A question posted in the comments by Sharon triggered my desire to write about learning Turkish. Her question went something like this...

Hi there,

I'm a rural American who will be moving to Istanbul for a year. I'll be going in July, 2 months before my Turkish boyfriend gets out of the Navy. He is the only Turkish person I know in Turkey (I know lots here in the U.S.), so I have zero support system there. I have to learn Turkish FAST... I am very curious as to how you learned Turkish.... how did you learn? How long before you could carry on a conversation? I would love it if you could address this in a future blog entry%u2026

I talked about where my Turkish is after 2-1/2 years and what shortcomings still exist. You can read the whole story here

The second post in the learning Turkish series outlines the means I used to acquire the language.

Among my strategies were;

Taking Language Classes

Working with a language helper

LBWA method (Learning By Walking Around)

In this post, I outline what these strategies looked like in my life which methods were most effective in the long run and how in some ways, learning Turkish changed my life. Read all about it here

In this post I comment on my observation that native English speakers seem to have an exceptionally difficult time learning Turkish. I've also observed that Turkish Students spend an almost excessive amount of time studying English with very little pay-off for many. I meet people everyday who've taken more than 6 years of English and can barely have a basic conversation. I explore this question in this post.

Check it out and please read the comments. They're very insightful.

Katie at TEFLLogue also wrote a thoughtful response to my piece.

You can read her article here

And my article here

Melissa Maples, an American blogger living in Antalya has had an almost opposite experience from mine. He has aquired the skills to read proficiently in Turkish, but still struggles to have even the most basic conversations. She wrote a guest post for my blog outlining how she learned to read in Turkish.

I think you'll find it very interesting, as did I. It's a little long, but it's worth it. I'm learning to read now using her system and it's working! Read her guest post here

Kamil has been helping foreigners learn Turkish in Adana since 2000. He's had around 300 students in that time and has taught many students from 19 different countries all reaching different levels of success. He was my teacher and I accredit much of my success to the long hours spent in his class. I loved his class because I didn't just learn Turkish, I learned a lot about Turkish culture and life in Turkey from him. During our lessons, he didn't just teach me Turkish, he also shared his life and showed an interest in mine. I still consider him a friend today. I asked him to share some perspectives on learning Turkish. I think they're very insightful.

In my interview with Kamil, he answered the following questions

Q: You've seen many people come through your classroom. What has been some of the keys for people who've learned Turkish successfully?

Q: What have been some keys to failure?

Q: What do you think are some of the most improtant attitudes someone must have in learning Turkish successfully?

Q: What are some of the hardest language forms for native English speakers to learn?

Q: If you could give one tip to a frustrated Turkish learner, what would it be?

Read the interview here

One of the most fascinating aspects of this project was being directed to a link talking about how young children learn to speak Turkish faster and more correctly than speakers of other languages.
Read my thoughtshere
The the short and interesting article explaining the study can be found here