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Here I wrote one page in Turkish. I talked a little bit about my life, then about exams that I will have next week. I am really happy with this artifact because I used so many grammar tenses that me and my teaching assistant covered this semester. I am happy that I am actually able to use all the tenses that we have covered. Now I know that I actually understood and can apply the rules by forming sentences. I probably did make some mistakes but overall I think that any Turkish person would be able to understand what I wrote, and that is why I believe I did a great job here with this artifact.

Whenever I tell someone that I am learning Turkish they ask me if I have ever visited Turkey and if I have ever tried famous Turkish tea. And my answers to those questions are always YES and YES. First time I tried Turkish tea I burned my fingers, because tea (also known as cay in Turkish) is served in a glass and not in a cup, and I thought that the glass was made of some special kind that does not transfer the heat but I was wrong. Turkish people like to drink hot tea but the proper way of holding the glass is to hold the upper edge of the glass where tea does not reach and thus the glass is not hot in that part. I bought some Turkish tea in Turkey and tried to prepare it home but when I prepared it, it tasted really awful, because I prepared it just like regular tea, I did not know that Turkish tea is supposed to be prepared in a special way. Turkish tea is usually black and is mostly cultivated on the Black Sea coast. I was however surprised to find out that Turkish tea tasted different at different places, I tried it at one place in Istanbul and at several places in Bursa, and every time I tried it, it tasted different. Every restaurant/place has its own flavors and tricks that make tea taste different. To prepare Turkish tea, Turks use caydanlik which is a two stacked kettle, the bottom part is filled with hot, boiling water whereas the upper part is for the tea brew. It usually takes about 30 minutes to prepare this tea, which is really surprising considering that in the US culture or in Bosnian culture we just put a tea bag in boiling water and drink it. To get the full taste of Turkish tea, you have to use leaves and not tea bags. You first wash tea leaves with cold water to remove any dust and place them in the upper kettle. Then you put water in the bottom kettle to boil, and once it boils you put some of that boiling water in the upper kettle to brew the leaves. Leave this for about 20 minutes to brew. Once the time is up, the tea is ready to be served. It is usually served with 2 sugar cubes.

It is also important to know how to serve Turkish tea, for example if you put too little tea leaves it is called acik which is “weak tea”, and if you put too many leaves it becomes koyu which means “dark, strong tea”. Both are extremes and are considered bad. That is why it is important to emphasize your preference when ordering Turkish tea. Drinking tea in Turkey is as important (if not even more) as it is in England. You drink tea in the morning, afternoon, but mostly you drink it in the evenings when you  meet with your friends and have long conversations. Personally, I am not a big fan of Turkish tea, I do not like the taste of it very much. I think that you just have to get used to it. But it is interesting how Turkish people drink glasses and glasses of tea every day, whereas in Bosnia we rarely ever drink tea. In Bosnia when we gather with friends we drink coffee, whereas in Turkey they either drink coffee or tea. I am glad that I have tried Turkish tea in Turkey and got this experience. Even though I am not a big fan of Turkish tea, I am planning to drink it again the next time I go to Turkey.

http://www.deliciousistanbul.com/blog/2011/02/04/turkish-tea/

I made this video by recording my voice, and using special effects to make it sound as if Ms. Hanife was talking with me in the video. I am happy with this final artifact because I have used a lot of grammar in this video that me and Miss Hanife covered this semester. Also, I included English subtitle so that our "conversation" can be understood by people who cannot understand Turkish. Overall I am happy with this artifact and I hope you find it entertaining! 

Link is provided here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LGvnK6brf0&feature=youtu.be

My interest in Turkish culture and Turkey in general began when I visited Turkey prior to coming to the United States for school. I went to visit my Turkish friend who I went to high school with. I spent 10 days in Turkey and spent most of my time in Istanbul and Bursa. There are so many things about Turkish culture that I wanted to do my presentation on such as Turkish coffee, tea, cuisine, holidays etc, however I decided to do a research on bachelorette party in Turkey. My Turkish friends always joke how I will marry a Turkish guy and that I should learn more about all the procedures and events that happen prior and during the wedding. There are 3 parts of traditional Turkish wedding customs, but I have decided to talk about part 2 only as I find it very interesting and much more different from what bachelorette party is in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Henna is a dye that you use to make temporary tattoos on your body. From my research I found out that Henna is used to show that something is being sacrificed. In the past  it was considered to put henna on an object that you are going to sacrifice, for example in the Ottoman time, soldiers would put henna somewhere on their body to demonstrate that they are sacrificing themselves for their people and country. Another example is more religious, during a religious holiday when Muslims sacrifice an animal usually a sheep or a cow in the name of God, they usually put henna on the animal and this represents sacrificing. When it comes to weddings in Turkey, henna is put on a bride to demonstrate that her body and being is sacrificed to her husband that she is going to live with. Basically it represents a sacrificing bride. In the past, the bride to be would be covered in henna from head to toe and somewhere on her body, the henna artist would include the initials of her husband and the husbands task on the wedding night was to find those initials.

