Spoiler Alert: Turkish (Karavinka)

[voron]

1. Accusative drop indicates indefinite
2. Plural noun ending for obviously singular (e.g. bir şeyler) is a sign of indefinite or general vagueness
3. Subject in genetive indicates definite

#1 and #3 are very good guesses, well done!
#2 - I won't comment; don't want to make any spoilers.

[Karavinka]

3677 Kart

Since the last Anki avalanche, I'm trying to control the rate at which I'm adding the cards, but I still want to reach 4k by the end of the month.

I'm pretty sure that I've listened to close to 100 hours of Turkish over the last month. The sources I listen to are mostly let's play videos. There are a few benefits:

1. The speakers are ordinary people without specialized training
2. Unlike movies or dramas, there's little downtime where words are not spoken. Good LPers should never stop speaking.
3. Because they describe what's going on in the game, and there are only so much that can happen in the same game, the words tend to repeat.
4. And lastly, so long as I'm familiar with the game, I can shift the focus away and come back to it from time to time and still follow what's going on.

The point #4 is probably the most important, as most of the listening takes place at work where I can only pay attention a few minutes at a time before distracting myself to something less important i.e. work. But if what I'm watching is, say, a strategy game then I only need to see the screen to figure out what's going on -- oh, he's at war with France again. And I actually find catching new words here and there as I listen, which is a good sign.

But before that, let's talk about reading. Let's take a word as an example, aramızdaki. I used to read it like this:

ara | mız | da | ki

After having seen it enough times, I read it like this:

aramızdaki

The combination now is a gestalt, and for the sake of normal reading, it's not enough to know the root and the morphemes, the whole combination should be registered directly as a unit of meaning. I've noticed that I could actually repeat portions of the card in my brain without looking at the card -- I'm beginning to process clauses as units of meaning, provided the words (in their agglutinated forms) are sufficiently familiar.

That leads back to listening.

Why can't I understand what I hear? Well, there are different levels of listening comprehension.

1. I can distinguish the sounds
2. I can hear one word at a time
3. I can hear and process multiple words as a semantic unit

I'm still largely at #2. When I pay full attention, I can hear the words, but even when I do hear all the words and they are known to me, if I have to process one word at a time in my brain, it takes too long and the natural speech doesn't allow that kind of latency. Just as I need to read the agglutinated forms multiple times to form gestalts, I'll need to hear the words, and the common combinations of words to really understand what is said.

This is where Anki actually becomes less important. While the Anki contents will still be the backbone of my Turkish, it's going to have to be the hours spent listening that will provide the flesh.

Anki: Sen benden asla kaçabilmezsin.

Sus be.

Anki: Benden kaçmamalısın.

Siktir olup git, Anki.

#2 - I won't comment; don't want to make any spoilers.

Thanks, though I may have been a bit careless with the wording as I was on the phone. What I noticed was that this happens mostly with bir şeyler and bir yerler, which seems to translate to something and somewhere most of the time.

[Karavinka]

3754 Kart / 110 ???

I'm adding a second counter. I don't want to say what it is yet, just to provide a little cliffhanger to however few individuals wasting their precious time reading this thread. (No I actually appreciate it.) The second counter began on March 20 of my local time, so it's three days old now.

[voron]

110 ???

Hmmm... I was going to say number of hours spent listening (guessing from how you emphasized the need of listening), but it wouldn't fit into 3 days. Number of pages read?..

Anki: Sen benden asla kaçabilmezsin.

You edited it, right? But kaçabilmezsin is still a wrong (non-existing) form...

[Karavinka]

3817 Kart / 241 Sayfa



2661 Mature (70%)
1146 Young+Learn (30%)
10 Unseen

Looking at the Card Type distribution, it looks like the deck is getting mature. But this is where I need to be careful with the sense of false confidence: the Answer Buttons graphs say otherwise; much of the review is still done in the Young+Learn area. While I did manage to retain a lot of information from the deck, still a lot of the information haven't made into the long-term memory, and I haven't built enough links to tie them all.

