Elementary Turkish (Dover Language Guides)
$10.95
Price: $10.95
(as of Mar 16, 2025 07:21:30 UTC – Details)
For anyone who needs to communicate in this important and influential language, Professor Lewis V. Thomas’ proven course, now in an inexpensive paperback edition, is the most effective method available.
This superb grammar and exercise text has been used successfully at Princeton University for years. It enables English-speaking students to quickly and thoroughly understand modern Turkish in 23 carefully arranged lessons. The method relies on exercises at the end of each lesson to test the student’s grasp of the material. Beginning with the alphabet and numbers, the author offers clear, concise coverage of articles, adjectives and nouns, common infinitives, personal pronouns, and elementary verbs. As the student’s comprehension of basic elements develops, further lessons deal with more complicated subjects such as the possessive construction, past general verbs, postpositions, the partitive, progressive verb forms, and abbreviating verb forms. A complete Turkish-English glossary translates new vocabulary occurring in the exercises.
Proven Success at Princeton: A superb grammar and exercise text used effectively for years, ensuring robust learning outcomes. Accelerated Learning: Enables English-speaking students to quickly and thoroughly understand modern Turkish in 23 well-designed lessons. Structured Practice: Each lesson concludes with exercises to solidify the student’s grasp of the material. Comprehensive Coverage: Starts with the basics of the alphabet and numbers, advancing to articles, adjectives, nouns, and foundational verbs. Progressive Learning Path: As comprehension develops, the text introduces complex topics such as possessive construction, past general verbs, and more. Complete Resources: Includes a Turkish-English glossary to aid students in learning and translating new vocabulary from the exercises. Clear and Concise Instruction: Offers clear teaching on personal pronouns and elementary verbs, building confidence in fundamental language structures.
Anyone interested in connecting with Turkey’s rich cultural and historical legacy should consider learning Turkish. Elementary Turkish enables English-speaking students — in and out of the classroom — to gain a quick and thorough understanding of modern Turkish. It is a vital skill for professionals engaging in business or diplomatic endeavors in Turkey and its surrounding regions. Moreover, acquiring Turkish can greatly enhance travel experiences, allowing for deeper interactions and understanding of local customs and traditions.
From the Publisher
Accelerated Learning – understand modern Turkish in 23 well-designed lessons
Affordable paperback edition!
Structured Practice: Each lesson concludes with exercises to solidify the student’s grasp of the material.Comprehensive Coverage: Starts with the basics of the alphabet and numbers, advancing to articles, adjectives, nouns, and foundational verbs.Progressive Learning Path: As comprehension develops, the text introduces complex topics such as possessive construction, past general verbs, and more.Complete Resources: Includes a Turkish-English glossary to aid students in learning and translating new vocabulary from the exercises.Clear and Concise Instruction: Offers clear teaching on personal pronouns and elementary verbs, building confidence in fundamental language structures.
Publisher : Dover Publications; Revised ed. edition (April 1, 1986)
Language : English
Paperback : 208 pages
ISBN-10 : 0486250644
ISBN-13 : 978-0486250649
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.75 x 0.5 x 8.75 inches
Olivia Shaffer –
excellent introductory grammar book, advice for using it
This book teaches the fundamentals of Turkish grammar to the beginner in a very logical order. Most of the sentences in the exercises are not what you’d be saying when you arrive in Turkey, but they are very well chosen to illustrate the grammatical points, and review the grammar of previous chapters. Answers to all exercises are in back.Since there is no audio, you should do a few chapters in a book with CD such as Teach Yourself Turkish to acquaint yourself with the sounds before beginning this book.As well as doing the Turkish-English and English-Turkish exercises, I translated my English translations of the Turkish-English exercises back into Turkish. This allowed me to learn thoroughly, and now, after six chapters, I find vowel harmonization comes naturally.I typed my answers, which required representing the special characters of the Turkish alphabet with my keyboard. On the Mac, ç is c with the option key pressed at the same time (probably the alt key on a Windows machine). ü is option key together with u followed immediately by u alone. ö is option key together with u followed immediately by o alone. For the i without a dot and the soft g I could find no exact representation, but for i without a dot I print î, option key together with i followed immediately by i alone, and for soft g I use ^g, i together with option followed by g alone.For learning vocabulary, I use mnemonic devices: I think of a memorable English sentence with combines the sounds of the Turkish word together with its meaning. For instance, the stem of the verb meaning find is bul. I think, “I found the bull in its pen.” The stem of the verb meaning see is gör. I think “I saw Al Gore on television.” The word meaning glass is bardak. I think, “I took the glass for the daiquiri from the bar.” It is well worth spending time thinking up these sentences.There is no English-Turkish vocabulary, so a dictionary is useful (though you can find the words in the answer keys in the back). A few words are missing from the Turkish-English vocabulary, but missing words have occurred with every language text I have used. More importantly, a virtue of the book is that grammatical features that have not yet been taught do not appear in the exercises.
