5 comments about Teach Yourself Beginner's Turkish Audiopackage.

1. Excellent, loved it. The pronunciation was perfect. Most common responce, "Where the hell did you learn Turkish!?" On a CD I'd say. They'd look at me like I was putting them on.
   
   Suggestion - iTunes is great for learning a language off CD. The lessons appear as individual songs, simply keep clicking on the song progress meter in the same place to keep playing the same 5 second bit over and over. Turkish is supposedly really hard to learn, with this repetition I got it pretty quick.
   
   Merhaba!



2. After dabbling in several TY language sets, Beginner's Turkish is the most organized and easy to use set I've seen to date.
   
   I've only had the set a couple of days but am starting to get the dialogues down for Lesson 1.
   
   Not only are the dialogues clear and manageable, but the test at the end of the chapter helps you identify areas that need work before progressing to the next lesson.



3. I am personally not a fan of the Teach Yourself language books in general. Turkish is about as different from English as it could possibly be, and I found this book to be rather scattered and disjointed.
   
   If you're serious about learning Turkish, get a grammar book like the famous Lewis text, and then peruse the web for reading materials and internet radio. If you can, find a native speaker to converse with, since, unlike Spanish or French, it's extremely difficult for an English-speaker to imitate the natural pulse of the spoken language without a lot of direct interaction.



4. I have quite a number of Teach Yourself language courses, both the beginner's series and full courses. I've worked through a few of them for different languages (I'm pretty serious about several languages and "dabble" in some others). Some are good, some are not. It's interesting that the "Beginner's Series" seems to be much more logically presented (in general) than the full courses. At least they have been for the French and Italian beginner's courses that I have--and this Turkish course is no exception. Maybe it's just because they are newer, and TY seems to have developed a better teaching philosophy lately.
   
   I'll start with the one thing I feel could have been improved upon:
   
   * The grammar could have been a bit more rigorously treated. But I can't fault this particular book; it is, after all, a beginner's course (not to mention, most courses are "grammarphobic" anyway). So I won't take stars off for this.
   
   Okay, why do I like this course? First, I'm just getting started. But as I said, I have a bunch of Teach Yourself courses with which to compare, and I can see this is a good offering. It avoids almost all of my pet peeves.
   
   * When I'm working through language courses I expect a logically sequenced, step-by-step presentation, and this Beginner's Turkish course does this quite well.
   
   * The vocabulary is presented at the word level, rather than having phrases to "parrot." I prefer to learn words and grammar, and then form my own sentences. That's primarily the way this course goes about things. Of course there are stock phrases that everyone should just memorize--this book has those, but it quickly moves beyond that.
   
   * The vocabulary is presented in nice lists with the columns lined up well for drilling yourself. The book does not force you to extract vocabulary from dialog and write it all out on you own. It's there. Thank you!
   
   * There is no vocabulary overload! The word load seems about right. Some TY books just dump way too much vocabulary on the reader.
   
   * Most courses do not have enough practice exercises. This one actually has quite a number of them!
   
   * Here's a shocking one for you: the dialogs are fully transcribed in the back of the book. Most courses are too cheap to do this, and it's a very welcome addition to this book. It will save hours of time looking up words--time that can be better used drilling with flashcards or some other productive activity. Looking up words is a total waste of time.
   
   All in all, I think this is a very good offering from TY. It seems they have been getting their act together the past few years. Maybe they have realized that the tried and true "old school" language learning approach still has value, because they do a pretty good job of blending traditional presentation with newer techniques and technology. For several years, they were putting out glorified phrase books that taught nothing of the language, just a bunch of canned phrases with a bit of watered down grammar thrown in (which is worthless if it's not put into the context of the language). I'd say this is a well-rounded offering that should please anyone who is curious enough about a language to go beyond simple phrases.



5. There is actually a suprising amount of very good quality materials for learning Turkish (certainly many more than are available on Persian, for instance) ranging from books that attempt to develop basic conversational skills to scholarly treatments of the grammar. This book belongs at the first end of this spectrum, which is not a knock on it. The dialogues that go with each lesson are very natural and easy to follow, although the emphasis is somewhat touristy (covering things like ordering in restaurants or finding a hotel so there is a kind of 'Survival Turkish' flavor about it). The first thing one will notice is that there is a bewildering-seeming variety of endings to nouns and verbs, but although this isn't a work with a strong grammatical emphasis, these endings and their different functions are are explained very simply and clearly so that it is possible to reach a comfort level with them in a surprisingly short time. An absolute beginner (or someone interested in travelling to Turkey) should find this a good place to start.