And the second counter...

I guess it was pretty obvious, it's not like there are many possibilities. But yes, the second counter is the number of pages of paperback novels. I'm not going to list the details; the total page count is something I need to keep track of, if only for the vainglory of reaching higher number that drives me, but I don't feel like going "look what I've read!" because that really doesn't serve much more than an ego show.

And further, by not listing the books, when I don't want to read the same book any longer, I can simply put it aside and read something else. What is important is that I do the act of reading, not the titles I've read.

Though, what kind of stuff? Well, although I am a man in his 30s, most of the books are ostensibly aimed for women in their 20s, and the story revolves around the romantic relationship between the main characters, and some of them have pink covers. Why?

It's easier to keep track of. While I am understanding just enough to follow the main storyline, it's also true that I miss a lot of the details. However, if it's a romance story, what is happening on the page must be one of the following:

1. They're just getting to know each other.
2. They're getting closer to each other.
3. They're confused about what their relationship means.
4. They're experiencing doubts and setbacks in their relationships.
5. The scene is a filler and has no bearing on the main plot.

So even if I felt lost after a few pages of exposition, a careful look at the dialogues/protagonist monologues will usually help me get back on the line.

[Karavinka]

Uyumam lazım. Daha sonra rapor yazacağım.

[Karavinka]

4000 Kart / 426 Sayfa

Let's start with some stats. Why not.

Days studied: 98% (157/159)
Total reviews: 28445 reviews
Average for days studied: 181.2 reviews/day
Average for the last 30 days studied: 255.4 reviews/day

Total review time: 149 hours
Average for days studied: 57 minutes/day
Average for the last 30 days studied: 74.3 minutes/day

Average cards added per day: 25.2 cards/day

That said, the goal is to learn Turkish, not to write a description of it. To that end, I'm going to start the second phase of this thread.

...

This second phase will last until either:

- I hit 4000 cards in Anki, or
- the date is March 31,

whichever happens first. Either I hit 3 months, or add 3000 additional cards. Once I hit either of those second milestones, I'll take a look at my earlier grammar analysis and see if I can answer any of the unresolved topics, or provide a better explanation for any. I'll take a second look at the problem sentences I noted during the second phase as well, and decide if I need a book... or not. Because, if I just understand something even though I cannot explain why or how -- that means I'm developing an instinct.

And the goal is met. It is March 31, and there are 4000 cards. I did rush a bit last night, but still. And maybe it is to be expected, but there were and are changes from my original projection 3 months ago.

I did not keep the log of random sentences that I couldn't figure out. My policy changed to ignoring them, and deleting such cards on the fly if they pose problem. That change took place quite early in the 2nd phase. And as for revisiting the old grammar notes -- forget it! By this point I can't care less. After figuring out some of the minimal building blocks of Turkish during the first 1K, I've been deliberately trying to not think about them.

And there goes the idea of a book. There is one book in particular I am contemplating if I want to use, but that will need to wait for another day. I may decide to pick that one up, but it's not going to be now even if I were to do so. The time isn't ripe for it yet.

So, what's going to happen to this thread? Phase 3, of course. I talked about it a little on the previous posts, but I'll try to make it clear again.

This is meant to be a transitory stage where I let my Turkish outgrow the Anki deck.

The goal is to read the same number of pages as there are cards. The cards will continue to get added, but at a slower pace, with the intent of dropping the daily review count below 100. Once both conditions are met, the third phase is over.

This is partially from my past experience with using the Anki sentence method for German. I ended up building a +13k deck, but most of them were pulled from some learning materials and I was not satisfied with the end result. I did pass Goethe B2 in the end, but what even is a B2? A in CEFR stands for Aphasia and B stands for Brain-damage. It somehow worked, but not as well as I wanted to. What was missing back then? Three things.

