Colloquial Turkish PDF

Colloquial Turkish  The Colloquial Series Japanese Korean Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mongolian...

Colloquial Turkish  The Colloquial Series Japanese Korean Latvian Lithuanian Malay Mongolian Norwegian Panjabi Persian Polish Portuguese Romanian Czech * Russian Slovak Slovene Somali Finnish * Spanish Swedish Greek * Thai Turkish Urdu Ukrainian Indonesian Welsh Accompanying cassettes (*and CDs) are available for all the above titles. They can be ordered through your bookseller, or send payment with order to Taylor & Francis/Rout- ledge Ltd, ITPS, Cheriton House, North Way, Andover, Hants SPIO 5BE, or to Routledge Inc., 29 West 35th Street, New York NY 10001, USA. COLLOQUIAL CD-ROMs Multimedia Language Courses Available in: Chinese, French, Portuguese and Spanish Colloquial Turkish The Complete Course for Beginners Jeroen Aarssen and Ad Backus London and New York  First published 2001 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abington, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2001 Jeroen Aarssen and Ad Backus All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Backus, Ad. Colloquial Turkish: the complete course for beginners/Jeroen Aarssen and Ad Backus. p. cm. 1. Turkish language-Textbooks for foreign speakers-English. 2. Turkish language-Self-instruction. I. Aarssen, Jeroen. II. Title. PL127.5E5 B33 2000 494′.3582421–dc21 99–056874 ISBN 0-203-97732-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-15746-3 (book) 0-415-15747-1 (cassette) 0-415-15748-X (book and cassette course) ISBN13: 978-0-203-88065-4 (eBook Pack)  Contents viii 1 4 18 36 50 69 84 96 114 131 146 162 179 194 14 Sayın öğrencilerimizin dikkat edeceği hususlar 207 Matters to which our respected students should pay attention 223  Contents vii 236 242 272 295 312 Please email [email protected] with proof of purchase to obtain access to the supplementary content for this eBook. An access code and instructions will be provided.  Acknowledgements This course-book of modern colloquial Turkish took quite a while to write. We are grateful to the people at Routledge for putting up with the endless delays we requested after missing yet another deadline. Our thanks to the following companies and individuals for allowing us to use their mate- rial. To Remzi Kitabevi for the use of the recipe for ‘Malzeme’ from Türk Mutfak Sanati by Necip Usta. For the reading extract in Lesson 15, which was taken from the booklet ‘Hollandaca. Yirmi milyon Hollandalı’nın ve Flaman’ın konustuğu dil’ by O.Vandeputte, H.van der Heijden and J.Schipper, published in 1996 by the Flemish-Netherlands Founda- tion ‘Stichting Ons Erfdeel’, Murissonstraat 260, B8930 Rekkem (Belgium). Special thanks go to the people who got us interested in the Turkish language, whose efforts as teachers have directly led to our enthusiasm for the language, and hence to this course. We particularly thank Rik Boeschoten in this respect. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank the folks at our workplace, at Tilburg University in Holland, for providing us with an ideal base from which to operate. Work on the book benefited from, among other things, discussions on didactic matters and the opportunity to try out bits of this material in class. We owe a lot to the countless native speakers of Turkish who have helped us second lan- guage learners come to grips with the language’s particular difficulties and perhaps most of all at steering us away from the sorts of things learners traditionally obsess about, and in the direction of true colloquial language use. Thank you, Mustafa Güleç, Asli Özyürek, İlhan Solmaz, Emel Türker, Kutlay Yağmur. We hope the end result does not offend their feel for their mother tongue. Most of all, Saliha Şahin and Hanneke van der Heijden’s help proved crucial. Their work on our behalf went far beyond what could be expected of a friend/proofreader; we are indebted to them forever. The people at Routledge, most of all James Folan, Louise Patchett, Jane Butcher and Sophie Oliver, deserve our gratitude, not only for their patience, but also because they were reliable and efficient editors. We’d like to single out Gary King, without whom this book simply wouldn’t have been possible. Finally, we apologise to our families for spending all that time at the computer while fun could have been had. Jeroen Aarssen Ad Backus Tilburg, April 2000  Introduction Turkey is sometimes referred to as the bridge between Europe and Asia, since a small part of it is located in Europe (west of the Bosporus, called Trakya ‘Thrace’) and the larger part in Asia (Anadolu ‘Anatolia’). Turkish is the official language of the Republic of Turkey, and the native language of around 55 million people (90% of the population of 64 million). Worldwide, the number of speakers is 60 million. Outside Turkey, you’ll find speakers of Turkish in, for instance, Germany (1.8 million), Bulgaria (800,000), Cyprus (177,000), The Netherlands (200,000) and the UK (40,000). The language family to which Turkish belongs is called Turkic. Other Turkic languages, most of them spoken in Central