Well, yes this may look like an allegorical headline here but it’s almost a necessity for an expat looking for a Private Turkish Course to learn Turkish, especially in Istanbul. Please read on to understand why?

As you may or may not be aware, there is a debate going on for years amongst second language teaching methodologies.

A method called ‘Immersion’* is popularly implemented where not even a single word (of the learner’s native language) is spoken and the learners are bombarded with the language they try to learn.

However opponents of this method claims that second language learners should be taught and explained the L2 in their native language (or in English as the most widely used commercial language).

I am personally, the strong believer of the latter and have winning arguments to be so.

First of all, Turkish is an alien language for English or any other Western language speakers as it comes from a very different language family. (Please read the three major features of alienation per se at home page, under the ‘Turkish Language’ headline).

Secondly, time spent is a very important factor for both; an expat living in Istanbul and the immersion method. Since the immersion method is much more time consuming because of its sequential, cumulative and continuous features; time and budget could suddenly become an issue in Private Turkish Lessons if that method is applied! Plus, being an expat working in Istanbul, needless to say, you will already have some time management issues.

In conclusion, my private Turkish lessons are performed in English and a reasonable, amount of Turkish practice, increasingly, is included through the curriculum.

*Language Immersion: or simply Immersion is a method of teaching a second language in which the learner’s second language (L2) is the medium of classroom instruction. This type of program is generally age specific from 5 to 21 and sequential, cumulative and continuous (…) (Source: Wikipedia)

Private Lessons

Upon your request, a need based curriculum will be determined as per your allocated time and lessons will be performed at your choice of venues like office or home. My experience shows that minimum four hours of lessons, per week, is the optimum for satisfactory outcome. My working hours can vary between 08.00 and 20.00 hours with no weekend work. However in some special cases I can create room for weekend work. Please ask personally for further information.

Crash Courses

Sometimes you or the person concerned may want to make a head start on learning Turkish and have some intensive hours of lessons. That is what we call Crash Courses and it is generally one to two weeks of five or six days a week intensive Turkish Course. In such case daily hours of lessons is three or four hours depending on the purpose. A reasonable amount of homework is given and the incumbent expected to complete them all to be able to move on to the new study subject the other day.

Curriculum

Our Curriculum is normally designed for the new learners of Turkish and aims to teach the certain structures required for fluent communication along with the basic grammatical structure of the language. A full list of subjects taught can be provided upon request and subject to change as per learner’s requirements.

Turkish is a member of Oghuz group of the Turkic family while the others are: the Turkic dialects of the Balkans and Cyprus; Azeri, spoken in Azerbaijan and north-west Persia; the Turkmen or Turcoman of Turkmenistan.

On the other hand it is still being questioned if the Turkic family itself is a branch of a larger ‘Altaic’ family where Mongol, Tunguz an even Korean is part of. There is a good reason for all these languages considered to be in the same family and that is their share of three features; agglutination (adding suffix to suffix in one same word and achieving a phrase or a sentence), vowel harmony and not using any grammatical gender.

All these three features may look and sound alien for English or any other Western language speakers. Rightly so, however our methods of teaching and practicing will make you familiar with these alien rules and once the logic behind them is digested, it will all make sense.

Reform of the Turkish

The Turkish Language experienced one, immediate reform in 1928 when Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, decreed the Arabic-Persian alphabet to be changed to the Latin. In the following years a gradual and subtle – yet effective – reform has also taken place in the field of vocabulary. Officially sponsored by the government and supported all the way by the majority of the writers, it has resulted in the creation of a new written and spoken language. Apart from changes in the literary, commercial and conversational vocabulary, with some four to five thousand neologisms replacing loan-words from Arabic and Persian, the whole scientific terminology (originally Arabic) has been replaced by one based largely on western European Languages.

Nevertheless, now that the flood of neologisms has subsided, more and more of the old words are reappearing and some have never been changed at all as in the example of ‘saat’ originally Arabic meaning time. Add also the steady flow of especially English with some French words due to constant technological developments; the purity of Turkish had always been threatened. Therefore above mentioned three specific set of rules are not valid when confronted with those loan-words and even more complex set of rules or irregularities are in place.

So my advice to you would be to hire a Professional, definitely an Academic and with a lot of teaching experience on this subject. So, I will say my farewell for now in Turkish and also wish you luck.

İyi şanslar, Görüşürüz!

Saner

*This narrative piece of information about the Turkish Language has been partly my personal intellectual collection through the years. The reason that I have not indicated any sources is that the information provided here could have been given by any intellectual and academic Turk. However for those of you interested in reading and studying further, a list of referential books and texts with sources will be provided.