Turkish Preschool

Today was Elias' last day at Turkish Preschool. The Fall Semester begins next week, and we have decided to send him to an English-speaking preschool instead. We feel like his social and English language development will do better in a place where he understands the language. However, we are so grateful for the opportunity to send him to the Turkish Preschool last year! The ladies there were so kind and patient with him, and he absolutely loved going there. He got to take all kinds of field trips to fun places we've not been. We wouldn't hesitate for a minute to recommend this school to any other expats considering sending their children there. So in honor of his last day, I thought I'd post some pictures from the school's end-of-year celebration that happened in June but I never got around to posting pictures on here.

Elias' 4-year-old class. He is on the far right standing with the teacher's assistant. The head teacher for his class is standing on the opposite side.

They sang a song with pom pom choreography!

His class singing a song while dressed in duck costume! Elias only went in the mornings, so he wasn't there for music class in the afternoons, and so he didn't participate in this part of the presentation. We enjoyed it anyway, though!

Celebrating Our Anniversary

Our 7th wedding anniversary was last Monday, but being so busy and tired with VBS, we decided to wait until this weekend to celebrate. We got a babysitter for Elias; this was the first time we'd done that since coming to Turkey, but Elias did great with Miss Brooke. :) Then we went out for an afternoon adventure and dinner. We took the bus out to a district on the northeast side of Ankara called Keçiören. Justin had been out there a couple times, but Joni never had. Like the rest of Ankara, it is a very hilly district, but they have a really neat section where they built amazing waterfalls in the cliffs lining the roadside. It was gorgeous! (In the picture you can make out five different wedding parties getting their pictures made.)

 

Then directly across the street from the waterfalls is this cool building that houses a Turkish history museum and an authentic Ottoman restaurant. The museum is free and houses cool Ottoman artifacts.

Although this isn't a historic building, it was built to look like an ancient Ottoman fortress. Yes, those are stairs going up from the street, and yes, we climbed them all.

 

Behind this building was another series of ethnic restaurants including Turkmen, Uzbek, and Kyrgyz. We decided to try the Uzbek place, and it was cool! Very reasonably priced, Justin had a sampler platter and Joni had chicken kebab. Both were fantastic and served fast, we highly recommend it.

The restaurant is made to look like an Uzbek tent. Most of the tables were on platforms so you're seated on the floor Uzbek style - we wanted the full experience so we sat that way too!

After our delicious dinner, including the best künefe we've ever had, we decided to ride the cable car that crosses over the district. (You can see it going along the top left of the photo with the white building above.)

 

Looking down on the restaurant where we ate dinner (left side)

Looking down on the same waterfall pictured above

So we had a really neat time exploring a new district, and we were so thankful to find a great babysitter for Elias! Happy anniversary to us!

VBS Week

(Joni) This week Elias and I, along with 80+ other kids, participated in a VBS hosted by the U.S. Chaplain's office here. The program they did was called Sky, and we had a lot of fun learning about how everything is possible with God! Elias was in the Preschool class, and I was a "Flight Crew Leader" for a group of 1st & 2nd graders - my group was all girls! They were talkative and giggly, but we had fun anyway. :) I was too busy to take pictures most of the week, but I did snap a couple shots of Elias having fun.

Elias' preschool class

He was so excited!

As a Crew Leader, I got to wear a propeller beanie, which Elias called my "Helicopter Hat." Although he doesn't look like it in this picture (It was a little too early in the morning yet.), he thought the hat was hilarious!

While we were on the compound, we also took advantage of the American Cafe they have there... Real pizza and Baskin Robbins ice cream!!! That was a special treat!!!

The pizza had real pork sausage - impossible to find anywhere else but here!

So we're exhausted but it sure was fun to have that special week!

Holiday at Dikmen Park

Last weekend was the end of Ramadan, which is a big three-day holiday in Turkey (Ramazan Bayram), and a large percentage of the population left town to celebrate with their families or to go to a vacation spot. Therefore, traffic was way down and the parks were empty! We took the opportunity to enjoy our favorite park in town, Dikmen Vadisi. This time we explored the other half of the park that we didn't get to the first time we visited. Here are a few pictures from our afternoon there.

A rainbow in the fountains!

We were pleased to discover a Luna Park here, just like in every other large park in Turkey. They were kind enough to let Elias ride free on the two we rode: "It's Bayram! (the holiday)"

We rode the ferris wheel - Elias' first time on one!

Then Justin & Elias rode the Dumbo ride. Elias was very excited and worked the controls himself!

No fun family outing is complete without ice cream!

