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Turkish Classes

You can get Turkish Language instruction in Massachusetts. Learn Turkish the easy way. Experienced teachers have been offering Turkish Language Classes at the Turkish Cultural Center. If you are looking for Turkish lessons, the Center is the right place to begin. There are three terms a year. Each term lasts ten weeks.

Our mission is to provide Turkish language training programs that are focused, accessible and affordable – all in a friendly, supportive learning environment that familiarizes our students with authentic Turkish culture and language.

Learn Turkish in Boston
You learn from experienced teachers.
You learn not only Turkish grammar, but you also put what you learn into practice in various ways: playing games; learning songs; receiving visits from native speakers of Turkish; and watching TV commercials, soap operas, and cartoons.
You get to participate for free in the Center’s various activities.

You occasionally get to meet Turkish VIPs in class. You get to converse with native speakers of Turkish.
You may have the opportunity to participate in trips to Turkey organized by the TCC (you would be responsible only for the airfare). and co-sponsored by Peace Islands Institute

• You get to use the TCC’s library, which features movies, CDs and books.
• You get to have occasional dinners with visitors when dinner coincides with class time.
• You get to enjoy free pretzels, Turkish cookies and sweets, plus an endless supply of tea, which is provided during class.
• You get to engage in unlimited E-mail correspondence with our teachers, thereby improving your written Turkish.

Course Description

There are currently four levels in Turkish teaching at Turkish Cultural Center.

A1 level
A2 level
B1 level
B2 level
C1+ level

A1 LEVEL
The student who completes this stage learns greetings, presenting him/herself, numbers, days, basic derivative and non-derivative suffixes, the present continuous and comparing things or people. Also the student can converse in everyday conversations easily and can ask and answer simple questions.

A2 LEVEL
At the end of this level, our students are competent in using present, past and future tenses, noun phrases, main derivative suffixes, noun clauses and a great deal of vocabulary in a fluent way at everyday conversations. They are able to use some complex phrases and ask and answer some complex questions.

B1 LEVEL
After this stage, our students have no difficulty in expressing themselves in everyday conversation. In addition, they are able to converse and write about more complex topics, like giving commands, expressing necessities, conditionals, and they are able to read newspapers and hear Authentic Turkish on the news or at the TV shows.

B2 LEVEL
At this stage, our students learn all the other tenses, and they start using them all. Presentations are introduced into the classroom, and each student presents a topic at least once, that they have prepared at home. Also at this level, some newspaper and magazine articles, which are more complex, are examined during the lessons. The topics in these articles are discussed in the classroom. After this level is completed, the speech of the student improves and becomes extremely fluent.

C1+ LEVEL
We adapt our C1 program to suit the individual’s requirements regarding their selected field of work or their interests. The student’s skill in using the language, both written and oral is improved intensely. During the course, a lot of speaking and discussion practice takes place. Our students, who are successful in the exam at the end of this level, are ready to attend the exams in order to receive diplomas approved by the Ministry of National Education. In the event of a student being offered a place at university, this diploma entitles the student to be exempt from prep class.

WHY TURKISH?

The idea of learning Turkish is strange for most American learners; but that rapidly changes to a sense of excitement as soon as the career opportunities and adventure of Turkey are discovered. Its central connections to Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East make doing business in Turkey a necessity.

Since pre-historic times, Turkey has been the vital bridge between Europe and the Middle East. It’s mighty Ottoman Empire consolidated much of Eastern Europe and the Middle East into one great civilization until the early 20th century. The flavor of Turkish culture is richly cosmopolitan, a sophisticated mix of ancient traditions in a contemporary Geist.

For Americans, Turkey’s liberal political and intellectual climate bridging East and West, traditional and modern, is a comforting environment. Learning Turkish gives access to many new opportunities for business, scientific and technological research, and for scholarship and journalism. Currently, students in Turkey are learning English at a record rate, while few Americans learn Turkish: to offset that imbalance of skill and opportunity, there is great need for Americans to meet the creative challenge of learning Turkish.

Here is a listing of very practical reasons for undertaking the Turkish adventure in learning:
Turkey is a major power in the Middle East with a population of more than 70 million. Uniquely positioned between Europe and Asia geographically, culturally and politically, Turkey was invited to become a member nation of the European Union in 1999. Turkey is also a long time member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Turkey continues forming close cultural and business ties within the emerging Turkic states of the Caucus and Central Asia. Turkey is looked up to as successful inspiration to other other Turkic peoples.