The Henna night is held one day before the wedding. It generally takes place at the girls home or a bride rents a place. Since this night is like bachelorette party, only girls are invited. In the past, the bride’s mother would stop by each guest’s house the night before the henna night and personally invite the family members and friends, only female members. However, today bride usually just gives a phone call in advance to her friends and tell them where the party will be held.

These days, brides prepare so much more in advance, for example they prepare for henna night 3 months earlier. The party usually ends at 1am, and because brides have to get up early for the wedding that is the next day some brides have a day off between henna and the wedding.

Usually, the bride wears everything red, she wears red dress, red veil and her friends can also wear red if they want but they don’t have to. When all female friends and relatives come to the place, bride usually comes with her groom and sometimes groom brings some of his close friends. Bride and groom dance to a romantic song for a bit and then groom and his male relatives leave. Sometimes, groom actually stays, it just depends on how they agree. So once guys leave, girls who are veiled can remove their veil, girls wear short dresses etc.

Basi butun or “whose head is complete” is a lady whose life is basically perfect. She has a perfect, happy marriage, kids, and parents and she is the one who brings henna on a silver bowl into the room. After they dance for a bit, then the traditional part starts when the bride to be sits in the middle and other girls around her surround her. Girls hold henna and candles in their hands. Then, girls start walking around the bride and sing very emotional songs to make her cry. The songs are usually about how the bride is going to leave her house and family, how mothers are losing their daughters, and daughters becoming wives. This is usually the first time that the bride is going away from home, so they generally cry when they hear such songs. But the bride does not have to cry, it is not a rule. While the girls are singing they want the bride to open her palm so that they can put henna on her palm as a way to sacrifice her, but bride does not open the palm. Then, her mother in law comes up to the bride and puts a golden coin on her closed palm and that is when she opens her palm and then girls put henna in her hands. Bride usually starts crying then, and once the bride starts crying party starts.

Apart from getting that one gold coin in her palm, bride usually gets a lot of god at henna night from her own family and grooms family. In the past, girls would put henna all over brides hands, but these days they don’t put that much henna anymore.

There are several important dances, but the most important dance is called HALAY (dugun halay),

One of the important parts of the henna night is called ISTEKLER- and this is when people call on others to dance together. For example bride can call on her sister to dance with groom’s sister. What always happens is that brides mother and mother in law are always called to dance together.

Then there is TAKI part which is when grooms mother puts so much jewelry on bride. Usually the bride and mother in law agree on what bride wants to get from mother in law and then she buys it for her. For example, she can ask for 5 golden braces and 1 set when you get earrings, necklace and braces etc.  After taki, ladies dance halay for an hour and then leave.

Henna night usually ends around 1am and then what happens around 3 am is called CEREZ TOPLAMA. Family and friends who live close by take a small drum called darbuka or they could also have a car that plays music and in the middle of the night they knock on close relatives’ doors and ask for nuts and fruits, usually for something sweet. Relatives know that they will be coming late at night, so they always prepare sweet things. They can also knock on anyone’s door, everyone wakes up because of that small drum that is very loud and because they are all loud, they are singing and laughing.

At the end of CEREZ TOPLAMA, it is tradition to go to grooms house and take some clothes from mother in law and burn it in front of their house. This is like a superstition saying that if you burn her clothes, the bride and mother in law will get along in future.

Also attending other students presentations, I learned a lot about other cultures. I learned that Swedes are not very open, they do not flirt, and do not show emotions very much. When a couple goes out they usually split for the meal, because if they did not, a girl would be offended if a guy insists. They usually value commitment and not paper. Also, they are not a big fan of engagement rings.

In Korea, Koreans think homosexuality is a disease and that it can be cured, their biggest problem is ignorance and that topic is usually taboo and they do not like to talk about homosexualtiy. It is also important to arrive on time for the meetings, but if you arrive too early, that is disruptive, and being late is only for people in power. I found it interesting that when you get a business card you do not put it in your pocket immediately, but you have to take a look at it for a while and only then you can put it in your pocket.

Overall, I learned some interesting facts about other cultures and I always enjoy learning about other culture, but I truly believe that Turkey has the most interesting culture and that is why I find learning about Turkish culture most entertaining.

I have decided to talk about “the bachelorette party in Turkey” for my final presentation. Miss Hanife gave me actually this idea when she told me that her sister is getting married this year and that she is already preparing the bachelorette party. I asked her what the bachelorette party looks like, she told me several things that I found very surprising but interesting. For example this night is called “Henna night”. When I heard that, I decided to do some research, and I found out that henna means “protection, happiness” and that it is an integral part of the wedding process and that if the bride to be does not have it during the bachelorette party or the official wedding, she is not going to be accepted to heaven. Then, during my research I found out that there are 3 parts of the wedding; the engagement, the henna night and the official wedding. I also found out that girls prepare for this night so much in advance, several months in advance actually.