5 comments about Berlitz Turkish Phrase Book & Dictionary (Berlitz Phrase Book).

1. One book is never enough if you're trying to learn even a little Turkish! But phrase books are a good starting place, and this is a good little phrase book (though not my favorite) -- to carry around. It has a dictionary in the back, and is divided by category. Some seem a bit off -- in the socializing area there are invitations to go home with strangers (and a way to say no..but still...) Dining out, drinking, tourist areas, camping, even complaints are briefly covered.

   This book has details beyond what I hope I'll need in Turkey. Aside from the foods, it offers all the parts of an automobile (including a diagram of the inside of a car) and body parts (no diagram!).

   Interesting reading -- it has little bits of information that could be useful. Don't bother with the tape -- there are better ones offered (see other Turkish language book reviews!)




2. I compared this phrasebook with the Lonely Planet Turkish phrasebook in the bookstores. Which one won? Berlitz is newer and had a fresher layout.
   
   For good focus on situational social communication, Berlitz spells it out pretty well. Phrasebooks aren't like dictionaries though--you need to spend some time reading it prior to going if you want to make it more useful.
   
   It's not as 'scholarly' as Barron's At A Glance and Vocabulary/Grammar books, but it does very well for just one travel language aid.



3. MERHABA, THIS IS A GREAT BOOK, IT TEACHES YOU ALL THE BASICS ABOUT TURKISH, I RECOMMEND GETTING ALSO THE LONELY PLANET TURKISH PHRASEBOOK, 1999, BY JIM MASTERS AND TOM BROSNAHAN, COK GUZEL, HOSCA KALIN!



4. Berlitz publishes some of the best dictionaries and phrase books for international speaking. This poor book has been used so much it is tattered and well loved. My husband is Turkish and while he is learning English we both use it to reference words and phrases so we can get our points across to everyone. It goes with us everywhere.



5. This is not helpful for someone who really wants to learn the language. No grammar, a poor dictionary, poor pronunciation guides and thick pages which makes the little it offers less portable

3 comments about Czech: An Essential Grammar (Essential Grammars).

1. Really! First, use this work. I know it means seemingly meaningless memorization, but then the Short Teach Yourself Czech will make a lot more sense, and you can concentrate on the colloquial expressions and phrases. Then you can polish off your knowledge with Radio Praha (which has the printed Czech of their articles and sound in RealAudio or Windows Media) and the Fronek dictionary. The Fronek IS hideously expensive, but since you're not gonna find "2,000+ Essential Czech Verbs," you'll find all you need on the irregualr conjugations and declensions there.



2. Czech, an essential grammar is exactly what it is called.
   Author managed to explain complexities of Czech language in logical, brief and easy to understand chapters. I was particularly impressed by the section, cases and prepositions, which was very well presented to anyone who would be interested in studying this very difficult language. Each section covers one element of the grammar which includes nouns, pronouns,numerals, verbs, prepositions and conjunctions In fairly short sections, the author was able to cover basic usage in plentiful examples so students can learn a simple conversation in short time.
   I have discussed the textbook with my student, Dr. Lois Potter and she found the book to be an excellent tool for her understanding of basic structures of today's Czech.
   Last but not least positive feature of the book is usage of proper and updated forms of Czech language which does not include slang or terms no longer existing in everyday communication. While Czech language is difficult by itself, many outdated textbooks make it impossible for non-native speaker to understand complicated czech grammar. In Czech An Essential Grammar, the author accomplished a very difficult task of simplifying it. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to learn Czech without being discouraged by complexity of Czech grammar.
   
   Val Berzinz, Berlitz Czech instructor



3. The Kindle Edition of Naughton's Czech, an Essential Grammar is useless. Despite multiple downloads and discussions with Kindle customer service, the book downloads to the Kindle without many accents and diacritical marks on the letters -- for example, throughout the entire book, "R" with hook/hacek -- has no hacek. Same for "r" -- no hook/hacek. The same holds true for other letters with hooks/haceks. Thus, THE BOOK IS USELESS IN ITS CURRENT FORMAT. Without the accents and hooks/hacky, one cannot learn the language. I speak Czech and can see that all the accents are missing, but a non-speaker or learner of the Czech language would not know this, and thus would learn many, many words completely incorrectly. THE PUBLISHERS NEED TO CORRECT THE KINDLE VERSION OF THIS BOOK.