Asia, are Uzbek, Azerbaidjani, Turkmenian, Kazakh, Kir- ghiz, Uyghur and Yakut. Some believe that Turkish and Mongolian are related, although this is still somewhat controversial. An eye-catching characteristic of Turkish is that it has long words. Turkish words are rel- atively long, since the language is agglutinative. In the word ‘agglutinative’ you can detect the English word ‘glue’. In fact, Turkish has a special way of ‘glueing’ parts of sentences to one another. First, you have words (nouns or verbs) which you can find in a dictionary. Second, there are so-called suffixes, little parts which have a meaning, but which cannot be used on their own. These suffixes have to be ‘glued’ to nouns or verbs. A big challenge for you as a language learner will be to understand this process of a­ gglutination. How this course works This book is mainly organised around dialogues. Grammatical explanations are usually followed by exercises. In these exercises, you can practise newly learned information as well as information already digested in previous lessons. The key at the back of this book plays a central role (a key role, if you like). Apart from providing the right answers to the exercises, it contains additional information and explanations about specific grammatical features of Turkish. Therefore, it is essential to use the key every time you have finished an exercise. The main focus of this course is on the colloquial spoken language. In addition, we’ve included a number of written texts, taken from various sources. Some of these are most likely a bit too difficult to grasp in their totality: the key is again an important instrument for tackling these texts. It will tell you exactly on which elements to focus your attention. There is also a number of tapes with dialogues and exercises from the textbook. Use these tapes for improving your pronunciation and listening proficiency. New words in a dialogue or an exercise are always listed below the text. If you don’t know a word and it’s not there, you must have seen it before but forgotten it. The thing to do in that case is to look for it in the glossary; you’ll find the English translation there. Example sentences will also contain new words once in a while. As these sentences are always accompanied by a translation, you can easily find the meaning of any unfamiliar words. As a general point, we would advise you to go back a few lessons once in a while and read through dialogues and example sentences, especially if you notice there are quite a few words in the lesson you are currently working on that you were apparently supposed 2 Introduction to know already. But even if that is not the case, reading through Turkish dialogues and sentences in previous lessons is a good way of refreshing your command of vocabulary and turns of phrase. In the process, it will probably improve your self-confidence, as you will notice that, no matter how much you’re struggling with the current lesson, you have obviously learned a lot already. From this book you will learn Turkish. You will at least be able to handle everyday situ- ations in Turkey and to read some Turkish texts. However, there is not a single language course in the world that can teach you every aspect of a language. We therefore strongly recommend that you complement this textbook with other activities and materials: Buy a Turkish newspaper! Purchase a dictionary! Get hold of a grammar book! Go to Turkey for a holiday! Practise your Turkish in a Turkish restaurant! Please enjoy this course. İyi çalışmalar! Alphabet and pronunciation Before the ‘writing reform’ of 1928 the Arabic alphabet was used. Nowadays, Turkish uses the Latin script, with a small number of modifications. It has 29 characters: a as u in English ‘truck’ b as b in English ‘bus’ c as j in English ‘John’ ç as ch in English ‘chocolate’ d as d in English ‘door’ e as e in English ‘bed’ f as f in English ‘find’ g as g in English ‘gutter’ ğ yumuşak g or ‘soft g’: between vowels ğ is not pronounced; at word endings it lengthens the previous vowel h as h in English ‘help’, but at word endings as ch in Scottish ‘loch’ ı almost as i in English ‘bird’. Note that the dot is always absent, to distinguish ı from i. i as ee in English ‘bee’. Even when written in capital, the i always keeps the dot: Turkey’s former capital is called İstanbul, and not Istanbul j as j in French ‘jeune’ k as k in English ‘keeper’ l as l in English ‘love’  Introduction 3 m as m in English ‘moon’ n as n in English ‘noon’ o as o in English ‘lot’ ö as ö in German Wörter, or almost as u in English ‘blur’ p as p in English ‘paper’ r unlike English, Turkish has a ‘tongue-tip’ r, at word endings slightly aspirated s as s in English ‘sink’ ş as sh in English ‘shoe’ t as t in English ‘tie’ u as oo in English ‘book’ as ü in German für Elise, which is pronounced in front of the mouth, ü with rounded lips. You could try to imagine Peter Sellers as Inspec- tor Clouseau pronouncing the ‘oo’ in ‘my room’ v as w in English water y as y in English you z as z in English zebra Now listen to the pronunciation of the following words on tape: av—Avrupa—bacak—bahar—can—Cengiz—çıktı—çekirdek—duvar—düz— ellerinde—emin—foya—fuar—gittik—göl—ağır—dağ—sabah—hasret—ılık—kılıç— jeton— jandarma—kadar—keçi—leblebi—lamba—mum—melek—niye—nihaye— Orhan—otobüs— örneğin—öperim—pul—piyasa—radyo—rüya—siyaset—sandalye— şöyle—şalgam—tuvalet —tebrik—umarım—Urfa—ünlü—üzüldüm—var—vezir— yavru—yoksa—zaman—zemin  1 Nasılsın? How are you? In this lesson you will learn how to: say ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’, and greet people say the names for family members understand and make simple introductions use the present tense say ‘with’, ‘my’, and make plurals Dialogue 1 Merhaba Hello Mustafa and Ayhan run into each other at the bus station. However, they don’t have all that much to say to each other MUSTAFA: Merhaba, Ayhan, nasılsın? AYHAN: İyidir, teşekkür ederim. Sen nasılsın? MUSTAFA: Ben de iyiyim. AYHAN: Peki, görüşürüz. MUSTAFA: Hello, Ayhan, how are you? AYHAN: Fine, thank you. And you? MUSTAFA: I’m fine too. AYHAN: Well, see you. Key vocabulary merhaba hello nasılsın? how are you? iyi good iyidir it is good teşekkür ederim thank you ederim I do sen you ben I de too iyiyim I’m fine peki OK görüşürüz see you  How are you? 5 Language point Greetings The greetings used in the dialogue above are relatively informal. They are used between friends, colleagues or acquaintances. The dialogues in this lesson are all informal. In Dia logue 2, John meets Mehmet for the first time, and greets him with merhaba ‘hello’. However, if the situation had been more formal, for instance, if Mehmet and Cengiz hadn’t known each other so well, the slightly more formal günaydın ‘good morning/ afternoon’, would have been better. John takes leave with iyi günler ‘goodbye’, a little bit less informal than görüşürüz ‘see you’. Also note how Cengiz greets his friend Mehmet: with the colloquial ne haber? ‘what’s up?’ (literally ‘what’s the news?’), an equivalent of mer-haba. The standard reply to ne haber? is iyilik ‘I’m fine’, which is based on the same word as iyiyim above: iyi, ‘good’. Literally, iyilik means ‘goodness’, and iyiyim means ‘I am good.’ Mehmet answers with another informal form, which has the same meaning as sen nasılsın: senden ‘and you?’ (literally: ‘from you?’). Dialogue 2 Ne haber? What’s up? Cengiz has spotted Mehmet on the street and walks up to him to introduce him to John CENGİZ: Merhaba, Mehmet, ne haber? MEHMET: İyilik. Senden? CENGİZ: İyiyim, teşekkürler. Bu John. İngiliz arkadaşım. JOHN: Merhaba. MEHMET: Memnun oldum. Türkiye’yi beğeniyor musunuz? JOHN: Evet, çok seviyorum. MEHMET: Çok güzel. Cengiz, şimdi eve gidiyorum. CENGİZ: Tamam, yarın görüşürüz. MEHMET: Peki, görüşürüz. John, iyi günler. JOHN: İyi günler. CENGİZ: Hello, Mehmet, how are things? MEHMET: Fine. How are you? CENGİZ: Fine, thanks. This is John. He’s my English friend. JOHN: Hello. MEHMET: Nice to meet you. Are you enjoying being in Turkey? JOHN: Yes, I like it very much. MEHMET: That’s good. Cengiz, I have to go home. 6 Colloquial Turkish CENGİZ: OK, see you tomorrow. MEHMET: OK, see you. John, goodbye. JOHN: Goodbye. Key vocabulary teşekkürler thanks bu this İngiliz English arkadaşım my friend arkadaş friend Türkiye1 Turkey beğenmek to like (something) beğeniyor he/she likes musunuz? do you? evet yes çok much, many, very seviyorum I love sevmek to love (something) güzel nice, beautiful, good çok güzel that’s good (literally: very nice) şimdi now ev house gitmek to go tamam OK (similar to peki) yarın tomorrow Exercise 1 Rearrange the words on the right to match the English translations on the left. thanks görüşürüz hello nasılsın? yes iyiyim goodbye teşekkürler what’s up? tamam how are you? memnun oldum see you ne haber? OK iyi günler pleased to meet you evet I’m fine merhaba 1 The -yi ending indicates that Türkiye is a direct object. The ending is discussed in Lesson 6.  How are you? 7 Language point Introducing people In the dialogue above, Cengiz uses bu ‘this’ to introduce John to his friend. Note that the phrase he uses simply consists of bu and the name John. Turkish does not use a word for ‘is’ in these types of sentences. In the last of the examples below, the word öğretmen ‘teacher’ is followed by the ending -im, which means ‘I am’. It can also mean ‘my’, so that öğretmenim can mean both ‘I’m a teacher’ and ‘my teacher’. In arkadaşım and adım, the ending -ım indeed means ‘my’. It is stuck on to the nouns arkadaş ‘friend’ and ad ‘name’. The word benim also means ‘my’. The two meanings of the ending -im will be explained more fully later on, starting in this lesson. Ben Cem. I am Cem. Adım Cem. My name is Cem. Bu benim arkadaşım. This is my friend. Öğretmenim. I’m a teacher. Dialogue 3 Bu babam ve annem This is my mum and dad John now introduces his family members to Cengiz CENGİZ: Merhaba, dostum, nasılsın. Beni ailenle tanıştırır mısın? JOHN: İşte, bu babam. Dad, this is Cengiz. CENGİZ: Hoş geldiniz, beyefendi. JOHN: You are supposed to say ‘Hoş bulduk’ now, dad. Evet, bu da annem. Mum, Cengiz. CENGİZ: Hoş geldiniz, hanımefendi. JOHN’S MUM: Hoş bulduk (to John: I heard that!) JOHN: Bu gençler kardeşlerim: Jimmy ve Eileen. CENGİZ: Siz de hoş geldiniz. NB: In the following translation, ‘(…)’ stands for the things that are said in English in this dialogue. CENGİZ: Hello, my friend, how are you? Won’t you introduce me to your family? JOHN: Well, this is my dad. (…) CENGİZ: Welcome, sir. JOHN: (…) Yes, and this is my mother. (…) CENGİZ: Welcome, madam. 