Also, the most important dance during the henna night is called halay dance, which when I watched some YouTube videos, I realized that we in Bosnia have a similar dance which is actually traditional dance. That is when people hold each other’s hands and dance in a circle. For my final presentation I will include a YouTube video of this dance so the audience can see what the dance looks like. Also, this time is when the bride to be gets a lot of jewelry, especially gold. In my research I also found that there is a traditional part called ISTEKLER and that is when people call each other to dance together. This is especially common thing to do at the official wedding, for example the bride can call her sister to dance and then somebody else can call the groom’s brother to dance together, and this is how people can actually meet up, dance together. I find this part interesting and I am looking forward to researching more about this part. There are a lot of important and interesting parts of this Henna night that I am excited to research and share with the audience. First of all, I want to know the real meaning of using henna at the bachelorette party, its importance and learning more about all the steps and events that happen prior to the actual wedding.

Turkish%20presentation%20Henna%20night.pptx

I was impressed when I realized how much me and Ms. Hanife covered this semester. I have been taking Turkish for 3 semesters and even though I have always been an overachiever, I never thought we could actually cover this much in such a short period of time. It may seem that we only covered a lot of material, but I actually understood everything that we covered and I am pretty much confident that I can use it in my daily conversation with my Turkish friends. Not only does my language partner says that I have improved but my Turkish friends are very much impressed and when they see me they hardly ever speak to me in English, they keep speaking to me in Turkish. This is very motivational because I feel that they believe I have enough Turkish knowledge to be able to understand whatever they are telling me, and I do indeed, I do understand most of what they speak but I find it much harder to actually express myself in Turkish. I believe that it is like that for any language, it is much easier to understand the language that is being spoken to you, than actually speak it and form sentences using the right grammar and vocabulary. I find it especially hard with Turkish language, considering the fact that there are just so many tenses, and rules, and exceptions that you have to be careful and pay attention to. Looking back at how little I actually knew, I basically knew only present continuous and now I am able to use some advanced grammar/tense in Turkish such as reporting tense, then some tenses that do not even exist in English. I found it particularly difficult to understand rules and tenses that do not exist in English or Bosnian. Me and Miss Hanife would spend much more time on such tenses than on some rules that are more less similar to the languages that I speak. At the beginning of this semester when my language partner told me that we should finish the book we were using last semester (which is really intense and detailed) I did not believe that it could happen, especially because the material in following chapters was getting tougher and harder. But we were determined and we worked hard on accomplishing our goal, and last week when we actually finished the book, I was just so impressed and happy that I just could not believe it. I just wish I could take Turkish language next semester as well, but since I am graduating in May that may seem impossible. I wish I had taken Turkish from my freshmen year. If I had been taking Turkish language from my freshman year, I wonder how much I would have known now. I am pretty sure that I would be pretty much fluent, considering that in only 3 semesters I have accomplished this much. My language partner said that the book we used is for intermediate students and definitely not for the beginners. I like how me and Miss Hanife focused a lot on communication which helped me become more confident speaking in Turkish. Before, I used to not speak up in Turkish because I thought I would not be able to form sentences correctly, or that I would make some huge, silly mistakes, but working with Miss Hanife really helped me boost my Turkish confidence and I do not have this fear anymore. That is what my Turkish friends also realized and pointed it out to me. Even though our biggest source of learning Turkish was the intermediate book, I have also used other sources, mostly Turkish TV shows, music, news. Biggest help was definitely my language partner who would correct my mistakes, explain the material whenever I found it confusing and hard, practiced with me, and communicated in Turkish with me. The most rewarding achievement for me is my satisfaction that I have improved my Turkish, that I became more confident speaking it and being able to understand my Turkish friends and talk to them. Even though I know that I do make mistakes when I speak in Turkish, I am sure that I make less mistakes now compared how much I made last semester. I am a kinesthetic learner, I learn the best through hands on experience. So basically, when I learn vocabulary, the easiest way and most efficient way for me to memorize the words is by writing them down, repeating them and rewriting them again. When it comes to learning how to pronounce Turkish words/letters, the best way for me is watching Turkish TV shows and listening to songs. One of my goals was also to learn more about Turkish culture and I sure have accomplished this. I did a lot of research on Turkish culture just to find out the most interesting topic for my Turkish presentation, and when I found out the topic that I wanted to research further, I spent a lot of time learning about it, preparing the presentation which gave me a better insight into Turkish culture.

Overall, I believe that this was a very beneficial class for me, and working with my language partner Miss Hanife was very helpful and enjoyable. Everything was going smoothly and scheduled right at my pace. Whenever I thought we were going too fast or when I did not understand something, I would always spend more time on that particular material until I understand it completely, and this was really helpful for me. Thus, we were not rushing to cover all the material just to go over it, but we made sure that everything we cover I understand. By working hard every week, and by being motivated and determined we were able to finish the entire book.

I only wish I could continue taking Turkish and working with Miss Hanife. However, I am graduating so it seems impossible. I will have to work on my own now. I believe I have a really strong base, I can continue building strong vocabulary, learning new grammar/tenses and of course keep communicating with my Turkish friends and visit Turkey in the near future.