5 comments about 201 Turkish Verbs: Fully Conjugated in All the Tenses (201 verbs series).

1. It's not as much help as such lists are for Indo-European languages, but with Turkish you need all the help you can get. I've been working through the Pollards' "Teach Yourself Turkish" (and by the way, to get the tapes for that you have to go to the U.K. Amazon.com) and it was helpful in recognizing strange words that are not glossed and turn out to be unfamilar verb forms that a dictionary would not give you.
   The problem is that Turkish is so completely different from French or German in its entire structure that you have to learn completely different concepts. As a simple example a verb is changed to a negative form by putting a syllable in the middle of it. I haven't yet figured the vowel harmony thing. I'm still planning my trip to Turkey for October.



2. Turkish has the wonderful distinction of being one of the few languages I've seen with completely regular verbs, unlike Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Russian, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and most of the world's other major languages that I've seen books on. Japanese and Chinese are the only other ones I know that come close, as the number of irregular verbs can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

   It would be interesting to know how many are like this, and perhaps some of the other Uralic languages like Turkish are too. As I said, Japanese is the only other one I know like this, and in fact there are only two irregular verbs in Japanese. Chinese, if I remember right, is also very regular since it doesn't even inflect for person or number, and I suspect the other Han Chinese family languages are similarly regular because of this, but I can't speak for the other tonal languages such as Thai and Vietnamese, but I assume Cantonese and Hakka are very regular too like Mandarin.

   I also don't know how the other southeast Asian family languages compare, such as Mon, Khmer (Cambodian), Burmese, or the many other language groups and dialects in southeast Asia such as Hmong in the Mon-Khmer group. The other groups are the Bahnaric group, which includes languages like Sedang and Halang; the Senoic group, which includes Semai and Temiar; Nicorbarese, which includes Trinkat and Bompaka, Munda, which includes Juray and Remo, and the north Munda group, which includes Kork and Sora.

   Actually, come to think of it, Arabic is pretty good. It has ten different verb conjugation categories, and once you know those, you're all right. In fact, they're so regular the dictionaries actually refer to them by numbers I-X.

   But getting back to this book, as someone noted previously, because the verbs are completely regular, this book could probably have been about 15 pages long. The only other thing to learn is vowel harmony in Turkish, which isn't that difficult and fans of linguistics will recognize this concept from other languages where it occurs, such as in Hungarian, where it's very important. In phonetics, vowel harmony is a type of assimilation which occurs when vowels take on features of contrastive vowels elsewhere in a word or phrase. Once you know how this works, it's very difficult to misspell a word in Turkish, so even that's not really a problem. So overall, a fine book on Turkish verbs despite all the wasted wood pulp. :-)




3. The 201/501 Verb Books are great for languages like Russian, Portuguese, French, German, etc., but not for Turkish.I have perused this book several times in stores but have never been foolish enough to buy it. Considering the regularity of Turkish verbs and the simple rules of vowel harmony (which you will have to master anyway, even to speak in the simplest language) anyone who has learned the rules for forming a tense could fill out these tables by him/herself. If you want to increase your vocabulary of verbs you can buy a dictionary (Redhouse and Langenscheidt both have good ones). Let's face it, you're not going to have time to look in this book while conversing with someone in Turkey, so learning the rule for forming the tense and exercising it, is time much better spent.



4. I did not see this book - ever. So what I am writing here??? Well, I am a native speaker of Turkish, so I decided to add some comments here.
   I read all the comments and I have to agree that tenses-wise, Turkish is very complicated, because we have many many tenses all are expressing different things (or maybe it seems so, because all can, must, shall etc are embedded in the verb itself when tenses are applied and a conjugated verb is self-sufficient to express a full sentence. eg. I could have done it. Yapabilirdim.) In primary school when we learned the conjugation, our book only had a full page of different tenses for the same verb. And the list was applicable to every Turkish verb with adjustments of the vowel harmony. So if you want to learn Turkish, first step: start with vowel harmony (don't worry if it comes difficult, because even some native speakers find it difficult, just a tip, try to see differences by applying the wrong letter and you will see that it is difficult to pronounce the word with wrong letter.)(though there are some small exceptions, generally Turkish is a very by-the-book language, exceptions exist but either because the origin of the word is foreign or root has changed and vowel harmony applies to the original root) But the exceptions do not apply how the word is conjugated, it is fixed for all. So one is enough to see how it is done, you must know the root of the word and how harmony effects the structure. I know, it is always easier said than done =)) I believe what you would need is a very good and detailed Turkish dictionary (preferably one showing how to understand the root of the words, because if you know the root and how suffixes and prefixes work, you can easily identify the meaning of words and build your vocabulary quickly. And for verbs, better prepare a chart that can easily be seen from your work area and that would be just what you will need to work on your verbs.



