Discussion Post #3

[Yahui Wu]

So far，I learned the pronunciation of letters, the greetings, and basic grammar. I think this plan works well for me. Because the pronunciation rule of Turkish is straightforward compared to that of English, once you learned the pronunciation of each letter, you can read almost any words even though you do not know the meanings. Thus, it would be easy for me to learn the greetings since I can easily pronounce the words in the conversations. Turkish grammar is unique. They put the verb at the end of the sentence after the nouns. Also, In English and Chinese, people use different auxiliary verbs, like "am", "is", "are", "was" and "were" to show whether it is present or past and whether it is single or plural. However, in Turkish, people only use verbs to show time, personal pronouns and even negative form. They will add suffix at the end of the verb according to different situations. For example, "oku" means read in Turkish. If ones want to say "I read", they need to say " Ben(I) kitap (book) okurum". If ones want to say " I don't read", they need to use "Ben kitap okuman".
Overall, I think, for Turkish, the pronunciation is the foundation for words, and words are the main components for grammars and sentence. Just like D. Crystal states in the "how to investigate the language structure": the sound of speech we study via phonetics are, after all, the substance through which the patterns of grammars and vocabularies are conveyed. Besides, I agree with the point that D. Crystal made in the book that the whole language structure cannot be broken down into its constituent parts since it would create discontinuity and loss. we should always place the individual level of learning with the more comprehensive structure. For me, I should link every new verb I learn with the grammar instead of learning the pronunciation and meaning of the verb along. Otherwise, the verb would lose its practical function of constructing sentences and communicating ideas.