Overall, I am really happy with how much I improved, and I believe that this class was extremely helpful for me not only that it helped me learn Turkish language, but learn more about Turkey in general, learn about its tradition, culture and people.

I am proud to say that Ms. Hanife and I accomplished our goal. Our goal was to finish the rest of the book that we used last semester and during these two weeks we managed to finish it off. I simply cannot believe that we have covered so much material in such a short time, but everything was going smoothly and just at right pace.

These last two weeks we worked a little bit on grammar, and mostly we were revising the material we covered throughout this semester and focused on conversation. I was surprised that I was able to lead conversation in Turkish using more advanced grammar, vocabulary and even some idioms. We spent one session listening to Turkish songs, reading poems, and talking about Turkish culture. After talking to Ms. Hanife about Turkish culture and traditions I finally figured out what I want to deliver my presentation on. I have decided to talk about Turkish bachelorette party. Ms. Hanife’s sister is getting married and she told me how the entire family is already preparing for the wedding that will be held in June. Miss Hanife gave me this idea and now my task is to do a lot of research and be ready to present it. Even though I was initially planning to talk about hookah, I have realized that it will be much more interesting to talk about the bachelorette party, especially because it is much more different from what bachelorette parties look like in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United States.

These last two weeks, I was revising with Miss Hanife all the material that we have covered this semester. We covered the entire book, and my language partner said that I improved a lot. Going back to the first chapter, I realized how easy that material is compared to the material in the last chapters. Revising present continuous, past simple, future tense all the way to reporting tense and learning how to say that you are doing two actions at the same time, I came to realized that we have covered more material than I thought we ever could in such a short period of time. There are of course some tenses that when I looked at back were a bit blurry and I could not remember exactly how to use them but when I revised them, I remembered.  I also wrote my “I can statement” and me and Ms. Hanife went over it again. My final exam is in a few days but my Turkish learning will definitely not stop there. I am determined to learn Turkish and I am really motivated to learn it and I will continue learning it, watching Turkish TV shows, and listening to Turkish songs and most importantly keep communicating in Turkish with my Turkish friends. I am looking forward to improving even more and one day speaking Turkish fluently.

These two weeks me and Ms. Hanife worked on more grammar and vocabulary. Turkish language has so many rules, that I usually get so confused which tense to use when. During these two weeks I learned when to use ending “-ip” on the verb. Basically, when you perform two actions at the same time, or one action immediately following another we use this tense. So for example if you want to say “I took my jacket and left home”, in Turkish it would be “Jaketim aldip, evimden ciktim”. First, I took my jacket and then I left home. I found this tense interesting and actually useful. More interesting thing is that you use the same “-ip” ending regardless of whether you are talking about yourself, 1 person or several, and then the other part of the sentence can be in present continuous, future tense or past tense. I also learned the difference in using “cunku” and “bu nedenle”, they both mean “because of” but you cannot use them interchangeably. For example, if you say “I want to talk to you because I think you misunderstood me” is when you use “cunku”, however if you wanna say “I think you misunderstood me and because of that I want to talk to you” is when you use bu nedenle. It may seem complicated at first, but when you understand it once, you will be able to apply it in conversations. Practicing this tense these two weeks, I feel comfortable using it and I do not think I might have any serious problems using this tense.

Me and Ms. Hanife also had a session when we read Turkish poems, and talked about Turkish culture. We read some popular poems that Ms. Hanife likes very much and that are not very hard to understand by a beginner/intermediate level students.

I have been talking to my language partner about Turkish culture/traditions to help me figure out what I should deliver my cultural presentation on. Right now, I am planning to talk about hookah and importance of hookah on Turkish culture. Last time I presented on Turkish coffee, and the audience enjoyed hearing about famous Turkish coffee and tea. Considering that hookah/nargila is very popular in Turkey I believe that this could be an interesting topic to do a research. Also, I could compare it to Bosnian culture where hookah is very popular. I talked to my language partner and she said that this could be an interesting topic and that hookah is more famous in certain parts of Turkey and less popular in other parts. I think it would be interesting to do a research on this and see why there is a difference and how significant that difference is.

So far, I like how my Turkish is improving. My Turkish friends say that I have improved a lot, and that always motivates me. However, we are covering a lot of complicated material and a lot of tenses so the more I learn I feel like the less I know. I wonder if I will ever be able to master this language and be able to speak it fluently. There are just so many exceptions and rules that you cannot simply learn by heart but pick up by using the language daily. This is challenging task for me, and that is why I actually like this language and I am determined to learn it no matter how hard it is. It may take me several years, but since i am really interested in the language, I think I can accomplish my goal.