5. The 201 verbs in this book are all conjugated in the affirmative. Only sample conjugations are provided for affirmative interrogative, negative, and negative interrogative forms in all tenses.
   
   Still a useful learning tool and reference, but not complete in the way that "fully conjugated in all the tenses" might lead you to believe.

5 comments about Elementary Turkish.

1. This standard for the English learning Turkish is everything I hoped it would be. I am working my way through the lessons with the help of my Turkish friends and hope to be able to speak and understand with some proficiency when I next visit Turkey.



2. I lost interest halfway through this book. It's not bad, but I guess I was expecting starting with more conversational phrases instead of rules of language. There were a lot of exercises for which I would flip back to try to figure out what each word meant and occasionally get frustrated when a new word not previously defined was introduced. Sorry I didn't finish it. I will bring it on my trip though.



3. Bought this so I could learn to speak with some of my friends from Turkey- wow, designed well I think, though some words aren't in the dictionary printed in the back (that's where the internet comes in handy) but that's thankfully not so common. I found it really easy to learn and speak using this- a great buy for the language dipper



4. This book is more difficult to use than books like Hugo and Teach Yourself, but on the other hand it covers alot more ground. So there is a trade-off when using this book.
   
   Compared to TY and Colloquial, the language used in this book is quite technical, from the field of linguistics.
   Some esoteric expressions the author conjures up include: present optative-subjunctive verb forms, ablative suffix on preceding substantive...
   These examples are abit extreme, but you should get the idea that this book contains alot of linguistic jargon.
   However, the book does a good job at explaining them in "normal" terms, and I had no major problems understanding what they meant - you can also get the idea by looking at the examples.
   But they do slow you down a bit.
   
   The strength of this book is its very thorough coverage of grammar, it is far superior on this than TY, Colloquial and Hugo.
   I would say that the grammar covered goes well into the intermediate level.
   
   The weakness of this book is that some of the vocabulary is abit old.
   My print is from 1986, so the majority of vocabulary is still relevant however.
   
   Each chapter is very short, around 8 pages.
   There are two excercises for each chapter, they are both translation excercises: Turkish -> English, English->Turkish.
   
   The vocabulary covered is very broad: business, family, weather, culture, every-day practical words...you learn abit of everything.
   
   Personally I really like this book, it is something I will use for a very long time, for referencing and revision.
   For the low price of this book, you get alot of value.



5. A very good modern turkish grammar. The verbs are well elucidate in your uses and forms and there are many examples that can show the correcto use of the grammar.

5 comments about Teach Yourself Turkish Complete Course Audiopackage.

1. I JUST ORDERED THIS BOOK TO HELP ME RELEARN TURKISH, MY MOM IS TURKISH AND WE JUST CAME BACK FROM TRIP THIS SUMMER. I WISH I TRIED TO LEARN IT BEFORE I WENT, SINCE IT HAD BEEN YEARS SINCE I WAS THERE. ONE THING THAT MAY HELP EVERYONE THAT IS MISSING THE CD'S IS TO WATCH SOME TV SHOWS. IF YOU GO ONTO YOU TUBE AND SEARCH FOR HEPSI BIR, THIS IS A TV SHOW THAT HAS 30-40 EPISODES OF A TURKISH POP GROUP WHO IS REALLY BIG OVER THERE. IVE BEEN LEARNING FROM WATCHING THE SHOW, YOU GET TO HEAR THE CONVERSATION AND SEE THE SITUATION SO IT MAY HELP EVERYONE.



2. Having taught French and Spanish prior to my retirement, I know what to look for in teaching a foreign language. This course is probably the poorest quality I have yet to see.
   
   Lesson 1 begins by giving you a few basic words in Turkish in rapid succession then goe to chapter six...which is quite advanced...All in lesson 1. No time is given to practice the pronunciation before moving on to the next word or phrase. Don't waste your money.



