Turkish/About this book

In this page, you'll find things that you should know before reading this book.

Where to start?

First, you can read the introduction, which contains general information about Turkish language. If you don't know anything about Turkish, you should certainly read pronunciation and alphabet pages. You will find pronunciation of the Turkish letters and vowel and consonant harmonies (all of which you should definitely know in order to adapt suffixes to the words) in that pages.

Navigation

You can navigate in this book by using the navigation boxes on the top and the bottom of all pages, and also using the TOC box on bottom of every page. You will be gradually taught new vocabulary and grammar in each lesson on the Lessons section. You can use Grammar section as a reference.

Pronunciation

Turkish language is like Spanish. Each letter has a specific pronunciation so if you learn them very well, you won't have any problems in pronouncing any Turkish word. Thus IPA symbols are used only in lessons explaining pronunciations of the letters, there is no need for them elsewhere, words are generally pronounced as they are written. I said "generally" because, in everyday life, due to fast speaking, some letters are not pronounced or pronounced differently. These pronunciation differences are shown between / and / next to the word. For example, the phrase "ne haber" means "what's up". But Turkish people don't pronounce this word as "ne haber", instead they say "naber" with a long "a" (and also they write naber when chatting on Facebook, MSN etc.). This pronunciation difference is shown as Ne haber? /naber/.

Other notes

In Turkish, suffixes change according to the vowel harmony and consonant harmony rules. Changeable letters in suffixes are written in red to help the reader. this color is used to emphasize something other than changeable letters. You will see explanation for suffixes (what are they used for etc.) and translations of the Turkish words used in this book by hovering your mouse over them. For example, to see the Turkish translation of this word, hover your mouse pointer over it: ev

• For example –dir is a Turkish suffix, d and i are in red because these letters can change according to the word this suffix will be added to.
  • kalem + –dir → kalemdir
  • kitap + –dir → kitaptır
  • sakız + –dir → sakızdır

The rule for doing this change in the suffixes are explained in this book, examples above are just to show how a suffix can change, don't think about it now.

Also,

• In the translations of the Turkish words, phrases or sentences, square brackets [] indicate words needed in English but not expressed (not needed to be expressed) in Turkish. Parentheses () indicate words expressed in Turkish but they are not required in English.

For those who want to contribute

If you want to contribute, see Contributions to this wikibook

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