Turkey is very famous for hookah also known as shisha/nargila in Turkish. Even though hookah is thought to have originated in India, it is mostly smoked in Turkey. First time I tried hookah in my life was when I went to Turkey in 2010 to visit my friend. I was so surprised to see that almost every single bar/restaurant/coffee shop offered hookah. People have hookah in their homes and apartments and it is a common thing to smoke for both genders. Initially I thought that only guys would smoke it, but I was honestly surprised that women in Turkey smoke it as much. I went out with my Turkish friend that I was visiting and we ordered hookah. At first I was a little bit afraid of smoking it because I had never smoked it again and I did not know what to expect. When smoking hookah, you can choose any flavor you want, you can choose apple, strawberry or any other fruit or even a combination of fruits. I remember we ordered apple flavor. I thought it was going to be strong and that it is similar to cigarettes, but I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it. It was so smooth and light and relaxing. Then I realized why Turkish people like it so much. It is very relaxing, and Turkish people usually drink tea or coffee while smoking hookah and also play a very famous game Havla. People usually smoke it at night. They spend so much time smoking it, they sit for hours and hours talking to their friends and playing games. It is not like in the US where you can be at one place for a bit and then have to leave, these places in Turkey let you stay there for hours even if you get only one drink per night. When you get hookah you can smoke it for hours because the flavor does not vanish so quickly. It is also very cheap to smoke hookah in Turkey, it is more expensive here in Richmond. I was in Turkey during Ramadan, Muslim’s holy month when people are not allowed to eat/drink/smoke anything from the sunrise to sunset. That is why people did not smoke during the day, but as soon as the sun went down, and people had dinner they would start smoking hookah. I tried hookah in Bursa and I asked my friend if hookah is popular in all parts of Turkey or only in Bursa, she told me that it is really popular throughout the entire country, and especially in Istanbul and Bursa. Maybe because those cities are so crowded so it seems that people there actually smoke the most. Then I tried hookah when I went back home and when I came to Richmond, but I can tell that hookah differs, and that I tried the best hookah in Bursa. I do not know if they have specific flavors in Turkey, or is it because I tried it for the first time but I remember that that time, I tried the best hookah ever. I only regret not drinking Turkish tea at the same time to completely emerge myself in Turkish culture, I am not actually a big fan of Turkish tea because I find it too sweet, but to my mind hookah is one of the best things I tried in Turkey and I am looking forward to trying it again when I visit Turkey again. 

To my mind Turkish culture is one of the most interesting cultures in the world. Not only do they have wonderful food, amazing tea, hookah bars that they are proud of, they are also very creative. One of the recent news that hit the world was the tunnel created by Turks that links two continents Asia and Europe. Because of its specific location, basically the country is located on two continents; Turkey has access to the sea, and different countries on both continents.  Every day, about 2 million residents cross between the two continents. There is a ferry that transports people and their cars and buses back and forth but it takes a lot of time so it is not efficient. What Turkey did was it created a 8.5 miles long underwater tunnel that passes under the Bosphorus Strait. This tunnel links the two continents and now it takes only 4 minutes to get from one continent to another. They called this tunnel Marmaray Project because of the Sea of Marmara  and word “Ray” which means “rail” in Turkish. It is basically a rail under the water that links two continents. This is a huge project for not only Turkey but all people and businesses that need to make crossing between the continents. This project will improve economy of Turkey and bring profits while at the same time decrease costs. People will not have to waste their time waiting for ferry to transport them from one continent to another and spend a lot of time traveling, in only 4 minutes, people will be able to reach another continent. This sounds like science fiction to me, creating such a huge tunnel underwater and connecting two continents.

Also what is interesting is while digging the sea, this project uncovered about 40 thousand artifacts about Turkey’s history that goes back 8,500 years and this was very helpful for archaeologists and because of these findings, the project was unfortunately delayed for four years.

Turkish culture is such that they constantly improve and Turkish people are very determinant and efficient in their work. This project was very expensive but in the long run, Turkey is going to benefit from this project. This project connects people, nations and countries and will definitely bring financial capital to Turkey.

I am looking forward to hearing about new plans that Turkey plans to undertake that will help people improve their lives, save their time that they can utilize in better ways.  

The last two weeks have been very hard for me and I feel like I am going through the same difficulties that I went through when I was learning “-mis, -mus” tense. Namely, these two weeks my plan is to learn how to report to someone what another person told you, for example how to say “the doctor told Mike to exercise more regularly”. Changing from the original sentence to reporting sentence in Turkish can be extremely challenging and Miss Hanife noticed that I have difficulties with this tense. So we spend one entire session working just on this tense, making up examples and practicing it as much as possible. At first I thought that I was never going to understand it and I was so frustrated why I cannot understand it. However, by the end of our session, I felt more comfortable and thought that I should just pay extra attention to specific parts of the sentence and thus I will be able to correctly form sentences.

We also focused on reading and pronunciation. I feel comfortable reading in Turkish even though if I do not understand all the vocabulary in the text. Miss Hanife says that my pronunciation is correct but I have some difficulties pronouncing two Turkish letters. I can pronounce them correctly when I read them individually, but sometimes when both of those letters are in the same word then I get confused and even I can tell that I do not pronounce them correctly.