We made sure to walk down to Elias' favorite part of the park: the waterfall you can walk under.

We continue to be thankful for such a beautiful city to call home!

Something we think most people don't know about Turkey...

(Justin) I considered myself knowledgeable and well-read about Turkey before moving here. But something I never appreciated was the daily death toll of the country in a fight against terrorism. I hesitate to write about it (My observation is that expat Turkey bloggers steer clear of the subject.), but it's something that is in the news every day and increasingly agitates those around us.

For example, today, a national holiday, multiple attacks took place. In Gaziantep this evening, a truck bomb killed 8 and wounded 60. Earlier in the day three soldiers were killed by a landmine. These have been almost daily occurrences this year. Last week, a member of parliament was even kidnapped by guerrillas. The evening news highlights the funerals, which are not pleasant to watch. In response, the army has recently launched large operations with aerial bombardments. The numbers of terrorists killed are often highlighted as well but feel a lot less personal than the Turkish losses where the funerals will be on every major network.

In America, we lose about 300 soldiers annually in Afghanistan and it hurts everyone emotionally, and we look forward to when the troops will come home. In Turkey, the losses are on their home soil. I won't get into the complexities, and I have no idea what a viable solution could be. (It would be similar to certain Native American tribes taking up arms in the U.S., demanding a new division of the land, and having those arms supplied by groups in Mexico and elsewhere. It creates quite the tension between people groups.)

In Ankara, we're far away from the fighting (mostly the southeastern provinces) but sometimes it hits close to home when there is a bomb scare, or there is an attack in another major city (Izmir last week). Ankara is pretty international - on the bus I'm as likely to hear Arabic or Farsi or English as I am Kurdish - so we're insulated from the tension that exists in many other cities. But you can't avoid it in the news and you can't avoid it on the faces and tweets of those watching the news.

I write this just to acknowledge that the problem is big and largely unseen in Western media. (Events unfolding in Syria also have an effect on Turkey's internal struggles, and this gets neglected in Western reporting.)  In Turkish, they say "Başınız sağ olsun" to someone who has lost a loved one, literally meaning "May your head be right/whole." We express that sentiment to the people of Turkey who are again reading such bitter news tonight, on what should have been a happy holiday.

Turkish Movie Reviews

Since the key to language learning is exposing yourself to as much "comprehensible input" as possible, one fun way to do that is movies. Justin prefers to find local Turkish movies with Turkish subtitles so he can see the words while he listens to comprehend. A few movies have given us some insights into the culture. Our current "recommended viewing" list:

1. Aşk Tutulması ("Eclipse of Love"). You can watch the entire movie on YouTube without subtitles; the overly dramatic expressions and the universal love story needs little translation. A man has to choose between his love for his favorite football club (Fenerbahçe) and his girlfriend. You can also get some pictures of middle-class Turkish life here, including the football fanatacism. Joni loved everything but about the last 15 minutes. We recommend it as a light-hearted romantic comedy.

2. Neşeli Hayat ("Cheerful Life"). This is Justin's favorite Turkish movie, and favorite Christmas movie of all time. It gives a glimpse of life among people who move from village life to a big city to make a living and how they bring their social structures with them. It illustrates the importance of family, honor, and the fact that everyone owes money to everyone else-- it's part of ordinary life here. It has a great message about honor and doing the right thing. Joni missed a lot of this one since it was Turkish words with Turkish subtitles - her language isn't good enough to hear it yet, especially with their village accents. We'd recommend this one to those with intermediate Turkish.

3. Başka Dilde Aşk ("Love in Another Language"). This is one of the few movies made about people with disabilities finding acceptance in Turkey. A deaf young man falls in love with a beautiful woman and they have to figure out how to communicate, as well as how to live under the scorn of their friends and family. This is also a more "typical" Turkish movie with multiple subplots going in different directions and an inconclusive ending. The acting in the movie is quite good, and it of course makes you think about the difficulties of finding acceptance with a disability here.

Honorable Mention: New York'ta Beş Minare ("Five Minarets in New York). This is actually one of the top-ten most watched Turkish-produced movies of the last 16 years. It stars Danny Glover and Gina Gershon and the movie is split between Turkey and New York, Turkish and English. It's an entertaining action drama with an overt message about moderate Islam (and the U.S. government's treatment of it), and it contains some subtle symbolism that illustrates the tension between religious life and secularism here in Turkey. The acting isn't great and many of the scenes are quite unrealistic, so it's not a "classic," but if you're interested in Turkey then you might check it out.