3. Like its companion volume, 'Teach Yourself Beginner's Turkish', this book is so organized as to target from its very beginning the difficulties an English speaker will have learning Turkish. It is, of course, the complicated system of suffixes that will keep a student up at night, but the authors have related them so neatly to English possessives and prepositions (in the case of noun suffixes) and tenses (in the case of verbs, of course)that they quickly come to seem to be parts of one of the most sensible and logical language structures a student of foreign languages will ever encounter. For me, the course really got easier as I worked my way through it (something that happens very rarely even in good courses). The course material is interesting too: conversations in each lesson cover a wide variety of everyday situations to be encountered in contemporary Turkey. Occasionally one encounters a grammatical construction that hasn't been covered in previous lessons, but don't be put off= they aren't (unlike in many other books) real barriers to understanding, and by the end of the book anything mysterious will almost certainly have come clear.



4. This is a very bad book. There is no communicative context to any of the lessons at all. All vocabulary seems to be introduced randomly. Not around real contextulized conversations. There is little or no spirling of material/vocabulary so that one do not build their skills on past lessons. There is way too much English explanations, when they could have used the space for more communicative conversations and introduction to real language. It is a good book if your interesteed in Turkish grammar, but knowing grammar does not translate into being able to communicate. How many of us can think of grammar rules and speak at the same time. Do not buy this book.



5. I love this book. I think it is very suitable for whoever need next step to understanding Turkish language.
   To me, it provides intermediate level after you finish general language pocket book.
   - well organized contents
   - easy to understand
   - fun exercises
   - good realistic examples and information
   Highly recommended book to whom may interested in learning new language.
   Good luck.

2 comments about Berlitz Turkish Dictionary: Turkish-English / English-Turkish (Berlitz Concise Dictionaries) (Turkish Edition).

1. I just got this dictionary today for Turkish-English English-Turkish, and I like it a lot. The blue headwords are convenient, and the definitions are good. There is also a section that explains grammar. I am very happy with it.



2. As with all dictionaries, it is precise and reliable. It does not have,however, are examples of how the words are used in context. This is a little frustrating when trying to use the book to write things such as engish or social studies papers.

5 comments about Turkish, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Turkish with Pimsleur Language Programs (Simon & Schuster's Pimsleur).

1. Having lived in Turkey, the Pimsleur Language Program offered a good start for first-timers delving into Turkish, and a good review for those of us who once knew how to speak some of the language. The course requires the listener to repeat - and repeat - and repeat. And, if you're going to learn to speak a language, this is the best way. However, there is, in my opinion, too much repetition of certain phrases or words, such as "Nezaman?" (When?) If you cannot repeat this word and understand it and use it after five times, maybe Turkish is not for you. Also, I though each lesson could have give more vocabulary and grammar. I seem to recall that in one lesson I learn only three new words, and more repetition. The bottom line is: Would I recommend this product? Yes. Would I purchase the next volume (hopefully more advanced)? Yes



2. I tried to learn Turkish several times before and I always get confused by the complicated grammar structure and vowels harmony etc. However this recording makes it so easy for you to just understand Turkish without going through all this. And while you think you're only learning words by the time you finish the CDs you'll find that you have also gained a healthy understanding of the language structure itself. The only regret I have is that they don't offer more advance levels.



3. Yep, you read that right. Ungood. It's way too much info for a beginner and there's nothing 'conversational' about it. I actually ended up using a free online language lesson which proved to be far superior to this. I don't know if it could be used in other situations but it was useless for a couple people who needed the basics for a two week trip to Istanbul.



4. this product has helped me in many ways, Firstly the lessons start out with the basic and it gets harder as you continue. The pronounaction of each word is easy to understand =)
   
   It is a good start if you want to learn Turkish



5. Having studied track 10 (of 16), I've studied Turkish for a month, and my Turkish language skills--albeit limited--have already impressed a few native Turkish speakers. I took another reviewer's advice to purchase Pimsleur as my first Turkish language learning tool. Basically, I listen to these tapes whenever possible: in the car, at home on my computer, and outside on my mp3 player. After a week of listening to the tapes (around lesson 3), I could catch single words, such as konusmuyor ("I don't speak/say"), when native-speaking friends were speaking to each other. These CD's were well worth the investment, as I can communicate basic ideas in Turkish, e.g. "let's eat at the restaurant" and "would you like to drink coffee or tea?". After I finish this series, I will pick up "Teach Yourself Turkish" to learn basic reading and writing.

