Online Resources

This post is not meant to be an exhaustive indexing of all the Turkish language resources on the web. (I'll get to that eventually, ha.)

What I want to do is highlight a few of the exceptional sites, which means: no need for my loyal readers to have to sort through a large list to find out what is worthy of their valuable time.

FSI Turkish Program

This is the single most comprehensive program you can find on the web for free, and possibly even that money can buy (depending on who you ask). FSI language programs were developed by the US government and therefore have no copyright. Individuals have taken the time and effort to digitize the tapes and text and upload it so that everyone can benefit. There are two volumes in the Turkish program, 50 lessons in total. The text introduces grammar concepts, and the tapes drill, drill, drill. It's the closest thing you can get to a classroom experience from the comfort of your own home, and most importantly, minus the exorbitant cost of tuition!

Cromwell's Turkish Basics

This resource is interesting. Compiled by a non-native who has no formal training as far as I can tell, it provides a summary of Turkish grammar that is one of the best I've seen on the web. That being said, I have noticed some errors that a non-native wouldn't have made, so be aware. A copy of Lewis' Turkish Grammar provides a similarly organized (and more extensive) grammar guide, but if you don't have a copy of that classic resource, this page will do when you just need to know how to conjugate "they say that if they had not gone" (which would be encapsulated in one word, for those of you who are not familiar with agglutination).

For a useful cheat sheet, check out his one page summary of Turkish verb conjugations. The alphabetical list of suffixes also comes in handy.

Turkish Language Class

This free instructional site offers grammar lessons as well as some other unique assets such as Turkish poetry alongside its English translation, Turkish comic strips, short stories and the like. Best of all is the forum where anyone can post questions they have about some part of Turkish grammar which is stumping them and get an answer within the day, or just practice writing and conversing with fellow students and native speakers. Less interesting is the part of the forum where lovebirds post their inane love notes en masse to be translated into and out of Turkish, unless you're into providing translation services for free in which case you'll be in heaven.

Turkish Tutor

This resource was developed by UCLA and uses clips of the old popular Turkish sitcom Bizimkiler, which is focused on a cast of characters who share an apartment building. Each lesson consists of 3-5 scenes (short video clips). It is possible to listen to the audio slowed down, and each scene has an accompanying glossary and set of exercises. It is very useful for developing listening comprehension and being exposed to how Turkish people actually talk, as opposed to the artificial speech of those speaking for most audio language programs.

Practical Turkish

This site is, um, overwhelming. It's really unfortunate because there is so much good content on there, but it can be lost in the maze-like organization of the site and the many banner ads. The couple who runs it sells an ad-free, ostensibly better organized version of the resource on cd-rom, so I guess they don't want to make the free version too nice. That being said, there's a lot of good non-technical explanations of aspects of Turkish grammar (like when to use -miş, etc), and there's also a lot of good cultural information, both language related and not. The best way to check out what they've got to offer is the seemingly endless alphabetical index.

Flashcard Exchange

This great tool allows you to create digital flashcards and study them online for free. I have personally uploaded several large Turkish vocabulary sets so I know there is quality material there. My card set named "Beginning Turkish Glossary" contains about 1500 words. Get through those and you'll have learned the vocab that is typically introduced in one year of a college level course.

The basic service is free but in order to print the flashcards and use other advanced tools, including the ability to set up digital Leitner card files, there is a membership fee.

Seslisozluk

This is an online Turkish-English-German dictionary, just ignore the German, unless you're learning German as well in which case you've struck gold. Sesli sözlük means spoken dictionary, and as implied, you can hear how the words are pronounced (you have to register for free to access this service) In addition, they provide buttons above the search bar with the various non-Latin Turkish characters in case you're on a computer that has not been set up to enter them. It also offers close matches if you've spelled a word wrong, which is handy.

BBC Turkish

Ok, admittedly this is for more advanced students but reading (or trying to read) news is great because there is a solid context for what the article is discussing (if you're at all on top of world affairs anyway). For example, if an article starts out "Irak'ta..." you know you're about to learn the vocabulary for sectarian violence and casualties. Alright, that was a morbid example but you know what I mean.

They also offer streaming audio of daily news programs in Turkish (as well as Azeri, Kyrgyz and Uzbek, if you're interested).

That's all for now,
Andrea