Justin gets most of the movies from the 2 Lira ($1.10) bin at a local store, so they're not always critically acclaimed; we could easily list Turkish movies we don't recommend. But YouTube and other easy-to-find places online are a treasure trove of free Turkish films that you can stream in their entirety free on-demand. It's a convenient way to learn language and culture.

Learn a language by using Twitter

(Justin) Twitter is an extremely effective tool for learning language as it is designed, in part, to bring you closer to people around you. Twitter is international. The top tweeting cities in the world are Jakarta (Indonesia), and Tokyo (Japan). Istanbul is 12th. (Scroll down for a brief tutorial of how to get started.)

Just a few of MANY uses:
1. What are people in your neighborhood doing or talking about? Search by "location" to find people near you.
2. How would locals describe what I'm watching? Whether it's a sporting event or a soap opera, hundreds of others are tweeting about the same show you're watching. "How would a local describe this person's behavior?" Twitter gives you that gold.
3. What's in the news? Most newspapers and TV outlets post links to their stories as soon as they break. In Turkey, all the TV channels tweet when a new show is about to come on, giving you an easy TV Guide.
4. Potholes in your street? Broken playground equipment? Twitter gives you instant access to your city councilman, mayor, congressman, etc., even in foreign countries. (See story below.) Cities also post important legal changes and announcements on Twitter.
5. Like to shop? Many local malls and major chains use Twitter to advertise discounts, events, and to receive customer complaints.

I've used the "location" function to find people checking in from our neighborhood. One day I found a neighbor complaining to the Mayor about the road construction, which has made life difficult for us as well. I RT'd her complaint and added my own. Others joined in. The mayor responded that he didn't understand our complaint. This led to a fury of angry responses as other people who were following the conversation joined in, which I was copied on as my name began to be RT'd again and again. (Here's a snippet screen shot for proof):

I learned both how locals feel about the mayor and many new words for complaining about him and road construction in Ankara in general. I also made a new connection with neighbors.

I love using it for #2 above. For example, discovering that Turks didn't seem to like The Biggest Loser.
When I'm listening to a song on the radio and am not sure about the lyrics, I'll type a few words of the song into "search" and inevitably find someone tweeting the lyrics and completing what I couldn't understand.

The possibilities are endless. Tweets are 140 characters long so a person's thought has to be condensed or concise. This helps you think about forming similar thoughts in the language concisely. Turkish has some very long words and sentences so this is a good thought exercise.

Most apps also have a translation function, giving you a click-option to convert the words to English which sometimes saves you from having to look something up.

How do I start?
Many people go to Twitter.com, sign up, and then say "I don't get it." Twitter is not designed to be used through their website, you need to install/use an app on your computer or mobile device.
1. Tweetdeck is an easy-to-use program that allows you to easily organize your feeds into lists and see them by columns. You can see the same lists/columns on their website.
2. HootSuite is a website that also allows you to see your tweet lists in column format. I use HootSuite's app on my iPad/iPod. It has a built-in translation function as well.

Via your app or on the Twitter website you can create "lists," name them, and add specific people to them, organizing your feed. You don't have to follow someone to add them to a list.  The key is to organize people into lists so you don't get 1,000 people clogging your "home" feed.
Now, whenever you're exploring the website of a mall, newspaper, television channel, government, etc. look for the Twitter logo button on the page. Click it and select "Follow" to start seeing everything they post in your "Home" feed and/or add them to one of your lists. When you're watching TV and it displays the Twitter username of whoever is talking, use the "find user" function to display their tweets and to follow them.

I create lists of users by categories. I have a list of tweeters in Ankara that I follow, some of whom I've met personally, some I just like what they have to say. I have a Turkish news list with every newspaper and journalist I can find for instantaneous news updates. I have a weather list where tweets about my local weather show up. I keep a list of ex-pats tweeting in English about Turkey as well.

In the "search" area of your app, choose a word you want to search for, like "Ankara." This will show you all the instantaneous tweets containing "Ankara." When I see smoke in the distance I'll search for "yangın," (fire) "Ankara," or the name of the neighborhood I think it's in. I will save the search if I want to come back to it quickly for updates.

I have a saved search for "Birlik Mah" which displays tweets of people about or in our neighborhood. When I then look at that person's tweets I can figure out if he lives in the neighborhood and I add him to my "neighborhood" list.

Relating back to my last post, learning language is easy and fun when you incorporate it into things you already love doing. I interacted with neighbors, mayors, journalists, etc. via Twitter while I was in the States, and I've just continued that practice in Turkey.