Firat –
The best for learning grammar
This little book is the best for learning Turkish grammar and language. I disagree with the negative reviewer. I’m American, but my husband is Turkish, and we go to Turkey fairly regularly. Of all my books, this is the best for learning the language. Without this book, I would not be able to hold a conversation with my in-laws who do not know any English. The grammar is not out of date, although not all of the tenses are used on a day-to-day basis by your average person. Those more complex cases are at the end of the book.If you are trying to learn Turkish, this is the best book because:1-It is organized into short chapters that cover just the right of material for learning at once.2-There are many, many sample exercises with answers in the back of the book. Other books do not offer this kind of practice. To learn, you need lots of practice.3-The book incorporates enough useful vocabulary to go a long way without bombarding you with too much. Turkish grammar is very regular, so if you learn the basics you are set. A dictionary and this book are all you need to say what you want.If you are looking for some basic conversation, then this is not the book for you. (I recommend Starting Turkish (Starting series) [Paperback] B. Orhan Dogan )
ksiezycowy –
Great Grammar Review
I would imagine that this book is geared towards someone that knows some Turkish already and wants to review and expand on the grammar that they’ve learned. That being said I would not recommend this text for a complete beginner, though it could be used by someone who has started learning Turkish I suppose.As of the text itself, It doesn’t introduce vocabulary like other language learning textbooks, (for any vocabulary that might be new, there is a glossary at the back of the book), but it is quite good at explaining grammar and giving example sentences for the grammar point(s) being explained in a chapter. Don’t go expecting any dialogues or readings in this book, for it’s only purpose is explaining grammar. But this isn’t a bad thing, this book makes a great companion to any other textbook that could be used.
Pamela Kauffman –
Brand New Condition
This book arrived earlier than expected, well packaged and in brand new condition. I highly recommend this seller if you wish to buy used books. I am very satisfied with my purchase and will definitely buy from Half Price Books again!
Howard2374 –
Exactlly What I Was Looking For
My son & family are going to Ankara for a 3 year assignment. I wanted a more in depth language book than the Tape & CD variety available in the library. I wanted (prepare yourself) grammar and syntax and vocabulary. This book offers it. In my experience, there is no ‘easy’ way to learn a language. (I do listen to audio lessons when I’m driving, BTW). One still needs to Read, Recite, and Write. The audio texts are good for the pronunciation. But the book is good to see the actual word, (and in Turkish) understand how the verb stem is added to to indicate negation, question or statement, tense of course, and voice (I, you, we, you plural, they, he, she, & it). This is tough to pick up from an audio text.Some comments indicated the forms are out of date. Well, benim is still benim (I am), massa is still table, and yedi is still 7.
abracadabra –
Brilliant. The best.
I have been through 25 Pimsleur lessons and spent many hours reviewing them again and again to brush up. But learning by ear isn’t everything, and certainly doesn’t make the student flexibile or creative in conversation: you either remember the phrase you learned by rote, or you don’t. With this extraordinary book, the words are arranged as a student will remember them, and grammar explanations are always clear. After two or three hours with this Thomas book I find myself thinking for the first time that the language is beginning to take some kind of shape for me, an amorphous shape as yet but a shape nonetheless.
Cliente Amazon –
Easy to understand, all lessons are well explained and most important thing, go directly and logically to the point.
Bryan –
Muy completo, si lo combinas con un diccionario y unos audios, estaras mucho mas cerca de hablar turco de lo que crees. Y con este libro completas tu colección.
Mr. Joshua Taylor –
I have a Turkish partner so I have committed myself to learning her language. This book is the best resource I have come across. I have three other books and a full subscription to Rosetta Stone. This is better than all the rest combined.It’s a bit dated but the structure of short chapters and the focus on understanding the language structure is very valuable, especially if you don’t know any similar languages.It’s a must have resource for very little cost.
Amazon Customer –
Unfortunately, language books of this calibre are rarely to be found these days. Mr Lewis knew his subject well and knew how to teach it. I highly recommend this book for anyone making a start with Turkish. The ‘elementary’ in the title is even a little misleading, for the book will give you a good grounding in the language. Mr Lewis also wrote, some years back, the Teach Yourself Turkish book, at one time published by Hodder and Stoughton I believe. Even better if you can get hold of that, which will now be out of print for sure. We can however be grateful that this “elementary” Turkish book is still published by Dover. Thanks to Mr Itzkowitz too, who completed the work of a master.
Diane R –
I bought this book after a recommendation – it’s a useful addition to a whole range of other Turkish grammar books which I have – I find that no one book does the trick but that it’s useful to have several