Turkish is a key for accessing Turkic languages spoken by tens of millions of people in the Near East, the former Soviet Union, China, and the Balkans — all regions of vital strategic importance in the world today, including Uzbek, Tatar, Kazakh, Azeri and Turkmen.

Modern Turkish is extremely helpful as a foundation skill if you are interested in learning the classical Ottoman Turkish.
According to The Wall Street Journal (March 1, 1995), “the U.S. Commerce Department has identified Turkey as one of the 10 emerging markets that will drive global growth in the next 15 years.” Few are prepared to take advantage of that opportunity; learning Turkish positions you for successes others let pass them by.

Business partnerships with Turkey and the USA are steadily growing, creating an ever increasing demand for educated Americans fluent in Turkish and with knowledge and understanding of both cultures. If you plan to enter government service or to do business in Turkey, fluency in Turkish is indispensable to your success. Business opportunities are rapidly opening in Turkey, and its pending membership in the European Union will only enhance its global business importance.

Numerous career opportunities already exist in technology, archaeology, computer science, ecological and environmental studies, and will grow with Turkey’s ever increasing emergence as a central economic power.

For students of political science and history specializing in Eastern European, Ottoman or modern Turkey, Turkish language skills open seldom entered research opportunities.

Anatolia, the territory of modern Turkey, has been the heartland of human civilization since 7,000 BCE. In Turkey, you can explore pre-historic Çatal Höyük, walk the routes travelled by Saint Paul, storm the city of Troy, visit the village of the last home of Mary (mother of Jesus), behold the sanctuary of Saint Nicholas, stroll on the shores where Homer visited and Cleopatra swam, and experience the alluring mystery of the whirling Dervishes.

Studying Turkish immerses you in Turkish cultural heritages – fine and performing arts, music, the Muslim religion – and gives you a depth of understanding far surpassing the shallow stereotypes of popular journalism. Such understanding makes you a valuable asset to corporations, government and other organizations promoting productive alliances with the Middle East.

Turkish is FUN! With a Web of their own, Turkish learners learn great jokes heightening cross-cultural understanding, play games, and gain cultural understanding through cyber media bringing them into the music, events and youth culture of modern Turkey.

Turkish is spoken by roughly 250 million people all around the world. Like Finnish and Hungarian, Turkish is an agglutinative language, which means that new particles are added to the end of a base form to generate new words. This means one can easily observe slight changes in meaning and quickly learn new words. It is also one of the most eye-catching characteristics of Turkish.

Turkey is situated in the Northern Hemisphere at the junction of Europe and Asia. The European and Asian sides are divided by the Istanbul Bogazi (Bosphorus), the sea of Marmara and Çanakkale Bo?az?. The surface area of the country is 814,578 sq km, and the population is approximately 70 million people. Anatolia is a high plateau region rising progressively towards the east, broken by the valleys of about 15 rivers. The mountains in the north and south run parallel to the sea. Due to the diversity in the landscape, Turkey enjoys a variety of climates throughout the country.

Besides Turkey’s magnificent landscape its fascinating history has also made a lasting impression on modern civilization. Political structure in Turkey is based on a secular democratic, pluralist and parliamentary system in which human rights are protected by law and justice. In Turkey one could definitely experience and enjoy an incredible diversity in nature, culture, history, beliefs and ideas.

There are many reasons to study Turkish, but one of the most important ones at the present time is that the global marketplace is becoming bigger and, as a result, the need for speakers of languages other than English (particularly as translators or interpreters) is increasing. Currently, U.S. federal statistics indicate that more than 31,000 individuals work as translators or interpreters in schools, health care, courts, airlines, and telecommunications. Further, due to the expansion of global commerce, the industry is expected to increase 26 percent in the next eight years!

Turkish Studies Policies

Payment
Tuition is $400 per semester. Tuition must be paid in full at registration. Cost for the course material is $50 and it must be paid in cash upon the recipient of books. Acceptable forms of payment are check, money order payable to Turkish Cultural Center, or credit card-(Visa, MasterCard and Amex). Cash will be accepted prior to the beginning of the first class. We regret that we cannot accept partial payments. In the event of late registration, payment must be made prior to the first session.