8 Colloquial Turkish JOHN’S MUM: The pleasure’s mine. (…) JOHN: Those young people are my brother and sister: Jimmy and Eileen. CENGİZ: And welcome to you, too. Key vocabulary dost friend dostum my friend beni me aile family ailenle with your family tanıştırmak to introduce tanıştırır introduce mısın? do you? işte well baba father babam my father hoş geldiniz welcome beyefendi sir hoş bulduk (answer to hoş geldiniz) da too, and (same as de) anne mother annem my mother hanımefendi Madam genç young gençler young people kardeş brother or sister kardeşlerim (here:) my brother and sister ve and siz Language point Endings You may have noticed that phrases that mean ‘my…’ all end in -m, e.g. babam or annem. This is because Turkish uses an ending, attached to the noun, to indicate possession. The -m, plus sometimes the preceding vowel, means ‘my’. In fact, Turkish uses such endings for practically every grammatical function. You will encounter the pattern time and time again, when we will discuss case endings, verb tenses and many more. The structure of the possessive nouns is as follows. In babam, the root word meaning ‘father’ is baba. The ending is -m. In dostum, the basic word is dost, ‘friend’. Here the ending is -um. Both -m in babam and -um in dostum mean ‘my’. When the preceding vowel is used and when not, depends on the last sound of the basic word. If it ends in a vowel, only -m is used. Note that the vowel of the suffix is not always the same. It is a u in dostum and an i in kardeşim. This is because of another typical feature of Turkish, called vowel harmony (see page 12). For now, study the following examples:  How are you? 9 dost friend dostum my friend gün day günüm my day kardeş sibling kardeşim my brother or my sister arkadaş friend arkadaşım my friend Dost is a more intimate word for ‘friend’ than an arkadaş. You will use arkadaş, a more neutral word, most of the time and dost for close friends. The dictionary forms of verbs contain an ending, too, the infinitive ending -mek/-mak. Whether the vowel is an e or an a again depends on vowel harmony. When you look up ‘to go’ in a dictionary, you will find the infinitive gitmek, consisting of the stem git-and the ending -mek. Exercise 2 Many of the words in the dialogue above contain endings. The following is a list of word stems. Go through the dialogue and identify the endings these words carry. Make a list of these and see if you can identify the meaning of each one on the basis of the translation. The stems are: dost, nasıl, aile, baba, gel, bul, anne, kardeş. Exercise 3 Pretend you’re travelling to Turkey with your family to show them what a great country it is, and you are met at the airport by a friend who you will all be staying with. Introduce everyone, using the words given below (you may have to choose between the last two). The word erkek means ‘male’, kız stands for ‘female’. Start each sentence with bu, and remember that there is no word that expresses ‘is’. my husband—kocam; my wife—eşim; my brother—erkek kardeşim; my sister—kız kardeşim; my boyfriend—erkek arkadaşım; my girlfriend—kız arkadaşım NB: eşim is given here as translating ‘my wife’, but it can actually be used for ‘my husband’ as well. Dialogue 4 Ailem My family John and his family have arrived at Cengiz’s house. The latter introduces his relatives to his guests JOHN: Cengiz, ailemi tanıyorsun. Ama onlar da senin ailenle tanışmak istiyorlar. CENGİZ: Tamam. Bu Ahmet Bey, babam. Bu kız kardeşim Müjgan. İngilizce biliyor, yani önemli bir kişi. Bu beyefendi, onun kocası, adı Mustafa. JOHN: Oğlan kim? CENGİZ: O Orhan, Ali’nin çocuğu. 10 Colloquial Turkish JOHN: Erkek kardeşin nerede? CENGİZ: Ali şimdi İngiltere’de. Bu da annem, Nursen Hanım. JOHN: Well, Cengiz, you know my family. But they would like to get to know yours too. CENGİZ: OK. This is Ahmet Bey, my father. This girl is Müjgan, my sister. She speaks Eng- lish, so she’s an important person. This man is her husband, his name is Mustafa. JOHN: Who’s the boy? CENGİZ: That’s Orhan, Ali’s boy. JOHN: Where is your brother? CENGİZ: Ali is in Britain right now. And here is my mum, Nursen Hanım. Key vocabulary ailem2 my family tanıyorsun you know tanımak to know (someone) ama but onlar they senin your ailen your family -le with tanışmak to get to know istemek to want istiyorlar they want İngilizce English (the language) biliyor she knows bilmek to know (something) yani so önemli important bir one kişi person onun her kocası her husband koca husband adı his name ad name oğlan boy kim who o that çocuk child Ali’nin Ali’s çocuğu his child nerede where İngiltere England İngiltere’de in England Language points Articles Turkish has no articles. That means that a simple noun, such as şehir, can mean ‘town’, and ‘the town’ as well as ‘a town’. The context will usually provide abundant clues as to how such a noun has to be translated exactly. Having said that, the numeral bir (‘one’) some- 2 For -i, see footnote 1. It indicates a direct object: ailemi.  