as introduce new words. After each class, I would have fifteen to twenty new words to memorize for the next class. I would also be able to ask him questions as they arose.
Outside of our meetings, along with studying vocabulary, I would work independently on grammar. I wave a small grammar guide, which I am to send to Habib (in my first attempt to do this, I sent him a dictionary instead.) With both of us in possession of the book, I will be more able to communicate my questions on its contents.
Inside of class, I will be accumulating new words, gaining exposure to syntax and grammar in context. Outside of class I will be expanding my knowledge of grammatical structures and memorizing vocabulary.
For next meeting, I am to memorize basic common words such as pronouns and the names of familial roles. I have also begun to explore verb tenses and accumulate a visit of verbs as well. At present, I think that I could conjugate a verb if the need arose.
On the next two meetings, I presented sentences which we reviewed. My thought was that I would try to form sentences over various complexities and Habib would tell me how far I was from the mark. I managed to do pretty well with my constructions, even writing correctly three of eight sentences. This has left me pretty confident. Becuase I am familiar with Latin and have experience with Turkish and Arabic, I already know many Persian words.
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Great post, Chris. Let me know if I can help facilitate the delivery of key texts and resources between you and Habib-Jan.