Refund Policy
Refunds must be requested at least 5 business days prior to the first class date. There will be a $50 administrative fee for all refund requests, unless otherwise noted within the course description. Please note that absence from class does not constitute notice of withdrawal. Books and course material are nonrefundable. Refund of tuition paid by credit card will be processed only as a refund to the same credit card.

Books & Course Material
Course Books are provided by Turkish Cultural Center and book fees are not included in the tuition fee. Students also have the opportunity to get dictionary and subsidiary documents such as reading books and Turkish Movies.

Course Cancellations & Changes
Turkish Cultural Center reserves the right to cancel courses, adjust curriculum or change teachers at any time during the session. Courses are typically cancelled due to insufficient enrollment, unavailability of an instructor, or inability to schedule appropriate instructional space. If your course is cancelled, you will be notified by telephone or mail and given the option to transfer or to be fully refunded.

Comparison between English & Turkish

1. There is no “is/are.” I happy. You running. It saves you from what Indo-European language classes spend weeks of time on, learning all the different forms and conjugations of the “is/are” words… which usually change with every tense and every different pronoun.
2. No “the” article. Also a waste of time. How much time did you spend in language class learning die/der/la/li/lo/gli etc. (depending on your language of choice). And to say “a” or “an,” you say “bir,” which means “one.” You just don’t put any real stress on it.
3. Vowel Harmony. The words are designed so that when you add suffixes, the vowels match the previous ones, focusing on using the same part of the mouth/throat to make them. It’s confusing at first, but it makes the language more fluid and faster.
4. As you know one of the biggest problems in learning a language is the gender of nouns. There is no word gender in Turkish.
5. ”O”… One word for he/she/it.
6. Lar/ler – One simple suffix, with two different vowel harmony conjugations, for pluralizing. None of the 8 part conjugations and things in the Indo-European languages.
7. The verb comes a the end of a sentence.
8. It’s yodaspeak. “Me food want.” “Ben yemek istiyorum.”
9. One letter = one sound. No exceptions. It is totally no exception language.
10. The silent g. “?” … It looks cool, and once you know some Turkish, you can actually HEAR the silent G. (It lengthens the preceding vowel).
11. Possessives. To turn I to my, you add the possessive suffix (-im) onto “I.” Ben becomes benim. For something you possess, you just add a possessive suffix. “That is my jacket” becomes “Benim ceketim.”
12. It feels like you’re speaking in code.
13. Turkish word for gum: çiklet (pronounced: chiklet… sound familiar?).
14. You only need to know half of the adjectives, because you can just add the “without” suffix and a word is suddenly it’s opposite.
15. There are only two past tenses. One for if you were there, one for if you weren’t.
16. One word can be re-used a million times. Aç?k means open, hungry, weak, grief, fair, clear, abvious, visible, apparent, cloudless, articulate, explicitly, light (colour), frankly, on- position.
17. It is an easy-to-learn, phonetic language ( it is pronounced exactly as it is written).
18. It belongs to a totally different family of languages than Arabic, Persian (Farsi), English and Hebrew

Turkish Keyboard & How to Install It

Here is the link to the information about how MAC users can switch their keyboard to Turkish.
Macintosh OSX Keyboards (Penn State)
In short, they need to go to system preferences–> Language & Text –> Input Services and then click the box for Turkish QWERTY.
________________________________________
Select My Computer. Next, select the Control Panel. Then, select Regional and Language Options. After that, click on the Languages tab. Click on the Details button for Text Services and Input Languages.
Click on the Add button for Installed Services to select the language you want. After you have selected the language, click on Key Settings in the Preferences section in order to decide what key combinations to press in order to toggle back and forth between English and Turkish.

