Oftentimes, it's better to think of LPT as a Grammar Reference work -- where you dive in as the spirit moves you!

But if you are just beginning Turkish, we'd recommend that you start by taking the links to...

1) 'The Story of Modern Turkish'
2) The 'Pronunciation Guide'

After that, it would depend on whether or not you have a sound card. Assuming that you do have one, we suggest the following step-by-step approach...

As we mention in our homepage 'opening statement', we see certain 'obstacles' that English speakers face when they try to learn Turkish -- obstacles that have to be overcome. What are they?

1) 'Difficult' vocabulary
2) 'Odd' sentence structure
3) 'So many' suffixes (agglutination)
4) 'Unusual' ways of expressing thought

For overcoming the first obstacle, we recommend:
a) The 'Merciless Vocabulary' page.
b) Sounds of Specialty Turkish

[While we're on the subject of vocabulary... An as-big-as-you-can-afford bilingual dictionary is essential to your language learning success. We recommend the Redhouse Dictionaries (they have 4 or 5 different sizes), but they are easily found in the states (although Amazon.com may have some in stock). If you can't find a Redhouse dictionary, the large Langenscheidt is acceptable (though curiously weak in places). The one to avoid is the Concise Oxford -- it's very misleading and out of date. Do not buy the one with the original publication date of 1953. It's terrible!]
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For overcoming the second obstacle, we recommend:

a) The 'Reverse English!' page
b) The 'Regular and Consistent' page
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For overcoming the third obstacle, we recommend:

a) 'Too many suffixes -- agglutination'
b) The other various pages devoted to suffixes -- found under 'S' in the Table of Contents (TOC)
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For overcoming the fourth obstacle, we recommend:

a) 'Expressing Yourself in Turkish'
b) How to Translate Turkish, Part I and Part II

And if you have time, check out the Verb Charts (for 'gelmek' -- 'to come', and for the 'verb to be') -- so that you can get a feel for the logic of Turkish verb-structure (which you will find very consistent, unlike our 'English' verbs)...

That's a pretty ambitious program we've laid out, we know -- and you ought not concentrate all your effort in one area. Skip in and out of each of the areas -- so you can get an overall 'appreciation'.

And don't let yourself be discouraged. Whatever you have time to learn, will pay big dividends.

And lastly, make sure you *enjoy* the language -- recognizing that it's got a very high *cool* quotient...
:^)

P.S. For Turkish language 'self-drilling' -- don't forget the *free* Interactive Dictionary, the Verb Conjugator, and the Vocabulary Builder, etc. that you'll find on our 'Downloads' page...