Where to go next

21.1 What you can do now

The grammar of this book is most of what an everyday Turkish sentence is made of: the endings for place and direction, the object, possession, the tenses, being able, wanting and must, if and when, the endings that join actions, and the participles that build long noun phrases. Real Turkish will still have new words in nearly every line, and now and then a form this book leaves out. But its sentences can now be taken apart: the verb found at the end, the endings read one by one, a long noun phrase read back from its noun.

The same holds for the Turkish of everyday life, as on a notice at a bus stop:

What is left is mostly words, and time with the language. The grammar here is learnt for good by meeting it again and again in Turkish that is read and heard for its own sake. The most useful thing from here is a lot of that: Turkish a little above easy, in large amounts, and people to speak it with.

21.2 What you can read now

• Graded readers. Books written for learners, in levels, each level keeping to the words and grammar it expects. Start at a level that feels easy, and read many before moving up.
• Children's books and folk tales. Real Turkish in short sentences. The stories of Nasreddin Hoca, a few lines each and usually funny, have been retold for every age, many in simple Turkish.
• Books you know, in translation. When the story is already known, the words come easier.
• News in simple Turkish, written for learners or for children, and comics, recipes, and posts about things you already care about.

Tales are told in -mIş, the past of what the teller didn't see. A Turkish tale begins with bir varmış, bir yokmuş, "once there was, once there wasn't", the Turkish "once upon a time".

Read for the story, not for every word. Look a word up when the sentence can't be followed without it, or when it turns up for the third time. A lot of easy Turkish does more for reading than a little hard Turkish, and the same text read twice reads better the second time. Words worth keeping can go on flashcards, on paper or in a program that brings each one back just before it would be forgotten.

21.3 Looking a word up

A dictionary lists a noun with no endings, and a verb in its -mAk form: okumak, not okuyor. A word in a text has its endings on, so take them off from the end, one by one, until the stem is left.

Taken apart: -ımız, "our"; -dığ, the participle; -yama, "cannot". What is left, anla, is the stem, and the dictionary has it as anlamak, "to understand".

Here what is left, kitab, is not in the dictionary as it stands: its b is a p that softened before a vowel. The dictionary has kitap.

• Undo the softening. Before an ending that starts with a vowel, a b may be p in the dictionary, a c ç, a d t, and a g or ğ k: kitabı is under kitap, ağacı under ağaç, ekmeği under ekmek, gidiyor under gitmek.
• A stem may have lost a vowel before -(I)yor: istiyor is under istemek, bekliyor under beklemek.
• A word made from another word may be in the dictionary whole, or only its root may be: gözlük, "glasses", comes from göz, "eye" (more of these below).

Three kinds of dictionary are worth having. A Turkish-English one for everyday use, the bigger the better, with phrases and example sentences. An electronic one that is quick to search, though some find a word only by its stem. And, at about the level this book reaches, a dictionary all in Turkish. The Turkish Language Association, Türk Dil Kurumu, keeps the standard one, for meanings and for spelling.

21.4 Watching and listening

Turkey makes a great many television series, diziler, watched far beyond Turkey, and many can be had with subtitles in Turkish. Turkish subtitles on Turkish speech put the same words in the ear and on the screen at once, and are the most useful kind once they can be kept up with. Before that, subtitles in English let the story carry the listening. Watching an episode twice, once for the story and once for the words, works well.

• Children's programmes speak slowly and clearly about everyday things.
• The news speaks clear, standard Turkish, with many formal words.
• Video and podcasts for learners speak slowly on purpose, often with a transcript.
• Video by Turkish speakers on anything you already like, cooking, games, travel, sport, gives the language of that subject.
• Songs come back to you, and their words with them.

Some lines come up in almost every drama:

Speech runs words together where writing doesn't, and subtitles often keep the written forms, so the two don't always match.

And conversation is full of small words that carry little meaning and a lot of tone: yani, "I mean"; şey, "thing", and "um" while looking for a word; işte, "there you are", "well"; hani, "you know"; aynen, "exactly".

21.5 Talking to people

Turkish is spoken far beyond Turkey, by large communities in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Britain and elsewhere, so a speaker is often closer than it seems. Language exchanges pair two learners, each a speaker of what the other is learning, to talk half in one language and half in the other, in person or online. A teacher or tutor for conversation alone is another way. In Turkey there are shops, markets, cafés and neighbours.

Many Turkish speakers switch to English to help. To keep the conversation in Turkish, ask, and have these ready:

Use siz and its endings with strangers and older people, until they offer sen. People are often addressed by a word for family: abi, "big brother", for a man a little older, abla, "big sister", for a woman; amca and teyze, "uncle" and "aunt", for older people; hocam, "my teacher", for teachers, and widely as a friendly, respectful word for others.

Everyday life has set phrases for set moments, and they are said a great deal:

A sentence with a wrong ending is usually still understood. Speaking with mistakes is how the endings come to be said without thinking.

21.6 Words made from words

Turkish makes many of its words from other words with endings, so one known root often opens several words. These are the endings met most.

A word made this way is a word like any other, and takes the endings of this book. The glosses split off -lI and -sIz, as with and without; a word made with the others is glossed whole, as kitapçı, "bookshop".

21.7 The grammar beyond this book

Real Turkish uses some grammar this book leaves out. Each piece is built the way the endings here are built, one after another on the stem, and a reference grammar of Turkish explains them all. These are the ones met soonest:

• The passive, with -(I)l or -(I)n: yapıldı, "it was done"; Türkçe konuşulur, "Turkish is spoken".
• Making someone do something, with -DIr or -t: yaptırmak, "to have something done"; bekletmek, "to keep someone waiting".
• Each other and oneself, with -(I)ş and -(I)n: görüşmek, "to see each other"; yıkanmak, "to wash oneself".
• More joining endings: -DIğIndA, "when", a -DIK form with its possessive and -DA, as in aradığında, "when you called"; -DIkçA, "the more", "whenever"; -(y)AlI, "since"; -(y)IncAyA kadar, "until".
• "If" in the past, -sAydI: gelseydin, "if you had come".
• Saying what someone said, with diye or with -DIğInI: geleceğini söyledi, "he said he would come".
• Written Turkish: -mAktA for "is doing" in the news, and more words from Arabic and Persian.

None of these needs learning before reading on. Each is easiest met in a sentence, looked up once in a grammar, and then met again. For that, two kinds of book help most: a reference grammar of Turkish written in English, to look things up in, and a book of grammar exercises with answers, to practise the endings until they come without thinking.