Merhaba Smiler
Thanks for the information on the C.D available, I myself try to pick up a bit more turkish each time I go but have looked for a tape/cd for ages,will now add to my Christmas list of must have's. serefe Tricia

kalispera
i too talk fluent gibberish or at least thats how it sounds know a few greek phrases always goes down well waiting to start classes before christmas but have no ilusions greek is about the hardest language for any germanic base speekers to learn ( ie. english/dutch/german/polish etc) and i have no chance of learning to read it far too old for that

brian

hi
I find the BBC site briliant for languages I like to be able to say a few words to the locals of the country I am visiting and yes the locals do appreciate it and are much more friendly

jeanie

Hi all,
Just for anyone that's really interested in foriegn language,
( turkish ) amazon.co.uk do a linguaphone ( books + cd's ) course for about £ 20.oop,
Kev

Hi,

Can't remember the prices but over the years I've tried a number of the BBC's 'Get by in...' tape/CD packs and find them really useful and easy to use. They start from the absolute basics for getting by as a tourist/occasional visitor to any number of countries and you can just work your way through them until you reach the point where you think 'I'll never need that!'.

SM

If you keep your eye on the listings for late night BBC2 they often do Language programmes running for a couple of hours. Other night they had Greek followed by Portuguese.

(late night when its Open University time)

Well i`ve started to learn turkish- I bought a book and cd`s , dictionary and i have a one to one turkish lesson i week- The more lessons i have the more simple it seems. Now i`ve started to think in turkish!

I really hoped you could get one of those subliminal learning packages that play in your sleep and when you wake up you know it all.. somehow I can't see it working though

I like going to sleep watching/listening to bbc2 very late at night, lets hope something sinks in.

I think the best words to learn in any language are
PLEASE and THANK YOU!
Maybe some British people could master those in English first! I know sounds horrible but I have to remind the kids on the bookbus, and the "bingies" at my other job, normaly it's the kids that have the best manners-just need a little nudge!)

I can speak French - enough to get by and I lived there for a few months.
German sort of! did gcse in 1989 - I can still remember my pronouns!?? Mit, nach , von, aus, zu, bei, zeit, geganuber even if I can't spell them!
Spanish did an evening class some years ago and stayed in the Basque country with a basque friend.

The only thing is that a few years back I did talk to a waiter in Spanish and he didn't understand so I decided not to try again!!

If you think about it,its hard enough to understand someone from a few hundred miles away in the same country never mind someone from another country trying to speak the lingo

Well done to those who are trying to master another language. Even if pronounciation gives problems, the fact that you are trying to bridge the gap works in your favour. Keep going folk and GAMBATTE! (Japanese for Well done, you're showing great courage in attempting this!)

I find that British people always expect people to be able to speak English when they go abroad and make no effort at all to learn another language themselves.
Of course i understand you can't learn the language for every country you decide to holiday in but the number of Brits who can speak a second language is very low compared to the rest of Europe, or even the world.
When talking about this to some brits thay have the arrogance to say that everybody in the world should speak English, it's things like this that make us Brits look bad!

I have a mate who is originally Maltese (has lived in the UK for about 20 years) He speaks Maltese (obviously) and English but also due to the nature of his home tongue and the location of Malta he also speaks a little Itallian and Arabic (nothing like fluent, but knows a lot of the words or can work out what they are, being similar to Maltese)..

And he's just a normal average everyday sort of bloke, not a language teacher or some such...

The British seem less able to want to learn other languages and just make more gestures and speak loudly when they are abroad.

test

When I lived in France for a short while, I had a French boyfriend who was a German teacher.
He spoke French, German and little bit of English and Russian as the workers at his chateau( well very large farm it was called the chateau by the locals) were Russian and they spoke a little bit of German too!
I spoke in a mix of French and German, I don't think we spoke any English until one of us got stuck.
At the weekend we'd all have dinner together and get a bit merry and it's amazing how much better you can speak another language with a few drinks inside you -too many and English is a problem.

I have been married to my Turkish husband for 18 months now and obviously have a Turkish surname. Each time I try to book a table at our local Turkish restaurant I have to spell my surname and then they realise it's Turkish, obviously I'm not one of those people who will ever master this language, I'm still struggling with pronouncing my surname (and it's not even that difficult!!).

I did start Turkish lessons last year, but the course ended after 12 weeks as there was no take-up for the second part of the course. At least I can say hello, goodbye, thank you, please etc and can even ask for a table for 4, plus of course things like "a glass of Efes please", or "a packet of Marlboro Lights please"!!!

you must have some short repetative conversations with your husband then

Aah perfect guys,

I'll ask you - whats German for the numbers 6,7,8,9 and 10??

My 3-year old daughter is learning numbers in French and German at her nursery school. She can recite the French no problem, and gets to 5 in German, but then can't remember the rest. I can cope with the French ok, but I never learnt German, so can't nudge her with the rest of the numbers. Can anyone help?

I've been asked to give the school the Turkish words for numbers 1 to 10, and some basic words too, so they can learn a bit of Turkish as well.

Wish they did all that when I was first at school.

Elaine

German

eine zwei drei vier fünf sechs sieben acht neun 10

The following link is from my website and will give you a little help with your Turkish

http://www.icmeler.co.uk/lang.htm

John