How are you? 11 times means ‘a’. You have encountered bir in the dialogue above, when Cengiz mentioned that his sister is önemli bir kişi. Vowel harmony Turkish has a specific feature in word endings, which is called vowel harmony. The vowels of these endings may change, depending on the last syllable of the preceding noun or verb stem. There are in fact two types of vowel harmony: two-fold endings can have e- or a- forms. The vowels in four-fold endings are either i, ı, u or ü. It all has to do with place of articulation in the mouth. It all may seem ridiculously complicated right now, but the experience of most learners of Turkish (or other languages with vowel harmony) is that it soon becomes second nature. This is for two reasons. First, the harmony is based on very natural sounds. Second, many of the relevant suffixes are so frequent that they appear in virtually every sentence. This way of course you get ample opportunity for practice. For the time being the following overview is sufficient: Two-fold (e or a) after e, i, ü, ö > e after a, ı, u, o > a Four-fold (i, ı, ü, u) after e, i > i after a, ı > ı after ü, ö > ü after u, o > u The vowel that decides what form the ending is going to take is the last vowel in the stem. Examples: the suffix -im ‘my’ is four-fold, so it can appear as -im, -ım, -üm or -um. the suffix -le ‘with’ is two-fold, so it can appear as -le or -la. the suffix -ler (plural) is two-fold, so it can appear as -ler or -lar. kardeş-im-le with my brother arkadaş-ım-la with my friend kardeş-ler-im my brothers arkadaş-lar-ım my friends kardeş-ler-im-le with my brothers arkadaş-lar-ım-la with my friends 12 Colloquial Turkish Note that when the noun that -im is suffixed to ends in a vowel, only an -m is added, so that in these combinations vowel harmony plays no role. Examples are ailem ‘my family’ and arabam ‘my car’, as well as of course babam and annem. Some more examples: Arkadaşlarımla Almanya’ya gidiyoruz. We’re going to Germany with my friends. Bu yeni evim. This is my new house. Exercise 4 Fill in the correct form of the ending. The first one has been done already. 1 aileml___ with my family ailemle (as the last vowel in ailem is ‘e’) 2 kadın___ women (kadın ‘woman’) 3 arkadaş___ with a friend 4 kişi___ persons 5 dost___ with my friend 6 ev___ my house 7 adam___ with men (adam ‘man’) 8 Türk___ Turks 9 ad___ my name 10 öğretmen___ with my teachers Exercise 5 Re-read the first two dialogues carefully, and pay special attention to the greetings. Then try to fill in the right forms below, without consulting the dialogues again. CENGİZ: Merhaba John, _____? JOHN: İyiyim, _____ ederim. Sen _____? CENGİZ: Ben de _____. Türkiye’yi beğeniyor musun? JOHN: Çok beğeniyorum. Şimdi eve gidiyorum. CENGİZ: Tamam, yarın _____.  How are you? 13 Language points Verb endings In the dialogues for this lesson you have met several sentences of the type ‘This is…’ and ‘I am’… When you compare the sentences beginning Bu John and İyiyim, you will notice that they both contain a form of ‘to be’ in the translation. You may notice as well that of the Turkish sentences, the one that has a third person subject (this is) has no ending, while the one with a first person subject (I am) does: the -yim in iyiyim. Unlike English, Turkish does not use sepa- rate pronouns (such as I, you or we) but verb endings instead. Except, that is, for third person subjects, in which case there is neither ending nor pronoun. For ‘He is a good friend’ you say İyi bir arkadaş, while ‘You’re a good friend’ is İyi bir arkadaşsın. In the first of these sentences, arkadaş has no ending. Note that no pronouns are used to translate ‘he’ and ‘you’. You have already met a few of these endings, and you will meet them over and over again, as practically every sentence in Turkish contains one of them. So you don’t need to learn them by heart, as they will become second nature to you before you know it. Still, in order to provide a clear picture of the endings, consider the following, in which the verb stem yap- ‘to do’, is followed by the present tense ending -iyor and the person endings: The relevant endings are -um for first person singular (the same as for ‘my’), -sun for ­second person singular, -uz for first person plural, -sunuz for second person plural and -lar for third person plural. For third person singular, there is no ending. Some more ­examples: Türkçe öğreniyorum. I’m learning Turkish. Güzel Türkçe konuşuyorsun. You’re speaking Turkish very well. Kız kardeşin güzel Türkçe konuşuyor. Your sister speaks good Turkish. Türkçe öğreniyoruz. We’re learning Turkish. So in forming a Turkish sentence, you should proceed as follows. If the subject would be a pronoun in English, do not use one. Remember that the subject will be expressed through the verb ending: -im for ‘I’, -sin for ‘you’ etc. If you want to say ‘I’m learning’, you need to start out with the verb ‘learn’. This is öğren-, then you