A modest Estagfurullah...
Turkish Euphemisms...
Turkish Palindromes
'Out Loud' Word Spelling
Well-known Language School(s) in Turkey
How Turks Learn English Pronunciation...
Bad Sign Language...
Uses of 'Efendim'...
Turkish Tipoffs -- If ...
Turkish Tipoffs II -- The Sequel...
'Slurring' in Turkish...
Turkish regional accents...
Turkish Character-set Typing Tip...
The wrong and, the right ands...
We paraphrase our giant-sized
that gives the meaning of this tongue-twisting Turkish word as... Esta Around where we live it's used [modestly] For example...
And Kathryn K likes it especially for its "My all time favorite heart-melting Turkish expression is 'esta Nowadays, of course, it can be used to show modesty, You can not miss with this word... To which we say... |
invented, new Turkish euphemism. Euphemism -- a mild, indirect, or vague expression used
in place of a more direct, explicit, or offensive one. Like: rest-room or water-closet for toilet...
We hesitated to bring it to your attention at the time, "A handful of hazelnuts every day is good for you." Then continuing under the picture... "They're good for high-blood pressure, for cholesterol, for anemia, for sleeplessness, they give energy, make the skin youthful, strengthen bones and teeth and besides that...[they give you] sexual potency!" Pronounced: ah-gah-nee-ghee nah-gah-nee-ghee March 2000 |
We don't know about you, but early in our Turkish-language learning-experience, we got hooked on using the Turkish 've' to mean the English 'and' -- at almost every opportunity. Oh, yes...we do remember, vaguely, something in our text-books about the '-Ip' suffix and the stand-alone 'da' -- but why should we worry about them when 've' was available, and so easy for us to understand and use? Well, here's what one of our favorite Turkish-language advisors, pathological overuse of the word 've' in Turkish, which is considered a substitute for the English word 'and' -- due to the frequency of non-Turkish movies on TV with very very bad translations. More often than not, 'and' would translate better to Turkish as 'da' or 'de' or as '-Ip, -ip, -up, -üp' -- according to the rule of vowel harmony. For instance, in the example, 'Mektubu aç ve okuyalIm.' (Open the letter and let's read it)... it would be so much more natural to replace the 've' in the sentence with 'da'." What Deniz (a native Türk) must mean is that it's But nevvvermind, his point is well taken. Because, we sure hear 'da' and 'Ip' (and 'ile', by the way) here in the Turkish streets (and in Turkish radio and television programming) a lot more than we hear 've'. So if you too would like a simple and effective way to sound better in Turkish, then cast out the unnatural-sounding 've' (wherever you can) -- in favor of the native-sounding 'da', 'Ip', and 'ile'...
Examples: 2) Her seferinde aynI sey, suçu kendi isler,
kolayca kardesinin üstüne yIkIp zeytinya 3) Do 4) izmir'e uçak ile gidiyorum.
5) izmir'e uçakla gidiyorum.
6) izmir'e otobüs ile gidiyorum.
7) izmir'e otobüsle gidiyorum.
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It's a phrase or sentence that's spelled the same way, backwards and forwards, like: A man, a plan, a canal, Panama! But would you have spotted the following
Ey edip Adanada pide ye! Hey, go on -- and eat a Turkish pizza in Adana! Courtesy: Ertan KÜÇÜKYALÇIN, March 2000 |
keeps calling at your door, how do you do it? Well, if you're like us, you crank up the voice a notch and shout, S as in Scaramouche, C as in Concertina, R as in Rhubarb, A as in Albatross, and M as in Mayonnaise... S-C-R-A-M! But if you're Turkish, you have to know your Turkish city names or else you'll be in, Trabzon'un Te'si, Rize'nin Re'si, Ordu'nun O'su, Urfa'nIn U'su, Bursa'nIn Be'si, Lüleburgaz'In Le'si, Edirne'nin E'si... T-R-O-U-B-L-E!
So if you need to, say, spell your foreign-sounding surname to a Turkish-speaking someone, over the phone... |
If so, we've got the in-country school for you...
Tömer Language School
Complete 2001 Application/Date/Time/Pricing Information
Istanbul: (90) (212) 230-7083
If you call Long Distance:
In fall/winter/spring classes run 2 months -- that's the 'standard program'. Condensed 4-week classes are held in spring/summer/fall. All student applications must be made through the Tömer Central Branch in Ankara. See 'Adobe Acrobat .PDF' file (above) for course schedules and pricing details. Warning... Another Izmir/Istanbul/Ankara lead -- "The English Fast
International Language School"
More 'Educational News'... |
Phonetics 101 Note: The following tidbit was published in the Turkish daily Newspaper Sabah. It's author had his tongue firmly planted in his cheekle cavity. We translate and paraphrase... Remembering how to pronounce "Fish" in English When he looks at the spelling of the English word 'fish' a Turk's instinct is to pronounce the word as "feee-sh". To help himself remember the correct pronunciation, he must memorize the character sequence 'ghoti'. After that, he simply needs to remember to pronounce the 'gh' as in the English word 'tough', the 'o' as in the English word 'women', the 'ti' as in the English word 'nation' -- and there you have it. F - I - SH...
These next two come from a Turkish friend -- who swears he used them as crutches when he first started learning English. Do we believe him? Well, we haven't made up our minds yet. Anyway he says...