1. Time. The German deck was created in less than a year - those were crazy days - and a language needs time to get properly fermented.
2. Naturalistic language. The sentences were pulled largely from learner-oriented materials and grammar books. Stiff and unnatural.
3. And the heavy focus on sentence mining and Anki reps meant not enough time spent with authentic German. This is what I try to change this time.

So, in order not to repeat the same mistake again (the sunk cost is real, I don't want to fuck it up at this point), I want to make this a little less Anki-driven, but more Anki-supplemented. I want to give myself some time to properly digest this deck, and spend more time reading and listening. The goal of the third phase is, as always, an arbitrary guesstimation, but the intent is clear.

Anki was the driving force behind my expansion of Turkish.
Exposure will need to take over as the primary method, and Anki will supplement it by cementing what I look up.

-- And as a celebration, let me update my profile. I don't know what level I would get from a placement test, but it's probably safe to say a little above A1 at least.

[voron]

And the goal is met.

That's awesome that you are persistent enough to meet your goals; congrats on meeting this one, too!

In one of your previous posts you mentioned that you started reading a book but wouldn't bother putting its name here. I'd say do tell us (unless it's something too embarassing ). Sharing the native materials that you use for studying is what makes threads like this interesting; they give the reader both a glimse into the culture behind the language, and into your personality.

[*]Naturalistic language. The sentences were pulled largely from learner-oriented materials and grammar books. Stiff and unnatural.

The translated materials are not 100% natural either, so I guess if you want 100% naturality it'd make sense to shift the focus from the translated stuff (if it's still you major input) to the original Turkish stuff.

[Karavinka]

In one of your previous posts you mentioned that you started reading a book but wouldn't bother putting its name here. I'd say do tell us (unless it's something too embarassing ). Sharing the native materials that you use for studying is what makes threads like this interesting; they give the reader both a glimse into the culture behind the language, and into your personality.

The translated materials are not 100% natural either, so I guess if you want 100% naturality it'd make sense to shift the focus from the translated stuff (if it's still you major input) to the original Turkish stuff.

Thanks! And true about the translations, though my standard is a bit looser with the text materials, that if it passes for the natives then it passes for me. The spoken materials are all original Turkish, and sometimes I just play the livestream TV, other times when I have the time and energy, I watch something I can focus on. Too bad that most Turkish drama I came across are out of question, though; when one episode is over 2 hours long, it's not something I can watch with my attention span.

[voron]

when one episode is over 2 hours long, it's not something I can watch with my attention span.

This series has shorter episodes, and I found it pretty funny, watched it all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJWLSRt ... c2iBlVWXJf

[Karavinka]

4027 Kart / 669 Sayfa

Just finished the second paperback.

I tend to understand the direct quotations and emotional monologues better than scenery or object descriptions. It's understandable, as a big chunk of my deck is made of direct quotations and protagonist monologues. It just shows me what kind of vocabulary I need.

The first paperback had a linear, chronological plot, but the second one had a non-linear storytelling made of a lot of small scenes, some consisting less than one page. While I understood some scenes much better than others, I did not slow down to read "carefully." Nor I intend to slow down to read "carefully." Perfectionism is often the cause of the intermediate learner agony; I stand by the idea that understanding half of 300 pages is better than toiling over 100 pages looking up every single word. Instead, I'm trying to set my reading speed around the natural speech speed, and improve the comprehension rate later. It also helps that I ultimately don't really care about the contents; if I were reading something informative, then I would be more tempted to halt and look up. If it's just yet another scene in a mass market paperback, I know I'm not missing a lot.

I used to add sentences that I knew every word, but still had some extra information contents. Such as how the words are combined, or if there is an interesting collocation. I expect these to drop in frequency; while I've been adding slowly, those that get added tend to contain more new words nowadays.

