Yeni Hitit

My major goal with Turkish this year is to double my vocabulary. I think I've got a pretty good handle on at least the grammar basics, so vocabulary is my focus, although I'll certainly be doing review of already known grammar and hopefully taking in some new grammar too.

I've got the complete "Yeni Hitit" 3-volume course and my plan is to use volume one for grammar review and learn new vocabulary, then continue on to volumes two and three, which most likely has all new grammar material for me.

I'm only about half way through volume one and, I gotta say, it's packed with new vocabulary. I'm well over three hundred new words at this point. I'm finding I'm remembering the vocabulary really well too. The book is full of colorful illustrations and diagrams that make all this new material really comprehensible. All these visual cues help reinforce the meaning.

I'm finding that the grammar review is pretty comprehensive too. Volume one really gets into the subjunctive mood later on in the book. I had looked at the subjunctive last year, but I can already tell that I'm going to get much more exposure to it in this course. I haven't even cracked volume two or three to see what all is covered, but I can only imagine it's going to be a really complete course.

When I'm Skyping with my conversation partner, it's pretty easy to just rely on what I've already learned and not really push myself with either vocabulary or grammar. I'm hoping this, combined with all the other media I'm taking in, will help.

All in all, I'm really happy with Yeni Hitit. I think it's going to pull me out of my intermediate funk.