During this semester, I have learned not only the Turkish language but also Turkish culture. As I stated in my previous self-reflection papers, language serves as a vehicle for opinions and ideas. People with different cultural identities use their languages to express different values and concepts of their culture. This is also one important reason why I am interested in learning languages. Believing in such an idea, I talked a lot about Turkish culture and Turkish politics with my language partner after classes. In this paper, I will first talk about what I learn about the Turkish language, then I will reflect on Turkish culture and art I am interested in, and finally, I will plan for my future learning plan.
During this semester, I learned about basic sentence structure, greetings, and numbers. In Turkish, its sentence structure is SOV (subject-object-verb), which is different from Chinese or English sentence structure, SVO (subject-verb-object). Also, in the Turkish language, people add affix to verbs to show past, future or perfect tense. We also learned the rule of personal suffix. To say "I am", "You are", "He is" etc. in English we use a personal pronoun and a noun/adjective. For example: "I am a doctor", "I" is the personal pronoun and "doctor" is the noun. For Turkish, we use a personal pronoun, a noun/adjective, and a personal suffix. For example: "Ben doktorum", "Ben" is the personal pronoun, "doktor" is the noun and "-um" is the personal suffix. The personal pronoun and the personal suffix are associated with each other. One common rule applied for all affix or suffix is grammar that there are no two vowels next to each other. However, there are words that use two vowels next to each other. They have adapted words, which mostly come from Arabic. Besides grammar, we also learned basic greetings. Now, I am able to introduce myself in Turkish fluently and even order foods in Turkish. I believe that my Turkish skills would help me a lot if I am going to visit Turkey after graduation.
Besides learning the language, I also learned a lot about Turkish culture by watching Turkish movies and documentaries in Turkish with English subtitles. I watched a documentary about a Turkish transgender who lived in a small village. At first, villagers did not accept her and even traded her as a freak. However, she did not give up and was always willing to help whenever they need her. Her kindness and thoughtfulness finally changed the villagers’ mind and they gradually accepted her. They began to treat her as a friend and even part of family. They invited her to have dinner and dance together. I still remember when one of the villagers was interviewed, he said: she is just a kind person, and nothing else. I really appreciate those villagers’ open mind and kindness and I was really touched by their ingenious relationship.
I think my biggest problem is a lack of vocabulary. After all, vocabulary is the foundation for advanced learning. There are two ways to enlarge my Turkish vocabulary based on my experience of learning other languages. The first is to read more journals and essays in Turkish. When encountering unknown words, I would check the dictionary and write them down in a notebook. Also, watching more videos or soap operas in Turkish with English subtitles is another really effective way. Although, at first, I may be able to understand little Turkish but English subtitles would help me to understand. As I keep practicing, I would remember more high-frequent Turkish words that people often use.
Overall, I learned a lot during this semester and my language partner and I become really close friends. I hope I could learn more about the Turkish language and culture, and even be able to visit Turkey one day.
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