Turkish became a project back at the end of February, when we first thought we'd be going home via Istanbul. But I ended up not doing much extra language work before we came here (partly because of time pressures, and partly because of the whole on-again-off-again status of the trip).

Nor have I done that much formal Turkish-learning since I've been here. I've done plenty of informal learning, of course. I'm gratified to have had lots more little conversations than I was able to manage last time we were here, even though my capacities are still very limited. You definitely pick up words as you go along, through what you hear and read. And the need to come up with something in a given situation is a great incentive to read up about topics, and note down useful words and phrases.


Sounds SO much better in Turkish...

But when you're in a new place, you're busy. You have to suss out how things work, and where you buy things, and how to get around. You want to see things, and then you want to read up about them, and write about them.

So, for my formal Turkish attempts I've mostly been relying on apps, because they're quick and easy to use.

The other thing I've been doing in bite-sized chunks is listening to the Turkish course on Language Transfer. The guy who does this programme is absolutely brilliant at showing you how to build the grammar up block by block, which is particularly helpful with a language as complex as Turkish.


Long live 1st May...

I've taken the occasional plunge into my Turkish Uncovered course. But you need a fair chunk of time to make the most of that. The whole point of this approach is that the learner works with much longer blocks of text than beginners are usually exposed to, which requires a lot of extensive listening and reading. That is very helpful, but not something you can rush.


Another good way to learn Turkish

It's somewhat ironic, I suppose, that I'm in a Turkish-speaking environment, and yet I've done so little Turkish study. Undoubtedly, adding formal effort to the normal process of osmosis would have yielded more success. But I'm not going to beat myself up. The little I know definitely helped us. Next time -- God willing, there will be a next time -- I will know more.

And seriously, no amount of preparation could have readied me for some of the things I've been required to do...

To talk to pharmacists and doctors, for example, the approach I've taken is to use Google Translate to help me get the bare bones of a text together that I can then show them. What's crucial, though, is to know enough of the language to recognize when the translation is going wrong...

For example, when I needed to describe Nigel's worrying new symptoms, what I wanted to say was this: "A few days ago, his eyelid swelled. Today, his pupils are a different size." I was able to discern that what Google came up with for that second sentence looked a bit dodgy. And indeed, a back-translation (where you put the Turkish sentence in, and ask for the English equivalent) came up with: "Today his disciples are in a different dimension..."

Hyper-worried though I was at that point, I couldn't help smiling...

So we looked up some Turkish anatomical diagrams, found one that labelled the pupil as goz bebegi (literally: eye baby), and reconstructed the sentence from that.

I was glad we'd done that preparation. Getting the story straight definitely facilitated admission to the Emergency Room.

The neurologist who examined him spoke some English, but the radiologist who did Nigel's MRI spoke next to none. So we communicated via a mixture of my elementary Turkish and Google Translate... He asked me where I'd learnt my Turkish. Off the internet, I said. He bemoaned language-teaching provision in Turkey. Completely inadequate, he said. Sometimes I'm inspired to teach English again... There's such a need.

Anyway, back to my point. You try your best to learn useful things that will help you communicate. But sometimes you just can't predict what's going to happen to you, and you have to wing it.

One way or another, we've muddled by.

But I will carry on. Turkish is not going to revert to the "dabbling" status that I assigned to it last June. I'd love to return to Turkey. It's handily on the way to the British Isles. It's interesting, it's friendly, it's cheap, and the food is awesome. What's not to like? And aside from the practicalities, I'm also super-enthused by the language itself. It's so beautiful, so intricate, so different from anything else I know.

Ultimate goal: to read a book...