We also work on another grammar and that is learning how to say how two actions happened at the same time or one immediately after another, for example “My sister took her coat and left house”. Basically both sentences happened one after another and in Turkish there is a specific tense for such actions. There are so many tenses in Turkish that I get confused when I want to form a sentence because it takes me a lot of time in my head to figure out which form and tense I need to use for a sentence and which endings I need to add to a verb/noun if I want to use that tense. That is why I find it much easier to understand what other people are saying in Turkish rather than me having to speak in Turkish.

Once in every two weeks, Miss Hanife and I have one session in which we read, listen to Turkish songs, read poems etc,.  I have an electronic book with short Turkish stories that I read on my own and there are questions after each story that I answer and in case I do not understand something I can always ask Miss Hanife to explain it to me further in details during our sessions.

I am happy with our sessions and my improvement in Turkish. I believe that I have improved a lot since the beginning of the semester and that is not only what I say but for example Miss Hanife was very surprised when she found out that I could understand her explaining something very difficult in Turkish. I understood the main idea of her story, not necessarily every word. Also, my Turkish friends keep telling me that my Turkish is improving and they are going to have a Turkish dinner and they invited me to come as well, that night we will be speaking in Turkish only and as my friend said “No English at all.” Looking forward to improving my Turkish even more. 

These two weeks Ms. Hanife and I have worked on a lot of different things. First of all what I found interesting was learning how to use “neither/nor” in a sentence. In Turkish we say “ne…ne”, then either/or we say ya…ya. Then we can also use “maybe…maybe” in Turkish and that is “belki…belki”. I found this particularly important because I remember when I talked to my Turkish friend I wanted to form a sentence that would include neither/nor but I could not because I did not have this knowledge. That is why I was so excited when I learned this material. We started working on gerunds. This is very important in Turkish and in any other language. For example we use it when we want to say “Learning Turkish is fun” that is when we need this gerund structure. Forming gerunds is not particularly hard but it can get confusing when we want to say negative form, at least I get confused. First time I got introduced to this tense I thought it was going to be super easy but in fact I realized that it actually has its complications (just like any other Turkish tense and form). Still, considering that we are covering such important and complex material motivates me even more to work hard.

These two weeks we also did readings, listened to some Turkish songs and read poems. I had to find a Turkish poem read it at home and during our session. I am not very interested in poems and to my mind it is hard for me to understand poems because they are very deep and complex, and that is why Ms. Hanife has a lot of understanding and we try to find easy poems.

I also read several stories in Turkish from the electronic book that Ms. Hanife gave to me just so that I can practice my Turkish. In my free time I like to watch Turkish TV shows and my favorite is Dudaktan Kalbe. Even though I watch it on youtube and I could not find the subtitles, I can tell that I understand a lot of what actors say. My problem with Turkish is that I cannot express myself in Turkish, I can understand a lot of things but when it comes to me speaking I find it difficult and it takes me a lot of time to form a sentence, mostly because I am exposed to so many tenses that I try to be so careful when forming a sentence and adding ending to verbs and nouns. I however believe that further communication with Ms. Hanife and my other Turkish friends will help me overcome this obstacle and I will be able to speak in Turkish faster and use better grammar in forming my sentences. 

These two weeks I focused a lot on understanding –mis, -mus grammar. I find it extremely hard, and so far it is the hardest concept to understand. Even though I believe I understand most of it, I am still not 100% comfortable with this tense. It is hard because in Turkish language you can add so many suffixes to a verb that give a completely different meaning to the sentence, for example if you add “yor” to mis, mus tense it means that you are combining present continuous tense and reporting tense. Then, if you add “acak. Ecek” that means that you are combining future tense with reporting. It is interesting because you can play with tenses in Turkish language and every time get a different meaning and that is why foreign students find this language confusing. It is not like in English, you have one form for a tense and it is straightforward, you know exactly what you need to use. In Turkish, you can use several tenses, combine them by adding endings to the verb and get an interesting and confusing combination. Also these two weeks we worked on present simple tense. After the reporting tense, everything seems to easy to me. We already covered some present simple tense last semester, so it was easy for me to comprehend this material completely. This time we covered details, worked on both positive and negative statements as well as forming questions. It is basically same as in English, you use present simple when you do a specific action repeatedly.

My Turkish friends told me that my Turkish is improving significantly and that I must visit them in Turkey and Cyprus. I definitely plan on visiting Turkey again, as I find that country fascinating.

As I will talk in my culture post, Turkey has built a multi billion dollar underwater tunnel that links Europe and Asia and this is a huge thing in the world now. The project is called Turkey’s Marmaray project because of the Sea of Marmara and “Ray” means rail in Turkish. I talked to Ms. Hanife about this project and she is also excited because now two continents are basically connected which makes the life for people there easier because about 2 million residents make the crossing between the continents daily. The tunnel is 13.6 km (8.5 miles) long. I will talk about this more in my cultural post.

Overall I am happy with my current progress, and Ms. Hanife is very helpful and patient with me. There are topics that I have difficulties with more than others, so we both focus a lot on the things that I do not comprehend immediately, and I work a lot on my own on things that I find easier.

