Reflection on meeting with my language assistant

[Mark Kligman]

Throughout the semester I have had two language assistants: Haktan Tursun and Umurcan Solak. With Haktan we focused more on grammar and vocabulary, the different conjugations of different words and the specific words used for family members, food, time of the day, greetings and personal moods. Haktan and I focused primarily on bulding a strong foundation for my knowledge of Turkish, basically I asked him to teach me the essentials of a tourist who would embark on a trip to Turkey this coming summer, therefore with that idea in mind I learned what Haktan considered necessary for a novice tourist in Turkey. With Umurcan we worked more in the cultural sphere of the Turksih language, like knowing what are the unique tradtions, foods, and doings in Turkey, what they are called, how to say them and apply them in a sentence or conversation. Umurcan also helped me on my Culture Presentation, choosing a topic for me that was unique and significant in the every day culture of Turkey. Umurcan taught me the significance of hookah in the Turkish culture and what it meant to the Turkish people, opposed to American people and what were the guidelines of usage and hitory behind it. Both with Haktan and Umurcan we discussed what it is different about America and Turkey in terms of religion, leisure, family values and traditions. I requested for this since i believe it is very important to know the foundations of the country;s culture in order to understand certain aspects of the language and be able to tour the country without going against set taboos. overall it was a great learning experience and I got a lot out of it in terms of culture, grammar, vocabulary and history.