Creating comprehensible input in Turkish (or any language) for free

(Justin) In my last post I mentioned the importance of soaking in "comprehensible input" in learning a language. I've been studying Turkish for over a year, about 6 months in the U.S. and 6 months here. (I chronicled how I was studying in the U.S. in this post). My basic belief in learning language is that you should simply incorporate language learning into the everyday activities that you love. If you love to cook, start using some Turkish recipes and watch Turkish cooking shows. If you love to watch sports, learn the terms and watch how others talk about sports on Twitter in your language.

I love to watch and read the news, no matter where I am. The news is very tough, requiring a lot of vocab. I also started working in a factory shortly after arriving here, so I needed another range of vocab. I had noticed that some of the polyglot bloggers I read focused more on building vocabulary than anything else, some shun studying grammar altogether. So, I needed some tools to help me understand what I was hearing very quickly and that meant tailoring my studying to quickly build vocab. The good news is most of these tools are available in ANY language you want to learn!

Note: Most of the activities/tools below will greatly enhance your reading and listening comprehension. I prioritized that over speaking, at least initially.

(I came into Turkish with the advantage of having previously learned a good bit of Azerbaijani, another Turkic language. So Turkic vowel harmony, some of the grammar, and a good bit of vocabulary. However, while there are many Azeri-Turkish cognates, most have different spellings or pronunciation so I basically set out to re-learn everything.)

First, reading and writing:
1. The "backbone" of my Turkish learning is the Foreign Service Institute's guide (free), which is like 800 pages of Turkish instruction designed for U.S. diplomats and Peace Corps. It provides plenty of sentence examples with dozens of hours of mp3s so you can hear the phrases, dialogues, etc. I'm not one to leave grammar learning to osmosis or deduction, I wanted to learn it fast and the FSI course provides simple explanations and examples to help me out. I like having a place to look up something if I'm struggling with understanding, and the FSI guide is it. (I'm only just now almost completely through it.) Weakness: Not a great source of new vocab.
FSI Guide: Free (many languages available), GoodReader app for reading and making notes, highlights, etc. on PDFs on my iPad: $4.99.

2. I started using Busuu.com about a year ago, and just finished the Turkish modules last month. Busuu is a site where you learn vocabulary, have your writing exercises corrected by native speakers, and find people to chat with. You can learn 3,000+ words from doing the exercises and paying attention to all the example sentences and dialogues. If you pay for the site you can also download more audio mp3s, and have your voice recordings critiqued (I didn't pay). I set a goal to do 4-5 units a week.
Busuu: Free.

3. How do I keep up with all the new words I'm learning, particularly if I'm not immersed in an environment where I hear those words all the time? (It supposedly takes 160 exposures to a word to remember it)
That's where Anki comes in. Anki is a free, open-source flashcard program that stores your words in the cloud for syncing across devices or access on the web. Designed for daily use, it has an algorithm that shows you words you know well less frequently than words you struggle with. I set mine up to require that I type/spell each word correctly in Turkish. Anki became the one thing that I do EVERY day, I refuse to "break the chain." I have about 27 categories to separate the words (Household, Office, Vegetables, Events, military words, etc.) 

I think I average somewhere around 10 new words every day. Some words that are only used in formal paperwork I may never see/hear in normal life. But Anki keeps it somewhat fresh in my "iceberg" so that when I do see it, I'm thankful to know it. (Ran into this at a doctor's office last week when I was handed a 50-question questionnaire to fill out).
Anki: Free. The iPad app is $20, and I bought it because I don't want to "break the chain" when I'm traveling.

4. In January, I discovered LiveMocha which is a free site like Busuu except focusing more on phrases/sentences and with audio submission exercises with every unit as well. It's invaluable to have your writing and speaking critiqued by natives.
LiveMocha: Free.

5. Recently, I've started using Lang-8.com to journal and write longer-form Turkish, which native speakers correct for me. This is awesome for writing explanations, stories, testimonies, etc. You can also download your text and corrections into EverNote, which is fantastic.
Lang-8 and Evernote: Free.

6. About the time we arrived, YouVersion put out a Turkish Bible translation for free for their app. This allows me to read a text parallel English and Turkish, and obviously learn a lot of vocab.
YouVersion app and website: Free.

7. Many Turks use MSN Messenger on their home and workplace computers. I have a few Turkish friends that I chat with at work (if they're not busy).
MS Messenger: Free

8. Twitter! Turkey is very much on Twitter, and I use it to find people in our neighborhood who are complaining about the same things I am, find deals at local stores, follow the news headlines, and even interact with the Mayor and other city authorities. (I might write a separate post on just this.)