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This is my artifact 2. This was a huge assignment and Ms. Hanife checked my work. This assignment contained all reading/writing/ vocabulary and grammar. To my mind it was very hard but according to Ms. Hanife I did a great job. There are some corrections, and a few things that Ms. Hanife advised me to pay special attention to. I am happy with my work done, and I hope that my future works will be even better and more correct.  

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This is me singing a Turkish song, here is the link of the original song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhMgxJA2ZJY Also the singer is originally from Bosnia, but she got married to a Turkish singer and she lives in Turkey now. 

These two week we are working on –mis, -mus grammar tense and in my opinion this concept should not be

included in this beginner book but advanced. This is so complex and complicated that I think that I will

never be able to comprehend it completely. Most confusing for me is to understand the purpose of this

tense. Apparently we use this tense when we are reporting or basically when we are gossiping such as,

talking about something that you heard from someone else. For example, I will use this tense if I am

telling you how my friend when he was a child did not like to watch TV. Basically, it was not me who

saw that action (not liking to watch the TV) but I heard it. In case that I saw that action then I would

not be using this tense but would use simple past tense/ past continuous. This tense is also used if you

want to tell a story, for example telling Cinderella story would require usage of this tense. I have never

encountered such a tense and that is why I find it so complicated. I took a look at this tense at home but

could not understand so Ms. Hanife explained it to me in details. Even though I kind of understand the

usage of this tense, I still tend to use rather past tense rather than this complicated tense. I do not do it

on purpose but I do it because I am not used to using such tense. Since this is a very important tense in

Turkish, it is of crucial importance for me to understand it completely and use it in my communication

with my language partner and Turkish friend. In fact, I work with my Turkish friend immediately after my

Turkish class, and after learning this tense I was completely lost and I complained to my Turkish friend

how Turkish is cok zor (very hard) and very complicated, and that I will never be able to understand such

tense. He said that it is complicated to explain as well as learn it, but that with practice I will be able to

comprehend it.

I learn something new about Turkish culture every now and then. When I was in Turkey I went out

with my friend and I tried hookah/nargila for the first time. Hookah is so popular in Turkey and all

restaurants/ bars have hookah, it is almost as popular as Turkish tea. People there usually smoke

hookah at night and drink Turkish tea to relax and spend some time with their friends. They usually

play Havla which is a popular Turkish board game while smoking hookah and drinking tea. My friend

tried to explain to me how to play that game but I did not really understand the rules. Hookah is not

very popular here in Richmond nor in Bosnia. I was however very surprised that all bars and shops

either have hookah or just sell them, even though it is apparently even more dangerous than smoking

cigarettes. What I also noticed is that during my time in Turkey I did not see that many people smoking

cigarettes, it is usually hookah that they smoke. My Turkish friends also say that it is extremely popular

in all parts of Turkey. This is something I found very interesting about Turkish culture.

I am worried about my progress with this –mis, -mus tense. I have to practice a lot and do many

assignments to understand this concept. I believe that with practice I will be able to use it in my daily

language (even when I do not gossip).

Today me and Ms. Hanife met in the Global Studio to start working on Turkish. I

thought that our first session is going to be easy, but even though it was the first

session I was truly challenged. Me and my language partner immediately started

speaking in Turkish and I was impressed when I realized that I could understand

most of what she says. I realized that I can understand a lot of Turkish but I have

difficulties speaking it. One of my goals as I mentioned in my learning plan is to be

able to better communicate in Turkish so I told Ms. Hanife how I would like to focus

on speaking/listening. During our first session we revised some of our covered

material from last semester and we are not off to a good start. I realized that I still

had minor difficulties with certain topics from last semester but I believe that I will

comprehend as we revise them even more this semester. This week, we worked on

some grammar, revised previous semester’s concepts, and listened to Turkish songs.

Ms. Hanife told me about this one very famous Turkish singer Sertab Erener. This

singer is not only famous in Turkey but throughout Europe because she won on the

Eurovision contest. We listened to a few of her songs, and I would read the lyrics off

the screen while she was singing. I tried to sing along but I found her songs to be fast

so I could not catch up with her. Ms. Hanife gave me an electronic book that contains

short Turkish stories that are written for Turkish learners and assigned me to read

three stories. She also gave me a book that talks about Turkish famous food and the

text is written in both Turkish and English. In my opinion it is very important that

the text is translated to English as well because this is how I can refer to unknown

words that I have trouble with. Also, Ms. Hanife told me about this translator called

Tureng which is apparently much more accurate than Google translate, it gives not

only synonyms but also detailed explanation of each word and its usage. I think it

will be very helpful in my further learning.

I also learned about this expression “oof ya” that apparently Turkish people use

in everyday language. I heard of it before and my former roommates would often

use it, but for some reason I thought that it was a bad word. However, this week I

learned that it is actually not a bad word but Turkish people use it when they are

either annoyed or when they hear something that they did not expect to hear. Later

this week, I said this to my Turkish friend that I work with and he found it very

funny that I used it because only Turks use it and he was really surprised when he

heard it. He said I am embracing Turkish culture to the fullest. This actually gave me

motivation to work harder.

