Turkish is a language that is spoken by over 90 million people around the world of
which 80 million live in main land Turkey. The capital of Turkey is Ankara, the political regime
is democracy, and the lands of Turkey are almost as large as those of Texas. Now let's learn a few
basic words and phrases in Turkish!
* When you meet a person in Turkey you say Merhaba! which means "Hello!" To return
the greeting the other person also says "Merhaba!". You also say Merhaba, nasılsın?
which means "Hello, how are you?" To say "I am fine, thank you!" you say Teşekkür ederim, iyiyim!
* To introduce yourself you say Benim adım ... which means "My name is ...".
To ask the other person's name you say "Adınız ne? which is a question
that means "What is your name?"
Now click this link to listen to the text above.
Intro to Turkish Language
As you can see Turkish is quite different compared to languages like English, German, or Spanish. I am sure you noticed
that you needed only 3 words to say "I am fine, thank you!" which is 5 words! It is because Turkish belongs to a group of
languages that are called "agglutinative" in the sense that most words are made by multiple other words "glued" together.
For example "iyiyim" means "I am fine", "iyisin" means "you are fine" and so on.
Sounds interesting? Let's dive in! I recommend that you start with vowels, consonants and such, but you are completely
free to start from any mini lesson you like!
