Blogs

music (3)

On Having a Turkish Roomsource

Posted by Pete Minassian on September 13, 2010 at 6:15pm
One of the greatest privileges that I have here is my "roomsource" (combination of roommate and resource) who is from Turkey. I don't think that there is a day that goes by that I do not here the Turkish language. However, this is also a great difficulty. While he is an infinite source for information, any questions that I might have - he can answer in a heartbeat - I sometimes get on his nerves with all the questions that I ask him.

The goal, however, is to be able to ask him the questions in Turkish, thus being able to practice my speaking and enhance my comprehension in daily conversation. I think that will make for a great way to assess my progress throughout the semester. I mean what better way than to develop my speech in such a way that I am able to ask Yigit (my roomsource) questions in Turkish about other Turkish things? Sounds like a plan to me! But I also think that if I am consistent with this journal idea, and I will be purchasing one tomorrow, then I can just have him proofread over my grammar, and WHOOSH, I can correct my mistakes.

It is not going to be easy to just start writing without any formal studies of vocabulary, so I think I will stick with Rosetta Stone for a while and a whole lot of flashcards that will enable me to get the vocabulary down. Then I will be able to put rudimentary sentences together.

Time is key this week. Seems as though as the semester continues, I simply run out of the time needed to dedicate to learning Turkish. I'll try to keep it small at first, maybe a half-hour a day (kinda like practicing piano), then build up from there.

And so it begins...
Read more…

It's All About Repetition

Posted by Pete Minassian on September 6, 2010 at 5:19pm
From the readings that we were supposed to do this week, I drew a lot of information as to how I am going to keep up all the new words and grammar in Turkish. The key word, as the article states under cognitive strategies is REPETITION.

This is by far the best way, as I have seen from experience to really get the tongue, mind, and all body parts associated with language, as David Crystal mentioned, used to saying these words. As in playing piano and other musical instruments, one must develop something called muscle memory in order to be able to remember how to complete complex rhythms and chords. For Turkish, if I can constantly speak the language every day, I think that I should be able to develop an accent that will not make sound like a yabanci, foreigner.

Thus, music will play an integral part in my study this semester, perhaps it will be the foundation of my studies of the language.

There was another thing that the article brought up that I remember doing in French one year in high school- keeping a diary. In doing so, writing a journal entry every night in French about any sort of topic, I developed the ability to think in French, to express myself as much as I could, in French. It was definitely a great way, and if I messed up here and there, my teacher made me re-write the entire journal entry over again, this time making sure that I wrote perfectly. I think that this will be a great way to start off at an accelerated pace for this semester. I can see my first entry already: Ben ermeniyim.
Read more…

How in the world am I supposed to learn Turkish?

Posted by Pete Minassian on August 29, 2010 at 9:14pm
Those learning tests that I took earlier were thoroughly exhausting, but I labored through them! I don't exactly know how I am going to interpret the results.

First, I'll take you through how I learned two other languages in my life (aside from English). French was a strict, everyday in high school sort of thing, some kids in school took Spanish, I did French. It wasn't something that I could say helped me to become fluent, but it definitely opened my eyes to a whole range of possibilities as to where I could take the language. What really made me a lot more fluent in the language was being able to speak to my dad, friends overseas and relatives in French. In addition, I used the power of the internet to find every single Claude Francois song out there and memorized all of the lyrics! Music was the biggest contributor for sure to my learning abilities!

Arabic is a similar story except there was no formal schooling associated with it. Arabic has been spoken around me since I was born, and finally around my freshman year in college I started being able to respond back to people when they spoke to me. It obviously helped spending three months in Lebanon on vacation, but on top of that, I still listen to Arabic music every day, and already can start translating some songs on my own.

With Turkish it will be a little bit more difficult. Having lived with my roommate, Yigit, for more than a year now, I now a few words and pronunciations, but I still believe that I will need a little bit of formal teaching in order to get the ball rolling.

The goal is to go to Istanbul with a good background in Turkish and use my time there to perfect an accent. However, for now, I will continue on the "social" track and speak as often as possible in order to gain more and more vocabulary. To be quite honest, that is the one thing that I try the hardest to learn through experience - vocabulary. You can know every rule of grammar, but if you forget the word for wolf and think it's a Kurd, you might be in big trouble!

Anyways, I think I'm going to pick up the language pretty quickly, but I will need to practice every day and listen to Turkish music (maNga, Hayko Cepkin, Mor ve Otesi, etc.) everyday in order to start to be able to pick up words and phrases.
Read more…

Latest Blog Posts

Most Popular Blog Posts

Blog Topics by Tags

Monthly Archives