Some Borrowed Words

• Adres (address)
• A?ustos (August)
• Akademi (academy)
• Aktör (actor)
• Alkol (alcohol)
• Ambargo (embargo)
• Anatomi (anatomy)
• Antik (antique)
• Antropoloji (anthropology)
• Arkeoloji (archaeology)
• Astronomi (astronomy)
• Astronot (astronaut)
• Atmosfer (atmosphere)
• Bagaj (baggage, car trunk)
• Balkon (balkony)
• Banka (bank)
• Basketbol (basketball)
• Biyoloji (biology)
• Bisiklet (bicycle)
• Bisküvi (biscuit)
• Bluz (blouse)
• Bomba (bomb)
• Botanik (botany)
• Boykot (boycott)
• Büfe (buffet)
• Buket (bouquet)
• Bulvar (boulevard)
• Ceket (jacket)
• Bürokrasi (bureaucracy)
• Çikolata (chocolate)
• Dans (dance)
• Demokrasi (democrasy)
• Diktatör (dictator)
• Diploma (diploma)
• Doktor (doctor)
• Ekonomi (economy)
• Elektrik (electricity)
• Enerji (energy)
• Enstitü (institute)
• Fakülte (faculty)
• Festival (festival)
• Film (film)
• Final (final)
• Fizik (physics)
• Foto?raf (photogrph)
• Futbol (football)
• Garaj (garage)
• Gramer (grammar)
• Gram (gram)
• Grup (group)
• ?deal (ideal)
• ?stasyon (station)
• Jüri (jury)
• Kafe (cafe)
• Kakao (cocoa) • Kaktüs (cactus)
• Kanal (channel)
• Kaptan (captain)
• Kilometre (kilometer)
• Klasik (classic)
• Kulüp (club)
• Komünizm (communism)
• Konferans (conference)
• Konser (consert)
• Konsolos (consul)
• Kontrat (contract)
• Kredi (credit)
• Krema (cream)
• Kristal (crystal)
• Kuaför (coiffeur)
• Kurs (course)
• Lamba (lamp)
• Lider (leader)
• Limon (lemon)
• Limonata (lemonade)
• Litre (liter)
• Losyon (lotion)
• Makina (machine)
• Mart (march)
• Masaj (massage)
• Materyal (material)
• Menü (menu)
• Metre (meter)
• Milyon (million)
• Model (model)
• Müze (museum)
• Müzik (music)
• Normal (normal)
• Numara (number)
• Ofis (office)
• Opera (opera)
• Orjinal (original)
• Orkestra (orchestra)
• Otel (hotel)
• Otomobil (automobile)
• Paket (packet)
• Parfüm (perfume)
• Park (park)
• Parlamento (parliament)
• Parti (party)
• Pasaport (passport)
• Pilot (pilot)
• Piyano (piano)
• Plan (plan)
• Polis (police)
• Politika (politics)
• Popüler (popular)
• Posta (post)
• Profesör (professor)
• Program (program)
• Psikoloji (psychology) • Radyo (radio)
• Rejim (regime)
• Rekor (record)
• Restoran (restaurant)
• Rezervasyon (reservation)
• Roket (rocket)
• Rol (role)
• Salata (salad)
• Sekreter (secretary)
• Sembol (symbol)
• Senfoni (symphony)
• Sempozyum (symposium)
• Seminer (seminar)
• Sigara (cigarette)
• Sinema (cinema)
• Sistem (system)
• Skor (score)
• Sosis (sausage)
• Sosyal (social)
• Spor (sport)
• Stadyum (stadium)
• Sürpriz (surprise)
• ?ampiyon (champion)
• ?ampuan (shampoo)
• ?ort (shorts)
• Taksi (taxi)
• Tank (tank)
• Teknoloji (technology)
• Telefon (telephone)
• Televizyon (televizion)
• Tenis (tennis)
• Terör (terror)
• Ti?ört( T-shirt)
• Tiyatro (theater)
• Traktör (tractor)
• tren (train)
• Turist (tourist)
• Tuvalet (toilet)
• Tünel (tunnel)
• Üniversite (university)
• Virüs (virus)
• Vize (visa)
• Volkan (volcano)
• Zebra (zebra)

Improve your Turkish in Turkey

TCC gladly helps you improve your Turkish in Turkey. We offer free consulting and guidance for your studies in Turkey. If you enroll one of the programs in an affiliated institution, TCC can help you. Sometimes financial aid and sponsorship is available, to some extend, for eligible applicants. Please fill out an application for sponsorship and tell us about yourself, the program you plan to attend and how we can help you. A representative will contact you and schedule a face to face interview to discuss possibilities.