9. Children's books. There are some free websites and some in the iTunes store. I tend to pick up cheap paperbacks for 1-2TL. I'm currently reading a condensed version of Robin Hood (about 5th grade level). For heavier books, there are websites with open-source books (like Agatha Christy novels) in Turkish for Kindle, Nook, etc.

What about listening? For listening, I have four activities:
1. Turkish movies with Turkish subtitles. These range from 2-10TL in stores, and if you're crafty, the deaf community has created Turkish subtitles for hundreds of movies if you know where to look online.
I watch these movies repeatedly, it allows me to hear the language, see all the words, see the culture, and learn plenty of new vocab. I prefer to watch it with English subtitles only after I've gone over the Turkish and think I get it. (There are also foreign movies dubbed into Turkish with Turkish subtitles, but you miss out on culture.)

2. Kids shows and cartoons. There are about 40 Turkish channels that broadcast free online, with about 5 children's channels playing mostly international favorites (Caillou & other PBS shows, Scooby Doo, Transformers, etc.). 
Some of these shows are designed to teach kids basic language and are a goldmine. Let's Go Pokoyo is the best show I've found for beginners (it was originally designed for Spanish kids to learn English). When you graduate up to Caillou you feel really proud of yourself.
I also use Keepvid.com to download YouTube clips of shows onto my iPad to watch on demand. (Free)

3. I submit my corrected writing exercises from Busuu, LiveMocha, and Lang-8 to Rhinospike.com, where a native speaker records an audio mp3 of it. I then download the text and mp3 onto my mobile device and I have it on demand. If there's a story or testimony I want to tell someone, this is the best way to do it. Lang-8 Rhinospike: Free.


4. Watching the news! I said above that I love doing it, so at 6:30 every evening you'll find me in front of the TV watching a few local news broadcasts (Turkey has about 20 channels that broadcast news, some 24/7) with a notebook in hand to write down new words. The news here can be sensational, meaning they broadcast the same traumatic clip over and over so you get to hear words again and again. They also transcribe much of the background dialogue. Free!

5. Listening to sermons. A few local fellowships have downloadable mp3s where you can listen to teaching or preaching, story-telling, and give you plenty of spiritual vocab. These are great for long bus rides and are free.

6. Turkish music and non-subtitled Turkish movies. There are hundreds of Turkish music channels that stream for free online, these are good just to have in the background whenever I'm cleaning or whatever. It's also culture.
Music videos are also on YouTube and there are some websites that translate the lyrics to English if you want it. There are also a large number of popular Turkish movies, in their entirety, on YouTube. I generally pick ones that friends recommend.

How about speaking? It's very important! Obviously all the above can use up a lot of hours at home, so you have to force yourself to get out there and speak correctly.
1. I used Busuu and Livemocha to find conversation partners I could speak to on those sites or on Skype. Mixxer is also a free social network designed specifically for that purpose. If you don't want to pay your helper, you'll likely have to trade English time for the language you want.
Skype: Free.

2. When we moved to Turkey I put an ad on CraigsList and found a language helper that I met with for a while. In Ankara, the cheapest language helper is about 20 TL ($11)/hour. When I started meeting with a helper I went through the Lexicarry, a book of pictures designed to learn language by talking about everyday activities. I've used the Lexicarry for 3 languages now, highly recommend it. Going through these pages with a native speaker will help your listening and thinking skills.
Lexicarry: $14.99 used on Amazon. Supplements on the website are free.  You can create your own Lexicarry by finding free clipart and graphics online, drawing your own pictures, etc.

3. Real life, because we live here! We now rely on Turkish for anything we do, so I look at every outdoor activity as a language adventure. It's a chance for me to practice what I'm learning from all of the above.
You may notice that for most of the above, you don't have to live in the country! Plenty of polyglots around the world reach a high level of fluency without leaving their house. The internet is an amazing thing.

That said, I still don't get enough speaking practice. When I was working at Kifas, I had to have high-level conversations regularly that pushed me. My best recommendation for listening/speaking practice is to move in with a Turkish family, if possible.


Other Turkish-specific sites I use often: 
Some are linked on the right. One GREAT resource is the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Deep Approach to Turkish Teaching and Learning. It is a curriculum that requires watching video clips and doing exercises with them, they've also transcribed many of the clips. Each module also has grammar explanations in English (these take forever to load).
The University of Texas has a site featuring interviews with Turks on various topics, many of which are also transcribed into Turkish for reading.

The key ingredient to all of the above is "touches." You should be reading, writing, speaking, and listening as much as possible to remember words and grammar quickly. The more you incorporate activities you love (cooking, sports, twitter, etc.) into your language learning the more you'll love it.