5 comments about Just Enough Turkish (Just Enough Phrasebook Series).

1. I found this book to not be very useful. It was lacking in providing many words and phrases that would have been helpful during my visit to Turkey.



2. This book is probably fine if you are seriously planning to learn to speak Turkish, but if you just want a phrase book for your vacation in Turkey it has a fatal flaw - it doesn't have an English/Turkish dictionary! So if you're looking at a menu in Turkish, and want to know what an item is, what do you do? Yes, you can browse through the book looking for the word, but that's hardly convenient. Luckily the tour book I brought did have an English/Turkish dictionary - not a big one, but enough to get by.



3. This little book has been very helpful. It is small so it will be easy to put in my purse and carry with me. My friend that I will be traveling with that knows Turkish said this is the book that will help me the most.
   Thanks



4. I used this book with Rick Steve's Istanbul and they made a great pairing. I found this the most useful for eating out. We liked going to non touristy restaurants - many of which did not have English menus or English speaking staff. I was able to use this book on many occasions to both read menus but also request something that I wanted. it also helped me with a list of local foods to make sure I was trying local things. I was able to mark different words in the book and use them as I kept my travel journal to describe the event or experience.
   
   This book was very inexpensive and I used it so much. I would recommend it to anyone going to Turkey.



5. The guide did not have anything about using or asking for the location of ATM machines, or how to explain a minor problem using the machine (ie, the machine took my ATM card, how can I get it back?).
   It did have extraneous information that I wouldn't think the casual traveler would need (ie, all the cuts of meat from beef and lamb were identified).
   Some updating is needed: there are references to film camera (buying supplies for, getting film developed, etc), to Super 8 cameras, etc, but nothing for digital cameras.
   On the plus side, the pronunciation guide was helpful.

5 comments about Turkish Phrasebook.

1. It is great to have a handbook written by a native speaker and including modern idiom and usage as well as warnings about which mispronunciations could be a problem. The sections are very well organized



2. I am traveling to Turkey this summer and did not want to spend a lot of money for language studies. I speak French, Spanish, and Mandarin. I have been working with a basic Pimsleur course and was having trouble with their inconsistent pronunciation. One example was the word for HELLO,
   "Merhaba." It was first pronounced (after listening to the word numerous times) "MEER-hah-bah"...the vowell in the first syllable as a long "i" as in American dictionaries or "i" according to the International Phonetic Alphabet. Later on, on another CD I heard the word pronounded as "mehr-hah-bah." I continue to find inconsistancies and contrary to what Pimsleur says and its 5-star rating, I found this little book to be a treasure trove of insights into the Turkish Language and an excellent supplement to the Pimsleur course. This book was designed for those individuals who wish to learn basic Turkish and not long term study of the language. Lonley Planet has done a great job with this little book. Larry Tomaw



3. It's well organized, and starts off with a series of helpful short phrases that would help a traveler anywhere: hello, goodbye, thank you, please, where are the toilets, that sort of thing. It then introduces information how to use the negative ('I will be' becomes 'I will not be'), and it provides for English-Turkish or Turkish-English. And it includes a transliteration for every Turkish phrase. But I'm still a bit mystified by some examples, such as the ending of 'mu' or 'musiniz' (should be the turkish 'i' without the dot) in a sentence, and when to use them?
   
   But the main issue I had was with the transliteration and not knowing if the g was hard (get) or soft (gentle), or the o was oh or more like uh as in other, if the e was ee or eh, etc. I don't think I'll find out until I get to Turkey and hear a native speaker.
   
   A companion website with pronunciations would be a great addition. One other plus - it gives advice on Turkish life in small blurbs here and there.



4. Potential buyers of this phrasebook should be warned that it contains explicit sex and drug talk and is further replete with inappropriate vulgar language. It is definitely not for children. Older adults may be shocked at some of the phrases in this book. If you find youreself in a situation that requires the use of some of these phrases you're already in trouble and likely headed for even bigger trouble. I wouldn't buy this book again.



5. Buy a dictionary instead! It's extremely difficult to find the phrase you want in this book. Plus, phrases aren't that helpful when you are attempting basic communication in a new language - what you really need are words. Instead of attempting to memorize "Could you please tell me where the bathroom is?" you just need to say "bathroom?" But the dictionary in this book is small, and more than half of the time it did not contain the word I was looking for. So frustrating!!