But to help me pronounce the phrases correctly, I'd say the Turkish phrases "Ayran içtim" and "Vay hayvan vay?" -- which gave me a close approximation of the sounds I wanted, though the syllable accenting wasn't very good. The first Turkish phrase means, "I drank Ayran" -- Ayran being a national drink of ours made from yogurt. The second one means, "Oh! animal oh!". And I'm not kidding, these phrases got me going -- |
A OK is not ok Don't use this hand signal in Turkey...
If you're American, it's probably safest to leave all your tried and true American hand-signals at home...Most of them don't translate well on this side of the Atlantic. If you can't figure out why, write us. We'll tell ya' a story...
And don't prop your feet up and point your soles at the Turkish person you are talking to. No one is likely to say anything to you, but they'll mark you down as a bad mannered boob.
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To be respectful -- and uh... Yes, the word is 'Efendim' (pronounced as it looks) and it's used when
Turkish speakers answer the phone. In that case it has the effect of saying
"Hello" -- in a very respectful (polite) manner. It
literally means "my master".
It has another use, too...as a meaningless filler -- when you
are speaking and you are in mid-sentence and you need to pause
for some reason. Maybe you want to take a breath, maybe you
momentarily forget the next word you want to use...
For example...In English, we might speak a sentence like,
"Yesterday was the first day of, uh, October." [We said 'uh' because
we momentarily forgot which month it was.] In Turkish, in place
of the 'uh' -- you'd hear 'Efendim', if the speaker was being polite...[And if he wasn't being polite? Well, you'd problee hear "uhhh" -- just like us!] And the complete spoken-Turkish sentence might look something like: How can I say this, uhhh...Yesterday was the first day of October, uhhh... [Note: Elimination of the 'd' is only done in this instance -- with 'uhhh' replacement. The full word, "Efendim" is used in all other cases mentioned in this article.] And yet another use...If you ask a polite Turk a question, and
she doesn't hear or understand you well enough, she will
reply, "Efendim?" -- meaning, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you well.
Could you repeat please?" One final use...If you enter a room and call out the name of your polite Turkish friend, he will turn to you with a smile and say, "Efendim..." -- meaning, "Yes, I'm here. You've got my attention. I'm ready to listen to your next words..." |
#1 An 'iffy' Proposition
Here goes...The Turkish word e It means nothing at all, zip, zero -- by itself...It's just a tipoff that a conditional 'if ' statement is on the way -- coming up, right around the corner, somewhere
E The bad news is that a sentence need not begin with e Daha yavas konusursan, daha iyi anlayabilirim;
including more examples without e
So you'll be damn glad to see it in such sentences as -- E
If you don't keep your promise, it'll be very bad.
Incidentally, our All Turkish-to-Turkish Dictionary defines e Now why didn't the bilingual dictionaries and grammars explain it that way in the first place? If they had done so, it would have saved us from developing the [incorrect] habit of [incorrectly] using e And, yes. Sometimes, we still [incorrectly] do it -- |
'tIpkI' -- A preposition in its own time...
King Kong, tIpkI öteki maymunlar gibi maymundur -- sadece biraz daha büyüktür; But, unlike e
1) It forewarns the coming of a phrase -- in this case a phrase in which the similarity between one object(s) and another will be established (for instance, between King Kong and another monkey). And remember...this is a phrase that begins with tIpkI and ends with gibi, so these phrase delimiters -- when you run across them -- can be very useful identifiers, to help you parse and translate a Turkish sentence. 2) It reinforces or adds emphasis to the phrase it fronts. And when tIpkI and gibi appear together in a phrase, it is tIpkI that emphasizes how very alike one object(s) is to the other -- giving the sense that object A (King Kong) is exactly like or just like object B (any other monkey). This is a stronger statement than, object A (King Kong) is [merely] like B (another monkey).
tIpkI kösede oturan sihirbaz gibi; King Arthur is wearing a lampshade [on his head] again -- just like the sorcerer sitting in the corner. [What happened to that fresh bottle of Whiskey, Mabel?] Using tIpkI by itself...
tIpkI Merlin; King Arthur is wearing a lampshade [on his head] -- exactly like Merlin. Using gibi by itself... Merlin gibi; King Arthur is wearing a lampshade [on his head] -- like Merlin. Weren't those last examples magical...?
does not arise in Turkish. A gibi is a gibi is a gibi [with tIpkI acting as a gibi strengthener...] |
Whatchagonnadonexsadurdeeforlunch...?
For example, in proper Turkish you would hear... But in slurred Turkish speed-speech, this becomes... This is very colloquial (just like in English), but it is heard/seen frequently in everyday speech -- and also in the dialogs of novels and stories. Click following to see an ilustrated example of Off-color Turkish slurring but be warned -- the language is very explicit! |
Shall I pahk the cah in the pahking lot...?
Regional accents in Turkey are alive and well, thank you. Perhaps the best known is the one from the Black Sea region -- which is well documented in Turkish books and stories. For example, if you buy any of the Let's eavesdrop on this exchange between Temel and a male friend -- as they get ready to leave on holiday... With Black Sea accent and slang... Without Black Sea accent and slang... English Translation...
We've heard that over 200 million people speak Turkish, making it the 7th most spoken language in the World. |
without a Turkish keyboard, using Windows 95/98/ME/NT and so on...
but you don't know how to type them in your Windows word processor... Here's an easy (albeit somewhat cumbersome) way to do it. After that, bring up your Word Processor program and, from the font menu, select one of your new Turkish fonts -- Then -- while holding down the Alt key, type any of the number sequences in the following chart... and finally
So, for example, once you switch to the Turkish keyboard, it only takes one key depression per Turkish character -- just like on the counterpart English keyboard... But to enable keyboard-switching, you'll need to install the |