add -iyor, the present tense indica- tor. For the ‘I’ part, you then add the ending -um, so that you end up with öğreniyorum. You might be wondering why the translations of the example sentences sometimes con- tain a progressive verb form (e.g., learning) and sometimes a simple present tense form (e.g., speaks). The present tense of -iyor is the basic present tense in Turkish and covers 14 Colloquial Turkish both English tenses. (However, there is another present tense in Turkish, which you have encountered already in the formulaic phrases teşekkür ederim and görüşürüz, but we won’t discuss that until Lesson 8.) Finally, it should be mentioned that the difference between -sin and -siniz is not just that of singular and plural. As in many other languages, the plural form of the second person is also used as the polite form of address. Strangers in Turkey will usually address you with -siniz. Dialogue 5 Türkçe öğreniyorum I’m learning Turkish In a corner, John’s sister Eileen and Cengiz’s sister Müjgan have struck up a conversation. Eileen has learned some basic Turkish, and is practising it right away EILEEN: Biraz Türkçe konuşuyorum. MÜJGAN: Ah, çok güzel konuşuyorsun. Nerede öğrendin? EILEEN: Teşekkür ederim. Evde öğrendim. MÜJGAN: Burada mutlaka daha da çok öğreneceksin. Ben sana yardım edeceğim. EILEEN: Affedersin, anlamadım. Tekrarlar mısın? MÜJGAN: Ben sana yardım edeceğim. ‘I will help you’ demek. EILEEN: I speak a bit of Turkish. MÜJGAN: Oh, you speak it very well. Where did you learn it? EILEEN: Thanks. I’ve learnt it at home. MÜJGAN: Here you’ll surely learn more. I’ll help you. EILEEN: Sorry, I didn’t get that. Can you repeat it? MÜJGAN: Ben sana yardım edeceğim. That means ‘I will help you’. Key vocabulary biraz a little, a bit konuşuyorum I speak konuşmak to talk, to speak öğrendin you learned öğrenmek to learn evde at home burada here mutlaka surely, definitely daha more öğreneceksin you will learn yardım sana you (literally: to you) I will help you edeceğim affedersin sorry, excuse me anlamadım I didn’t understand  How are you? 15 anlamak to understand tekrarlar can you repeat (it)? mısın? tekrarlamak to repeat demek to say (here: it means) Exercise 6 Fill in the correct ending. 1 Öğretmen___ I am a teacher 2 Dost___ my friend 3 Bil___ we know 4 Tanıştırıyor___ he’s introducing 5 Aile___ my family 6 Konuşuyor___ you (pl.) are talking/speaking 7 Öğreniyor___ they are learning 8 Yardım ediyor___ I’m helping How to find words in the dictionary As a general rule, pay attention to the beginning of words if you want to know the meaning of the noun or verb stem. If there is a discrepancy between what you find in the glossary at the end of the book, or in a dictionary, and the word as it appears in the text, it is likely that there is a suffix attached to the word in the text. It won’t take long before you will start to spot the more frequent suffixes. In fact, you may already have developed a feel for not only -im (‘my’), -ler (plural) and -le (‘with’), but also for -iyor (present tense), -de (‘in’, ‘at’), -e or -ye (‘to’) and -di (past tense). Reading text Try to read the following, difficult text. It is not important to understand every single detail of it. Could you try to answer the questions that follow, without looking at the translation in the Key? Cengiz and his sister Müjgan are waiting for a plane at Esenboğa airport in Ankara. Their brother Ali, coming back from a holiday   in Britain, may arrive any minute. Suddenly, Cengiz hears a familiar voice. It’s Uncle Halil 16 Colloquial Turkish HALİL: Tesadüfe bak! CENGİZ: Merhaba, Halil Amca, nasılsınız? HALİL: Vallahi, iyiyim, sağ ol. Sen nasılsın? CENGİZ: Fena değil, amca, teşekkür ederim. HALİL: Ya annen ve baban nasıl? CENGİZ: Annem iyi. Babam biraz rahatsız. HALİL: Geçmiş olsun. Kardeşlerin iyi mi? CENGİZ: İyiler. Aslında Ali’yi bekliyoruz. Birazdan gelecek. HALİL: Öyle mi? O zaman beraber bekleyelim. Yaklaşık bir senedir görmedim onu. Şey, bu güzel kız kim? CENGİZ: Tanımıyor musunuz? Bu Müjgan, benim kız kardeşim! HALİL: Öyle mi? Çok büyümüş! At that moment Ali arrives at the scene Uncle Halil first says bak ‘look here’, and refers to a tesadüf. Can you guess what this word means? Vallahi ‘I swear’ is used here as an intensifier of iyiyim. Sağ ol is more informal than teşekkür ederim, but means the same. Halil asks Cengiz how he’s doing. If we tell you that değil means ‘not’, what would Cengiz’s answer Fena değil mean? Cengiz’s father is biraz rahatsız, and when Halil hears this news, he uses the idiom geçmiş olsun ‘May it be past’. So, what is biraz rahatsız? If we tell you that -ecek expresses future (‘shall’/‘will’), what would birazdan gelecek mean (considering the reason why they are at the airport)? Note the ending -elim, in beraber bekleyelim ‘let’s wait together’, which in this case in- dicates a proposal. Yaklaşık bir senedir means ‘For a year or so’. Halil does not seem to recognise Müjgan. Cengiz asks Tanımıyor musunuz ‘Don’t you recognise her?’ Appar- ently, Müjgan has büyümüş a lot. Can you guess why Halil does not recognise her at first? A short history of Turkey The territory of modern day Türkiye ‘Turkey’ is divided between the small European part Trakya ‘Trace’ (West of the Boğaziçi ‘Bosporus’) and the larger Asian part Anadolu ‘Anatolia’. This area has continuously been playing an important role in the tarih ‘history’ of both the Orta Doğu ‘Middle East’ and Avrupa ‘Europe’. One reason was the signifi- cance of the Bosporus, a narrow strait, the only gateway to the Kara Deniz ‘Black Sea’. As early as 7500 BC, civilisations were present in Anatolia. Traces of these early inhab- itants can still be seen in the Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi ‘The museum of Anatolian Civilisations’ in Ankara, or at the site of Çatal Höyük. Many yüzyıllar ‘centuries’ later, around 2000 BC, the Hittites came to the area and developed the great Hittite Empire. Some small kingdoms on the western coast (such as the city of Troy) challenged the Hit- tite dominance, but Troy itself was attacked by the Greeks (the Trojan War, as depicted by Homer, took place near the small köy ‘village’ of Truva). After the Hittites, Greek war- riors came and conquered parts of Asia Minor; later on the Greeks were defeated by the  How are you? 17 Persians, who in turn were driven off by Büyük İskender ‘Alexander the Great’. Later, the Roman Empire also had its impact on sanat ‘art’ and mimarlık ‘architecture’ of the region. After the decline of Rome, the city of Byzantium, (later called Constantinople, now İstanbul) became the capital of the East Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. Gradually, Turkish tribes came to Anatolia, and founded small kingdoms. The Selcuk ‘Seljuk’ Turks deci- sively defeated the Byzantines and forced them to retreat to Constantinople. Much later again, in 1453, the Osmanlı ‘Ottoman’ Sultan Fatih Mehmet ‘Mehmet the Conqueror’ was able to conquer Constantinople. From that day, the Ottomans considered themselves to be the legitimate heirs of the Roman legacy.  2 Tatil yapıyoruz We’re on holiday In this lesson you will learn how to: say something about yourself and your present situation tell people what you’ve done recently Dialogue 1 Ankara’da In Ankara Müjgan is showing Eileen around in Ankara. She is trying to find out what her guest is interested in doing MÜJGAN: Nereleri görmek istiyorsun? EILEEN: Bakalım, bir dakika, oradaki bina ne? MÜJGAN: İşte bu, ünlü etnoğrafya müzesi. EILEEN: Biraz dolaşalım. Vaktim çok. Sonra, bazı yerlere daha gideceğim. Güzel bir park var mı buralarda? MÜJGAN: Var, birkaç sokak ileride Gençlik Parkı var. EILEEN: Ah, güzel. Gidelim. MÜJGAN: What places would you like to see? EILEEN: Let’s see, just a minute, what’s that building over there? MÜJGAN: Well, that’s the famous ethnographic museum. EILEEN: Let’s just walk around a bit. I have plenty of time. I’ll go to some more places later. Is there a nice park somewhere around here? MÜJGAN: Yes, a few streets ahead there’s the Gençlik Park. EILEEN: Ah, good. Let’s go. Key vocabulary nereleri what places sonra later görmek to see bazı some istiyorsun you want, you like yerlere to places  We’re on holiday 19 bakalım let’s see yer place bir dakika (just) a minute gideceğim I’ll go oradaki over there, yonder var there is bina building var mı is there? ne what buralarda around here işte well birkaç some, a few ünlü famous sokak street dolaşalım let’s walk around ileride ahead dolaşmak to walk around Gençlik Youth vaktim çok I have plenty of time (see below) gidelim let’s go Three remarks: 1 The construction vaktim çok ‘I have plenty of time’ contains the word vaktim (=vakit ‘time’+-im ‘my’). (More in Unit 4.) Some words in which the second syllable contains an -i- lose it when it is followed by a suffix starting with a vowel. So, it is not vakitim but vaktim. Likewise, the word for ‘city’ is şehir. ‘My city’ is şehrim, not şehirim. 2 You may wonder where the verb ‘to be’ is in Turkish, e.g. in oradaki bina ne? ‘What is that building over there?’ Well, in Turkish ‘to be’ is in fact not a full-fledged verb, but merely a personal ending. Remember iyiyim ‘I am fine’ and Bu John ‘This is John’ in Unit 1. The first example shows that ‘I am’ is -yim; the latter shows that the third person singular form of ‘to be’ (‘he/she/it/John is’ in English) has in fact no ending. There’s more on ‘to be’ in Lesson 4. 3 Note that in her last sentence, Müjgan says var ‘there is’ twice. When a question con tains var and the answer is positive, you can simply reply var, in which case it means ‘yes’. Dialogue 2 Parkta piknik A picnic in the park The two women have found a nice place to have a picnic. Müjgan asks Eileen about her life in Britain MÜJGAN: Nerede oturuyorsun, Eileen? EILEEN: Londra’da oturuyorum. Oraya hiç gittin mi? MÜJGAN: Gitmedim. Anlatsana biraz, evin nasıl, güzel mi? EILEEN: Evet, tam merkezde. Oldukça büyük, ve bahçesi var. Büyüklüğü benim için yeterli. MÜJGAN: Güzel. Yalnız mı oturuyorsun? EILEEN: Evet. Erkek arkadaşım var, ama o Oxford’da oturuyor. Maalesef. 