How much Turkish did I learn in 7 months? Traveling to Turkey

CC subtitles available in multiple languages.

In this video, I’m sharing my experience traveling to Turkey after seven months of Turkish study.

⏲️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Introduction
0:18 Languages and travel
1:07 Why I started learning Turkish
2:21 How I prepared for my trip
5:33 Improving my speaking skills
6:16 How did it go in Turkey?
8:43 Was I able to improve my Turkish?
14:13 Meeting my followers
14:47 More impressions
18:00 The takeaway

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[Thelinguist]

❓Have you traveled to a country where your target language is spoken? Tell me in the comments!

[OghuricEnjoyer]

In a speech about Turkish, Johan Vandewalle, who stated that he sees the language as software and prefers to learn foreign languages ​​not only scientifically but also by living, expresses the uniqueness of Turkish with the following words: “If Chomsky had learned Turkish in his youth, then modern linguistics would have been shaped according to Turkish, not English.”

Vandewalle’s following words about mathematics and Turkish are also very striking: “There can be mathematics in languages ​​other than Turkish. This is a situation that depends on the absence of unnecessary rules in the language, the ability to combine the rules and apply them without any limits. The structure of Turkish is like chess. A young child can learn the rules of chess in a short time. Then he can continue to play chess throughout his life and rise to a very high level. Although the rules are simple, the game is not simple. Accordingly, the rules of Turkish are simple and the opportunities to play are limitless.”

[Polina_Kiss_of_Languages]

Ben de Türkçe öğreniyorum. Çok teşekkür ederim Steve ve kolay gelsin!

[ahmenenroute]

Dieses Thema musste zum Ausdruck gebracht werden. Die Türkei hat mehr Aspekte als man denkt. Danke fürs informative Video darüber.

[SENGİRONU]

If you say “yani”, it means u improve a lot😂😂 BTW your pronunciation is excellent.

[classicbambi]

Harikasın Benim gibi dil öğrenmeye meraklı herkese ilham kaynağı olduğun için teşekkürler 🫶🏻✨

[louscotr]

as I native Turkish speaker, I can tell you Mr Steven, you're pronunciation of Turkis really remarkable!

[seroksank]

As a Turkish who has recently moved to Canada, I’m so thrilled that you started learning Turkish! Fingers crossed for my French learning journey 😅

[johnsemenza]

Really great examples of your speaking ability. Perfectly paints the picture

[placebo_]

I bought Lingq. I came across this video. It was a great source of motivation for me. If people can talk like this in 4 months, then great things can be done in 1 year. Thanks Steve

[williamhehemann]

Incredibly inspiring video and message, Steve! I'm glad you were able to reward your learning efforts with a trip to Turkey. Cheers from Poland!

[hellowehavecookies]

I'm from Turkey and it's always wonderful to see people interested in our language. To anyone saying they're trying to learn Turkish here, hit me up for any questions or just to chat! Turkish grammar may come across counter-intuitive to those used to Western/Northern European languages but it's pretty neat once you start thinking in the language.

Also, don't be afraid of the verb conjugation table guys. Turkish is an agglutinative language, not fusional, so we just add different suffixes one after another. We have a plural suffix, a negative suffix, various tenses, the question particle, and suffixes for the subject: The table with a trillion forms in it is just combinations of those. Most of the time.

[utkuy]

Your Turkish is fantastic. Your pronunciation is very easy to understand, not tiring to listen to at all. Congrats. One little detail: a common mistake that those who speak Arabic make in Turkish, you can never start a sentence with "mümkün". Like in your sentence at 11:40 - Always put that word after an action verb: yapman mümkün, gitmeniz mümkün, etc.

[yusra]

It's nice to see my favorite youtuber and linguist in my country 😊♥

[undomiel]

Tebrikler Steve, dil öğrenmeye meraklı herkes için bir idolsünüz 🙌

[mustafabaris]

I am from Ankara, Turkey. When I was 18 years-old I went to Portland, USA and I could speak little English when I first got there but in 2 years time I became fluent in English .. Then when I was 27 years-old I went to Shenzhen, China and spoke no Chinese but in two years I became fluent in Chinese.. Now I am 47 years-old, speak three languages fluently ( English, Chinese and Turkish ) and next year will go to Argentina to improve my Spanish ( I could speak some Spanish now ) and I am sure after two years I will become fluent in Spanish ..

So what is the secret you may ask ? It is understanding the difference between learning a language and acquiring a language ..Every time I wanted to learn a foreign language, I chose the acquiring method through immense amounts of listening and repetition in the beginning then I put my ego aside and started speaking ( after 6 months ) even though I made many mistakes speaking but did not care ..

[TheGkslzky]

Your pronouncation is above avarage Mr. Kaufmann, bravo!

[cicolas_nage]

i was in istanbul only in july and i already want to go back. it's truly a magical place (if you can ignore all the pushy vendors)

[anarchowizard]

you're doing great Steve! Harikasın!

[milankricci]

I am a Turk who lived in South America for 7 years and I know how difficult to learn a language.

It took me 3 years to speak Spanish fluently.

I understood from your Turkish speaking that you know a lot of Turkish words. as if you have been living in Turkey for at least 2 years..

I'm amazed at how you got to this level in such a short time.