Why did I decide I wanted to read books? Because mangas were returning less and less cards per chapter. A 25 page episode used to yield +30 cards; now the number has dropped to maybe 3-5, and I can now simply read much of those stuff without bothering to look up. Whatever word I don't understand, the contexts make it clear enough. In a sense, they have been phased out, and I felt like I could handle something with less pictures.

Why did I stop the writing exercises? Because I don't feel the urge now. Maybe my brain wanted to produce Turkish while the basic structures were getting laid down in my neural network; I think now my brain is just busy enough dealing with the Turkish that I've been pouring into it.

[Karavinka]

4042 Kart / 894 Sayfa

If I do not add any further cards for 10 days, the daily review count will fall below 100.

I'm going to cheat a little and look up a few words. It's kind of inconvenient not knowing these words. The red ones either never made into the deck at all, or haven't appeared enough times that I cannot recall. The black ones I could recall.

Pazartesi
Salı
Çarşamba
Perşembe
Cuma
Cumartesi
Pazar

Ocak
Şubat
Mart
Nisan
Mayıs
Haziran
Temmuz
Ağustos
Eylül
Ekim
Kasım
Aralık

[Karavinka]

4062 Kart / 966 Sayfa



For the first time in a long while, the daily review count for today fell below 100: 98. What a tiny number for an Anki review quota. That's adorable.

One of the goals for the Phase 3 is coming along. I'll give it a little more extra time. On the other hand, I'm re-thinking whether I want to re-evaluate the reading goal or not. More on that later, when I'm closer to a conclusion.

[voron]

I'm going to cheat a little and look up a few words.

Bu aşamada bence istediğin sözlük ve gramer kitabı kullanabilirsin, öğrenimimi olumsuz bir şekilde etkileyebilir diye hiç tereddüt etmeden... ama tabii karar senin.

[Karavinka]

I'm going to cheat a little and look up a few words.

Bu aşamada bence istediğin sözlük ve gramer kitabı kullanabilirsin, öğrenimimi olumsuz bir şekilde etkileyebilir diye hiç tereddüt etmeden... ama tabii karar senin.

Teşekkürler. Ben de öyle sanırım, ama daha kalan küçük bir şey var... Bu deneyi sonlandırmadan önce.

[Karavinka]

4075 Kart / 1186 Sayfa

It's still pretty hard to watch a program and follow along, but I managed to watch a 70 min movie from beginning to the end without subtitles and understood 80-90% of it. On the plus side, that's an encouraging prospect. On the minus side, that was a Barbie movie.

Reading-wise, so far it's been 4 books, three of them are translated from English and one is written originally in Turkish. I'm just starting the fifth one, and it's coming along pretty well and I found myself able to follow and get immersed in the story from time to time -- the level of diction is a bit lighter with this one. My reading speed is starting to catch up to the normal speech, which is a good news. Maybe a not so good news is that the fifth book is Alacakaranlık.

After a while, I'll be interested in buying a few books in Turkish -- nothing of the great literature that the Turks will be proud of, but the shittiest and the cheesiest of the romance novels that one would be embarrassed to read in public. Something in the line of Twilight but an authentic Turkish equivalent of a shitty novel would be even better. This will need to wait until I can wield a bit more words though. This was also the rationale behind choosing Cosmopolitan a while ago. I don't expect them to write in a very polished and literary manner, I expect the language to be casual and colloquial.

I guess I meant it.

Disclaimer: To be fair, I have nothing against books like these, people have the right to indulge in their guilty pleasure as long as they understand it's a fantasy. I've seen far worse stuff than this, written primarily for men or for women.

[Karavinka]

4073 Kart / 1321 Sayfa

Today is a rather unremarkable day in terms of the progress in Turkish. But it's April 25th, which makes it exactly six months since I started learning Turkish. Also, this is the first post on the entire thread where the card count actually went down since the last one.