20 Colloquial Turkish MÜJGAN: Sizinle gelmedi mi? EILEEN: Gelmedi. Çalışıyor. MÜJGAN: Ne is yapıyor? EILEEN: Öğretmen. Fransızca dersi veriyor. MÜJGAN: Where do you live, Eileen? EILEEN: I live in London. Did you ever go there? MÜJGAN: No, I didn’t (literally: I did not go). Tell me, how’s your house, is it nice? EILEEN: Yes, it’s right in the centre. It’s fairly big, and it has a garden. The size is enough for me. MÜJGAN: Nice. Do you live by yourself? EILEEN: Yes. I have a boyfriend, but he lives in Oxford. Unfortunately. MÜJGAN: He didn’t come with you? EILEEN: No, he didn’t (literally: he did not come). He is working. MÜJGAN: What kind of job does he do? EILEEN: He’s a teacher. He teaches French lessons. Key vocabulary oturmak you live hiç ever oturyorsun to live, to sit gittin mi? did you go? oturuyorum I live gitmedim I did not go oraya to there anlatsana tell me anlatmak to tell yalnız alone evin nasıl? how’s your house? sizinle with you nasıl how, what kind of maalesef unfortunately tam right, precisely gelmedi he did not come merkezde in the centre gelmek to come merkez centre çalışıyor he works, he is oldukça working büyük big çalışmak to work bahçesi var it has a garden iş job bahçe garden ders lesson büyüklük size Fransızca dersi French lessons için for veriyor he gives yeterli enough vermek to give  We’re on holiday 21 Language point Verbs In order to produce even the simplest sentences you need to know something about verb tenses. For example, if you want to say when you arrived, you need to put the verb in the past tense, as in ‘I came yesterday’, because you did the arriving sometime in the (recent) past. Similarly, if you want to say what line of work you’re in, you will want to use the present tense, because you are describing something that is still going on. All this is true for Turkish as it is for any other language. It is important to learn at least the two basic forms of present and past tenses right away. These are the endings -iyor, the present tense ending and -di, the past tense ending. But remember that where you would use forms of ‘to be’ in English, such as I am sick, are you a teacher? etc., you do not need -iyor: A personal ending (I, you, they, etc.) on the noun or adjective is enough. In the past tense, -di is needed, however. Exercise 1 Without translating, say whether you need a verb with -iyor or -di in the translations of the following sentences or whether you should only use one of the personal suffixes. 1 The food is ready. 6 Did you know that? 2 They came early. 7 She’s not going. 3 Where do you work? 8 I like it very much. 4 It’s a nice day. 9 Where is she? 5 They came early! 10 He’s a young man. Dialogue 3 Buyurun There you are/What can I get you Bülent and Sabahat have arrived in Antalya for a weekend at the beach. They are sitting at an outdoor cafe and are about to order GARSON: Hoş geldiniz. Buyurun. SABAHAT: Hoş bulduk. GARSON: Ne içersiniz? SABAHAT: Bir kola ve bir bira lütfen. GARSON: Hemen getireyim. (The waiter returns) GARSON: Buyurun, bir kola ve bir bira. 22 Colloquial Turkish SABAHAT: Teşekkürler. GARSON: Bir şey değil. (The waiter hangs around) GARSON: Buraya ilk defa mı geliyorsunuz? SABAHAT: Evet, ilk defa. Geçen yıllarda hep İzmir’e gittik. GARSON: Kaç gün kalacaksınız? SABAHAT: hafta sonu Antalya’da kalıyoruz. Ondan sonra biraz gezmek istiyoruz. GARSON: Ne zaman döneceksiniz? SABAHAT: Gelecek hafta gideceğiz. GARSON: İyi tatiller. SABAHAT: Teşekkürler. GARSON: Welcome. What can I get you? SABAHAT: Thank you. GARSON: What would you like to drink? SABAHAT: A coke and a beer, please. GARSON: Let me bring that right away. There we are, one coke and onebeer. SABAHAT: Thank you. GARSON: You’re welcome. Is this your first time here? SABAHAT: Yes, it’s the first time. In previous years, we’ve always gone to İzmir. GARSON: How many days will you be staying? SABAHAT: We’re staying in Antalya for the weekend. After that we want to travel around a bit. GARSON: When will you return? SABAHAT: We’ll go next week. GARSON: Have a nice holiday. SABAHAT: Thank you.  We’re on holiday 23 Key vocabulary içersiniz you (plural) drink gittik we went, we have içmek to drink gone lütfen please kaç how many hemen gün day right away, immediately kalacaksınız you (plural) will getireyim let me bring stay getirmek to bring kalmak to stay bir şey değil hafta sonu weekend you’re welcome (literally: it’s hafta week nothing) son end değil not kalıyoruz we stay ilk first gezmek travel/walk/drive defa time around geliyor- you (plural) come ne zaman when sunuz buraya to here döneceksiniz you will return geçen last, previous gelecek next, coming yıl year gideceğiz we’ll go geçen in previous years tatil vacation, holiday yıllarda hep always, all iyi tatiller have a nice holiday Izmir’e to Izmir Language points Forming the present tense You first take the verb stem and add -iyor to it. Then you add the personal ending. (Remem- ber that this ending is necessary because in Turkish you do not usually use words meaning ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘we’ etc.) So, the steps you need to make in order to say ‘I give a book’ are: 1 Find the verb stem. In a dictionary you will usually find vermek ‘to give’. The -mek part is the infinitive ending, so the stem is ver-. 2 Add -iyor to give veriyor-.