More TV

They've recently moved the schedule around at Kanal D, so I can no longer watch my two soaps - Asi and Yabancı Damat - at the normal time I've been watching them. Kanal D offers all Asi episodes online, so I can still watch that whenever I want, but Yabancı Damat seems to have been wiped from the site, so if I want to continue watching the show, I'll have to find other means.

Another show, "Gece Gündüz" (Night and Day), is now showing in the timeslot that Yabancı Damat used to play. I initially dismissed it. The first episode I saw prominently featured a character named "Sipsi", which was beyond over-the-top silly, but I've grown to like it. It's a standard good cop, bad cop show.

Speaking of cops shows, I'm also really getting into another show on Kanal D called "Arka Sokaklar" (Back Streets). The show initially ran in 2006. I'm liking it a lot!

And finally the last show I'm starting to watch is "Kuzey Güney" (North South). It's a fairly new soap on Kanal D that started broadcasting late last year.

I'm continuing to watch my normal news shows, Güne Merhaba and Günaydın, as well as Burada Laf Çok. There's certainly no shortage of video input for me, and it's all helping to increase my vocabulary.

Speaking of vocabulary, I've gone a couple lessons deeper into Yeni Hitit. I can't praise this course enough! While I'm not getting any new grammar (yet), I'm getting so much new vocabulary - all of it comprehensible. I run into a lot of words I don't know, but I rarely use the dictionary to figure out the meaning. There's so much included visually in the course, whether it's a photo or an illustration, that it's enough of a clue to figure out any unknown vocabulary. And that's what makes it stick for me. I wish I'd started in with this course sooner. It's that good.

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.