As a tribute to my earliest efforts at Turkish, I'm going to try to translate the most inspirational, relaxing and generally sanity-preserving piece of music that I know. It's my anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWIjvPuY2jo

どうしてみんなが幸せなの？
この世界のこと　聞きたいって、知りたいって
水辺の公園で　みんなが耳を澄ませて
わくわくするね　ねぇ、オンディーヌ？
Neden herkes mutlu oluyor?
Bu dünyanın hakkında duymak istiyor, bilmek istiyor
Bahçedeki Gölde herkes dikkat veriyor
Heyecalandıran bir şey olacak, değil mi, Undine?

ハイハーイ！さあさあ、みなさん、教えてあげまーす！
みんなが気になってること、疑問に思ってること、ぜーんぶ教えてあげまーす！
Hadi millet! Hazır mısınız? Anlatacağım!
Herkesin bilmek istediğin her şey, merak ettiğin her şey, tüm bunları size öğreteceğim ben!

えー、みなさんが幸福なのは･･･義務なんです。
幸せですか？義務ですよ？果たしてますか？
我々、幸福安心委員会はみなさまの幸せを願い、そして支えまーす。
Şey, herkesin mutlu olduğunu yükümdür.
Mutlu musunuz? Bu yükümdür. Yerine getiriyor musunuz?
Biz, Mutluluk ve Rahatlık Komitesi, sizin mutluluğu diliyoruz ve detekliyoruz.

幸福なのは義務なんです。　
幸せですか？義務ですよ？
Mutlu olmak zorundasınız.
Mutlu musunuz? Bu yükümdür.

ですから、安心して義務を果たすように！　
みなさまの幸せが我々の幸せ。
幸せですか？義務ですよ？果たしてますか？
幸せじゃないなら･･･、
Bu yüzden, sizin rahatlıkla yükümüzü yerine getirmek için!
Herkesin mutlu olduğunu bizi mutlu ediyor
Mutlu musunuz? Yükümdür. Yerine getiriyorsunuz?
Eğer mutlu değilsiniz...


絞首、斬首、銃殺、釜茹、
溺死、電気、火炙り、生き埋め、薬殺、
石打ち、鋸、磔、好きなのを選んでね☆
İdam, başını kesme, ateş, kaynama
Boğulma, elektrik, yakma, gömme, zehir,
Taşlama, ampütasyon, çarmıha gerilme, hangisini istersen al!

はいはーい！さあさあ、みなさん、幸せだけが満ちてまーす！
不安とか不満、なにひとつないでしょー？
コワーイ、恐いわー、幸せすぎて恐いわー。
Hadi millet! Sadece mutluluk dolup taşıyor!
Rahatsızlık veya endişe deme hiç bir şey yok, değil mi?
Korkunç, çok korkunç! Herkesin fazla mutlu olduğunu beni korkuyor!

ホントにみんなが幸せなの？
この世界の外　行きたいって、逃げたいって
水辺の公園で　みんなが耳を塞いで
ビクビクしてた　ねぇ、ウンディーネ？
Gerçekten herkes mutlu oluyor mu?
Bu dünyanın dışarı hakkında, gitmek istiyor, kaçmak istiyor
Bahçedeki Gölde herkes kulakları kapıyor
Titriyor, değil mi, Undine?

はいはーい！さあさあ、みなさん、死にましたー！
オンディーヌをふった騎士は死にましたー！
葬儀に出るなら向こうに並べ！
それ以外は幸せに暮らせ！以上。
Hadi millet! Duydunuz mu? Öldü!
Undine'yi aldatan o şovalye öldü!
Cenazene gitmek istiyorsan sıraya git!
Başkalar, mutlu olmaya devam et! Hepsi bu!

幸福なのは義務なんです。　
幸せですか？義務ですよ？
Mutlu olmak zorundasınız.
Mutlu musunuz? Bu yükümdür.

幸せじゃないなら･･･ ○ね
Eğer mutlu değilsiniz... Öl.

[Karavinka]

Changing the deck skin on Anki, to serve as a reminder: Turkish is a duty. Anki is mandatory. Maybe I made it a bit too low-res but the smaller the file size the better for performance, as it has to be loaded every time you see a card.

