Learning the Turkish language is the most important step towards self-realization in the country. Find out in more detail how difficult it is to learn Turkish, what its features are and how long it will take to fully understand

In recent years, the economy of Turkey has been actively developing. The country's government is working to attract investors, highly qualified workers and students to the country. Many Turks speak English, however, knowledge of Turkish can provide a foreigner with the most comfortable living, working and studying in Turkey.

         We tried to find out whether it is difficult to learn Turkish, what are its features, what study methods are developed, and how long it will take to start understanding what the Turks are talking about.

What are the peculiarities of the Turkish language?

        There are 80 million people who speak the Turkish language, most of whom mostly live within Europe. For comparison: 580 million people speak Arabic, and 590 million speak Spanish. However, this is due to historical and geographical factors, not the complexity of the Turkish language.

         Most of the words in the Turkish language are borrowed from Persian, Arabic or French. According to its morphology, Turkish belongs to agglutinative languages, that is, those where words are created according to the principle of combination. Turkish has a basic number of words to which suffixes are added and thanks to which new words are formed. A similar system is characteristic of Japanese, Korean, Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and other languages.

Therefore, those who are at least partially familiar with one of these languages will find it much easier to learn Turkish.

The letters in the Turkish alphabet are Latin. There are 29 of them in total, and each one means one specific sound.

Officially, there are 104,481 words in the dictionary of the Turkish language. That's not a lot, by comparison: English has 999,985 words, Chinese with dialects has 500,000 words, and Spanish has 225,000 words.

Learning Turkish will also be simplified by the fact that it has no exceptions to the rules and articles. All verbs are correct, there are no conjugation forms and no gender (feminine, masculine, neuter).

The grammar rules in Turkish are built logically, consistently, precisely and consistently, as if it were created by a computer or artificial intelligence.

How long does it take to learn Turkish?

 

According to tutors' calculations, it will take you at least 44 weeks to start speaking Turkish quickly.

In one month, you can learn the minimum vocabulary - the alphabet and about 300 words that are used most often.

Researchers say that in order to master one of the relatively simple languages of the world (English or Spanish), it is necessary to practice at least 1 hour every day. Completion of the course will take up to 600 hours. To learn Turkish, Ukrainian or Hindi (medium level of difficulty) you need to spend at least 2 hours every day or 1100 hours in total. Difficult languages, for example, Chinese or Arabic, should be given at least 4 hours a day, and the total training course takes about 2,200 hours.

Stages and methods of learning the Turkish language

 

The first stage is the alphabet

Of course, learning any language begins with the alphabet. Some difficulties may arise for those who are familiar with other Latin alphabets, because the letters are familiar, but the sounds are completely different. They are also not very familiar to English speakers: many sounds are guttural, palatal and postpalatal, dental, tremulous and plosive. You will definitely not be able to repeat the sound the first time, you will have to train for a long time. Tutors advise you to try typing each Turkish letter into Google Translate and listen to the sound. The alphabet will probably be one of the most difficult stages in learning the Turkish language.

However, each of the 29 letters has one sound and is always pronounced the same, without exception. For example, in English, a letter can sound differently depending on its position in the word.

You should also not worry about incorrect pronunciation, because Turkish words sound the same as they are written.

Stage II – study of basic words

 

Basic words are those that form the basis of the Turkish language and to which suffixes are added. At this stage, in order to learn new words as quickly as possible, tutors advise you to immediately start using Turkish words in your native language, for example:

• When communicating in the messenger with the older sister, address her as abla.

• Use the word südüküm instead of "sorry".

• Instead of using native number names, use Turkish ones.

 

Stage III – study of grammar and sentence structure

At this stage, you will learn to combine learned words and simple phrases into sentences, as well as learn the agglutinative constructor - the technique of adding suffixes to main words. The third stage is the time when self-study will cease to be effective and you should think about a Turkish language tutor, if you still do not work with him.

Of course, the ideal environment for learning Turkish is Turkey itself. There are many educational centers and specialized schools for studying the Turkish language in the country. You can also study individually with a tutor - a native speaker. On the basis of learning a language in Turkey, you can issue a residence permit and legally stay in the country.

You can also learn Turkish on the Internet, where many online educational courses have been collected.

IV stage — practice and improvement of knowledge

Of course, no language can be mastered without proper practice. The stage of improving knowledge is the longest and can last for years as long as the student is interested in it. However, it is at this stage that a person can already benefit from knowledge of Turkish — make new acquaintances, study, conduct business in a foreign market or move to Turkey for permanent residence.

For those who plan to live in Turkey, the practice period will pass more easily and naturally, every day while working, studying and doing things.

The following will also be allowed to remain in the "language stream":

• Online courses or mobile applications in which you can take various tests, perform tasks and receive feedback from tutors.

• Entertainment resources: YouTube, Turkish bloggers, podcasts, series on Netflix. At the first stage, "native" subtitles will help to learn information, then Turkish subtitles.

• Literature - first read children's fairy tales, comics, then move on to newspapers, blog entries, and finally books.

• Communication with native speakers - you can find a friend on social networks or join an online club.

            Therefore, knowledge of the Turkish language provides many perspectives, and learning it will not be a challenge for any foreigner.

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