New Journal Entry #5

[Mark Kligman]

My reading in Turkish is not too minimal, however reading and understanding is quite difficult for me. However, the reading I have been doing is often of simple sentences. Moreover, I repeat my readings of the sentences so I can understand them better. Reading in Turkish has shown me how much I still would have to learn in terms of reading and understanding, but also has opened me to recognizing certain words that repeat themselves in readings. It is hard for me to quantify exactly how many words I have learned throughout the course of reading; however, I have learned many words, in comparison to my previous knowledge of Turkish coming into the course. I have not placed any set amount of words I want to learn. Some days I learn a few new words, and sometimes I learn the same amount in a week.I tried to do some reading in my language with my language assistant, and to my surprise he praised my pronunciation. I have reviewed the alphabet several times and I am very familiar with every letter with the Turkish alphabet, therefore it was not a difficult task to read the words but difficult to guess the pronunciation on some words that I did not know.  I think it is realistic for me to be able to read simple texts without complex words by the end of the year with an ability to understand the context of the text. I have learned that reading in Turkish is not difficult, but understanding the meaning is rather difficult in more longer readings, compared to the shorter readings. From reading I highlighted words that I did not know and looked them up after, if I keep up my reading I believe that I will accumulate a significant amount of vocabulary by the end of the semester.