4095 Kart / 1347 Sayfa

I've been listening to Kral Pop TV Live on YouTube a lot lately at work. There are a couple of artists posted earlier on this thread that I keep get reminded of, like Hadise and Aynur Aydın. And I'm happy to hear their voices because I do like them, though a Turkish friend of mine calls it "shitty Turkish pop." Eh, fine, I like shitty stuff.

But rather than actively seeking new music, I'll just let it throw songs at me; being a TV channel, it's probably showing what's popular. That means a lot of the Turkish audiences like those songs, and whether I like them or not, knowing the popular taste is an important part of understanding the culture.

While I couldn't really care less at first, I feel like I'm getting accustomed a little by little. The more I listen, the more I feel like there's a certain je-ne-sais-quoi about the Turkish pop that reminds me of late 90s-early 2000s K-pop; and I don't mean this in any negative way as if it feels outdated; no, to me that is the golden age of K-pop that I feel the most nostalgic about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ7LJ9nYKU8
Model - Pembe Mezarlık

Another thing is that I gave up building a playlist. Instead, I'll just note the songs that play often -- or the ones that I just find noticeable for whatever personal reasons, and throw the lyrics at Anki. Maaybe the time will come that I don't need to look up lyrics and therefore I don't need to add lyrics cards to Anki. Or maybe not; when it comes to music, I often have hard time even in Korean.

I'll be dumping YouTube links to look something up if I feel like; posting lyrics or even the embedded video for all of them will make the thread unwieldy very soon.

The embedded video is the best pick of the day. It feels like a lot of the Turkish pop lyrics can be rather abstract; I personally prefer a song with a sense of narrative. I used to stay away from adding lyrics that feel too abstract, but I believe my vocabulary can handle most of them now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-wCI61MgnU
Nil Karaibrahimgil - Ben Buraya Çıplak Geldim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50QA4OsXcKc
Feride Hilal Akın & Hakan Tunçbilek - Gizli Aşk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6FXNUcf6E4
İrem Derici - Zorun Ne Sevgilim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD6GSzQbpLY
Aylin Coskun - Sinsirella

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_WSeVXWbaY
Hande Yener - Vay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-sxRVTKNUU
Oğuzhan Koç - Beni İyi Sanıyorlar

[voron]

My favourite song by Nil Karaibrahimgil is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBiX4XS9HQQ

Your translation of Miku Hatsune's song: vocabulary-wise it is good; as for the grammar there are a few errors.

The recurring one is the use of the -dık participle:

Herkesin bilmek istediğin her şey

istediği

Herkesin mutlu olduğunu bizi mutlu ediyor

olduğu

a Turkish friend of mine calls it "shitty Turkish pop."

Have you tried speaking with your friend in Turkish? How was it?

[Karavinka]

Out of curiosity, I tried a couple of online tests.


https://www.17-minute-languages.com/en/ ... ment-test/


https://www.arealme.com/kelime-dagarcigi-testi/en/

At least vocab-wise, it's about where I expect it to be, one card in Anki giving me approximately one word on average. And well, I guess... the Barbie film was right at my age level then.

My favourite song by Nil Karaibrahimgil is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBiX4XS9HQQ

I like it!

Your translation of Miku Hatsune's song: vocabulary-wise it is good; as for the grammar there are a few errors.

The recurring one is the use of the -dık participle:

Herkesin bilmek istediğin her şey

istediği

Herkesin mutlu olduğunu bizi mutlu ediyor

olduğu

Thanks, and yes, this is so far the hardest part.

a Turkish friend of mine calls it "shitty Turkish pop."

Have you tried speaking with your friend in Turkish? How was it?

We really don't speak much Turkish, just a couple of sentences maybe and back to English most of the time, because well, when we need to talk work then we just have to get the work done.
---------------------
And I just noticed: with 115 posts, this is now my most active topic on Unilang.