Knowing a few basic Turkish words and expressions will not only please locals, it will also come in handy during your stay. Turks will try their best to help you, but not all Turks speak English -- and that's an understatement. Most restaurants have menus in both Turkish and English, but especially in snack bars the translations may be far from perfect. This list of 250 basic … [Read more...]
Turkish Language and Pronunciation Rules (for Tourists)
Turkish is a phonetic language. This basically means that it is spoken the way it is written, and vica versa. To accomplish that, in 1928 Atatürk introduced a phonetic variant of the Latin alphabet. The letters Q, W and X were removed and 7 new, rather exotic looking characters were introduced: ç, ğ, ş, ö, ü and ı (undotted i). As a result, the Turkish alphabet consists of 29 … [Read more...]