As weeks pass by I can tell that my Turkish is improving a lot. And this is not only my opinion but my

Turkish friends say the same. I have several Turkish friends here on campus and they always force me

to talk to them in Turkish. I work with three Turks, and whenever I have the same shift with them we

speak in Turkish. One of my friends Idil who is from Cyprus and who speaks Turkish very often talks to

me in Turkish. We share the same opinion about Turkish, as you can see in the picture below. Idil wrote

“Turkce ogrenmek cok eglenceli” which means “Learning Turkish is fun”, and I completely agree with

her.

During our Turkish sessions, Ms. Hanife always tries to make class interesting. We do not only focus on

grammar or learning vocabulary, but we also love to talk about culture. Ms. Hanife told me that Turkish

people make wonderful delights and cookies but I thought that no culture has better deserts than my

culture. However, I went out with Idil to get groceries and I picked up a bag of cookies that I used to eat

back home. When I showed them to Idil she told me that they were from Turkey. I always loved them

but never knew that they are actually made in Turkey. So I got several bags of those cookies. I realized

that Turkish people make wonderful cookies. I also tried famous Turkish delights, and they are much

different from Bosnian delights. You can eat Turkish delights while drinking coffee, for breakfast or even

late at night. For me, they are not super sweet and I like it.

This week we worked on grammar and also revised some concepts from last semester. I was really

happy when I learned and completely comprehended how to say “I was tired” “I was happy”, everything

in the past. This concept was very confusing for me and I had a hard time understanding it. However, I

am pretty confident right now. This material is of crucial importance for me and I believe me and Ms.

Hanife did a great job this week. I also read some short stories on my own, and watched my favorite

Turkish TV show “Dudaktan Kalbe”.

I checked what we are going to work on next and I was terrified. Next week we have to work on –

mis, -mus grammar tense which is something that does not exist neither in English nor in Bosnian. It

is a grammar tense that you use when you hear somebody say/do something, basically when you are

reporting something to someone or when you are telling a story. I am sure that this is going to be a very

hard concept for me, and I have to make sure that I work very hard to understand this concept because

apparently this is a very common tense in Turkish. We will see how it goes next week.

I have already taken 2 Turkish classes at the University of Richmond and I can say

that I have learned a lot. I believe that I can get by with my Turkish language. As I

mentioned in my previous learning plans, I visited Turkey a few years ago and I was

impressed with the culture and I would love to live there one day. Also, I had two

Turkish roommates and through conversation with them, I have learned a lot about

Turkey. Turkish culture is very much similar to Bosnian culture, where I come from.

This semester I am planning to improve my Turkish language. I have talked to Ms.

Hanife, my language partner, and we created learning plans. Last semester we got a

Turkish book (Ders kitabi and Calisma kitabi) that we used and I can tell that it is a

really good edition and that it helped me learn a lot. Ms. Hanife also likes the book

because it is very organized and explains topics in detail. The book covers grammar

in details (I am mostly concerned about grammar), then there is a lot of reading

assignments, practice problems and vocabulary. Last semester we covered about

half the book (because we are working very hard), and our plan for this semester is

to finish the rest of it. I know that there is a lot to cover and that chapters are going

to get harder and that I will have to work much more to comprehend all the material

to be able to continue my Turkish in the future, that is once I graduate. Since we are

going to follow the book, that is; we are covering chapter by chapter, for each class

we know exactly what we need to cover so I can come to class prepared and with

questions that I do not understand so I can ask Ms. Hanife for further explanation.

Also, we have a work book that I am planning to work on my own and have

assignments checked by Ms. Hanife. This way, we can utilize our time most

efficiently and focus most of our time on conversation. We are planning to cover one

chapter per week. We decided to meet twice a week, Thursdays and Fridays. This

will allow me to prepare over the weekend and finish any assignments that I am

given during our meeting sessions. Also, once in every two weeks, we will have a

class where I will read Turkish short stories in class, so that Ms. Hanife can correct

my pronunciation and then we will listen to Turkish songs and read poems in

Turkish. After reading, we will of course analyze what we have read to check for my

understanding and learn new vocabulary. My goal is to really improve my Turkish

and learn a lot of grammar. Last semester I figured out that Turkish is such a

complicated language, completely different from any language that I have attempted

to learn so far. There are so many exceptions in this language that sometimes I feel

very overwhelmed. However, I think it is the beauty of the language and I feel like I

need to take on the challenge. Ms. Hanife believes that the book we are using is

going to give me the full challenge and I am excited about it (and a little bit scared as

well). I hope to excel in Turkish grammar, learn a lot of vocabulary, practice a lot

and of course learn a lot about Turkish culture.

I believe that the goals I have set are challenging but feasible. With proper time

management, organization and dedication I can tell that by the end of semester I

will improve a lot and be able to engage in Turkish conversation with my Turkish

friends. I am excited about taking this course and looking forward to improving my

Turkish.