The problem with more words As I learn more words in Turkish, I am encountering an unexpected problem: choosing which word to use. Back in the true beginner days, I was ecstatic to have any word that might convey meaning. Now I am almost wary of learning synonyms, because I often end
Some thoughts on dabbling in a non-official language in Turkey The short answer No, I don’t need to learn Kurdish, but it will make my life more fun! Some background: Using Kurdish in southeast Turkey The Kurdish language (the Kurmanji dialect, if we are being more accurate) has
A very basic introduction to Kurdish languages Even if you don’t plan to learn a whole new language, here are some fun facts that you can bust out to impress your other language-loving friends. Kurdish is in the Indo-European language family This is really exciting news if you
After the popularity of the first two interviews in this series, with Maria in Vancouver and Jeremy in Berlin, I am happy to introduce open-minded, open-hearted, and multilingual Jordi. A Barcelona-born cultural explorer in Turkey In spring 2013, Jordi began traveling around the world
Living and Learning Turkish As I mentioned in the last blog post, I am doing new things in Turkey and as a result learning new Turkish expressions. This last week I have been volunteering for a farm and nature education program, and the new learning seems to have been dominated by new
Turkish vocabulary notes = a pretty good journal When I arrived in Turkey almost three weeks ago, I already spoke enough Turkish to get around and have familiar conversations. But there were, and still are, huge gaps in my vocabulary, especially since I am in Turkey in a new season fo
Thoughts on Made-Up Transliteration How would you spell German numbers? 1 – Ayn 2 – Swayn 3 – Dry 4 – Fier 5 – Fünf 6 – Sex 7 – Zibın 8 – Ahkt 9 – Noyn 10 – Tin Emrah, a Turkish guy who also speaks English, wrote this list wi
Learning a new language and rethinking the old Among the many pleasures of learning a new language is rethinking the meaning of words in your own language. As I wander back into the world of Turkish, I am reminded of this. I am especially interested in the reciprocal verbs, which we d
The Wonder of WordReference What is it? WordReference.com is a great set of online dictionaries to translate between English and fifteen other languages. It also has dictionaries for Spanish-French and Spanish-Portuguese, as well as verb conjugators and games for several languages. It
An American in Berlin You know those crazy people who speak more languages than we have fingers? Jeremy is one of them. I met him in Turkish language school in Istanbul six years ago, and this weekend I visited him in Berlin. He has been a constant source of inspiration for travelling
