This week I focused on listening in order to work on my pronunciation,learn the alphabet, as well as learn basic words, such as numbers,greeting phrases, and simple word concepts, such as "yes" and "no" and"today" and pronouns. Most of my studying was intensive, by listening toyoutube videos that laid out the pronunciations and spellings ofnumbers, another that explained the alphabet, and others that told thedays of the week and personal pronouns. This turned out to be veryhelpful, because I could see the spelling at the same time as hearingthe word, so it helped to cement it in my mind, and I could replay itover and over if I need to to get it right. We Turkish students also allworked on intensive listening when we met with Yigit last Monday,because he went over some of the basic things we're learning now, likethe alphabet and numbers, days of the week, colors, and useful phraseswhen meeting someone, such as hello and goodbye and "How are you?". Itwas helpful to hear it in person, and repeat it back.
The other way I listened to Turkish this week was more extensive. Ilistened to some video clips of BBC in Turkish, more to work on mypronunciation and understanding of the inflection than to try tounderstand any of it. It's far far outside my skill range so I onlycaught a few english-language-cognates, like ingiliz and sekülar, but Ithink it helped me hear the pronunciations of Turkish.
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