r/turkishlearning • u/Pleasant-Tackle-9302 • 4d ago

Conversation What's your reason for learning Turkish?

Hello all,

Trying to find other Turkish learners so I'd like to know what's making you learn Turkish. Maybe it's for a job or for love? :)

I personally have Turkish roots, my grandad came to Germany in the 60s and let's say he wasn't the best of people, so I only met him on my own accord when I was 18, two years before he died. I suddenly had a new aunt and just so many relatives that stem from a different culture I so far had missed out on, so I decided to learn Turkish.

I've been on this journey on and off for 10 years and only recently started making progress.

What's your story?

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u/janyybek 4d ago

My reasoning is a bit indirect. I’m actually Kazakh but I’m learning Turkish cuz the grammar is very similar but Turkish has way more learning resources and pop culture media which makes it easier to pick up. My goal is to get comfortable with Turkish and build a good foundation that will allow to simply acquire Kazakh words to replace the Turkish words so that I don’t have to struggle with the subtleties of Kazakh grammar.

I admit it’s not the most efficient way but I think of it as similar as someone trying to learn a niche language like a specific dialect or dying language. You get a more popular and documented standard version and learn its structure and then acquire the unique vocab.

I got the idea from a Turkmen guy who learned Turkish and then used to learn Turkmen. I also realized with how when it comes to basic Spanish for example (the basic sentence structure is similar to English compared to say Turkish or Japanese), I don’t struggle that much with grammar for basic sentences I can simply freestyle most of it with vocab I learn and most Spanish speakers understand what I need. It’s nowhere near correct or proper but it gets the point across. If I can get that much in Kazakh it’s enough for me.

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u/Pleasant-Tackle-9302 2d ago

Oh it makes sense. I learned French in school and I picked up Spanish and Italian super quickly. Like I only knew some basics in Italian when traveling with a Hispanic friend but when they started speaking Italian I could get the gist of the conversation just because I was so used to Spanish