Her şeyi açıklayabilirim (eh, doğru değil)

Summer has passed, for the most part. My relatives have gone back to Texas for the winter. I'm not outside quite so much, although I do take my regular walks.

I purposely took a break from my blog, although I continued (and continue) studying throughout the break. With the colder weather comes more introspection and solitude, something I specifically avoid in the warm summer months. So now I can begin to get back to journaling my progress and thoughts.

I've continued, as was my plan, to focus on Turkish this year. It's going about as I expected it to go. This year is all about massive vocabulary acquisition, and I think I'm still on track to get my vocabulary above the 6000 word mark. I've finished the second level of Yeni Hitit and am about half way through the last level. Level 3 is largely about reading, and by extension, writing. So I've been picking up the book more sporadically than the first two volumes. For reading, I've just started to read Kayıp Sembol (The Lost Symbol), by Dan Brown. I've read the book in English, so I'm familiar with the story. Even so, I'm estimating it'll take me a little over two months to get through it. So far, there's a lot of new vocabulary for me to soak up, but I like the novel, so it keeps me interested. I still watch a hell of a lot of Turkish TV - around three hours a day. I'm actually quite comfortable watching most of what I find on Kanal D, maybe a little less so with the news on CNNTürk, although the vocabulary is pretty regular and not difficult to understand. The reason I say I'm maybe less comfortable with CNNTürk has to do with the subject matter. It's mostly politics and Syria and, well... politics. It's just not that interesting to me. So aside from the nightly news (really the morning news because of the time difference), I've focused more on Kanal D's programming, which keeps me plenty entertained and interested..

Back in June, my 6 Week Challenge to learn Piedmontese ended, and I considered it a success. I continue to read Piedmontese every day, and to listen to whatever I can find. I also write when I can, although, as I mentioned at the top of the post, my writing and journaling took a big hit over the summer. I love the language and I plan on perfecting it as much as I possibly can.

Georgian is another story.. While I got through Dodona Kiziria's Beginning Georgian and am happy with the results, I've not progressed much further than that. I tried to continue on with George Hewitt's Georgian: A Learner's Grammar, but frankly, I can't stand it. The book is so convoluted and disorganized to be taken as a course. I think it's a decent reference book, though. So I no longer crack that one open very often. My goal was to get to an A2-ish level by the end of the year. I'm not sure I'll make it. If I can find something as interesting as Beginning Georgian, but slightly more advanced, I may still have a chance. But we'll see. Even if I don't progress much further with Georgian, I'll still he content with what I've learned. It's an extremely difficult language - at least for me, and I go through cycles of really liking it and hating it. So I suppose the trick is to ride the high cycles and ignore the low ones.

I'm already thinking and planning how I'll be dealing with the level of Turkish I want for next year, but I still want to keep my plans under wraps for the time being.

Dedikodu etmek...

OK, this post isn't directly related to gossip, but I was recently reminded of it by a gossipy neighbor, which made me think of a verb form in Turkish that I rarely use: the reportative tense, or, as Aaron over on everydaylanguagelearner.com calls it, the gossip tense. I like that description. It's pretty fitting, and I tend to relate its use to that particular meaning, although there are other meanings for this verb form.

I need to start using it more, so I'm revisiting it in my studies. It's covered fairly early on in both Teach Yourself Turkish and Colloquial Turkish.

Basically, the rule is simple: you use to to distance yourself from something in the story. A rough English equivalent would be to tack on "Apparently", "so I've heard", "I guess", or "supposedly", among other similar connecting words. All that's needed is a "miş/muş/mış" ending to the word stem, or root. So, say I want to say "I heard it was interesting", I would say "Enteresanmış". I should also note that this same word - enteresanmış - also can be used to denote present tense, so it also means "I hear it's interesting". Of course, this isn't limited to adjectives or adverbs. It can also be used directly with verbs, for example "Apparently, he/she knows" - "Bilirmiş".

This verb form can also be used to denote something you're unsure of. So you can use it to ask and confirm a question, such as "Does he/she know?" - "Bilir miymiş?" (note the "y" buffer between mi and miş). In this case, we're not sure, but suspect that the person knows and we just need confirmation.

Other simple question words, such as "what", "where" or "why" can also have a "miş" ending to show unsureness, for example "Neredeymiş" - "Where was it/where do you suppose it was?".

All in all, it's a pretty simple concept. Not one we English speakers are used to, unless we constantly speak hypothetically. And really, that isn't a bad exercise to get used to the pattern.

So I'll be practicing this verb form with my Skype partner for the next couple sessions.

More proof that watching TV works

I spend a lot of time on the HTLAL forums and learn all sorts of interesting things every day on the site. The reason I bring up HTLAL is because there was a discussion about FSI that comes up quite often; that the vocabulary is too outdated, and many people believe that the course is no longer of value. I disagree, personally. If all we're talking about is vocabulary, that's the easiest thing in the world to fix. But on with the story...

So, the discussion went something like this: "The FSI course teaches you to use the word işte, but when I asked a second generation student of mine, he told me he'd never heard of the word and to use bak instead."

OK, so right off the bat, this person wasn't going to the right source for information. Not knocking second generation speakers, but this kid is growing up in Germany, and probably hasn't spent much time (if any) in Turkey.

This brings me to the title of this post. When I read this discussion, by coincidence I had just watched a couple children's cartoons on Kanal D and they had actually used both these words, clearly demonstrating the difference in use through an ordinary conversation. It also demonstrates that the best way to get the most current, in use vocabulary is to sit in front of a TV and take the language in for an hour or two. Of course, conversations with natives are also great, but they're probably not the best way to get massive exposure, especially at a beginner-intermediate stage.

Every once in a while I think I might be watching a bit too much TV - I watch about 3 hours or so every day in Turkish. This was just proof to me that what I'm doing is, in fact, paying off. I'm not saying to just watch TV at the exclusion of all else. I still have my regular Skype sessions and am still going through my Yeni Hitit course. But for good old massive input, nothing beats the TV.

Continuing with the TV theme, I've started to watch another show, this one a home fix up/DIY show. The timing's perfect, since I've started working on the bunkhouse again, now that the weather is cooperating. I'll have to re-open that blog with some updated pictures, soon.

Anyway, the show is called "Evim Şahane". I'm getting new vocabulary that I probably wouldn't otherwise be getting. Things like zemin kaplama  (flooring), store perde (window blinds) and aydınlatma (lighting). Since these are all things I'm replacing in the bunkhouse, it's easy to remember them every time I look at where they should be.

The TL;DR version of this post is simply this: For massive amounts of genuine input, watch TV. It works.