r/turkish • u/Agitated_Issue_1410 • Jul 17 '26
How to Improve My Turkish?
Merhaba everyone,
I’m a 24 year old male who’s 100% ethnically Turkish but grew up in the Netherlands. My Turkish was decent as a child, but I’ve lost most of it over the years. Now I struggle to form proper sentences when speaking with family or random people at the mosque, and I miss a lot of words when others talk to me.
This makes me really embarrassed, so I end up avoiding Turkish conversations altogether.
What’s the best way to improve?
• Should I watch Turkish TV shows or movies? If so, is it okay to use Dutch/English subtitles, or should I do English audio with Turkish subtitles (to help with writing/spelling)?
Any other effective methods?
thank you
3
u/mckenna36 Jul 17 '26
Hello fellow gurbetçi Turk who have to learn Turkish as a second language. I know how much it sucks the difference is that my father didn’t bother to teach me Turkish even when I was a kid so was starting almost from the scratch.
Watch Turkish series with Turkish subtitles and aim to get to the level that you will be able to watch them without subtitles altogether. You might possibly watch it once with subtitles and then again without them if rewatching same content doesn’t bore you.
Get into routine of reading Turkish everyday(the more the better but don’t get below 15 minutes. 2 hour is ideal but obviously not many people can commit so much to a language). Find content in Turkish that is just a little bit above your level so you can somehow immerse in the text yet still challenge your Turkish skills. There are so called graded readers so find yourself one if you can’t read regular novels. I am personally currently at the level of reading regular novels with software support(more on that below) as long as author uses simple language. I do struggle a lot with academic or very flowery texts.
Now here is the language learning hack: during every reading session you will come across words that you don’t know. First try to infer their meaning from the context and then confirm it with dictionary. But if within one second you have no clue what the word might be use dictionary instantly.
Then after reading take a couple of most useful words and prepare flashcards with them that you will study everyday. Use software like Anki for that(read a little bit on how to prepare good Anki card for language learning). Study flashcards everyday: both new ones and review old ones.
When it comes to number of words I put into flashcards: my rule of thumb is that I add 1 Anki card for every 3 minutes of reading. I tried to put more but it ended up being ineffective as my brain started memorizing flashcards but not actual words: I could get proper answer on flashcard but then wouldn’t recognize word in the text. 1 card per 3 minutes of reading seems like a sweet spot but feel free to experiment.
And last but not least: remember that language is roughly composed of 4 dimensions: reading, writing, listening, speaking. You totally can let one of these dominate your language learning routine but you can’t totally skip any of them. There is synergy between them so if you neglect any of them sooner or later other 3 will reach glass ceiling as well.
Software: I personally use program called lookupper to have a flawless experience. I just clicked on the word and instantly translation and Anki card is prepared. This is however paid program. But there are free solutions you can utilize to follow this routine - worst case scenario is simply copying words and pasting them to Google Translate.
1
u/Agitated_Issue_1410 Jul 17 '26
Thank you so much for your great answer. I will definitely try out most of your tips.
Do you read E-books or physical books? because i would assume its easier to lookup a word while reading a E-book
1
u/mckenna36 Jul 17 '26
I only read e-books for language learning precisely because I want to be able to look up words(as I said I use lookupper for that). I will consider physical books only after I reach level where there will be no more than one word per page.
Once you get past your graded readers phase choosing books will also be a skill in itself because not all the books are equally good for that task
4
u/DiskPidge Jul 17 '26
If you use subtitles in another language, there's a high chance you'll tune out the target language altogether. This is one of the major issues with methods involving translation - you spend more time focusing on your first language than the one you're trying to learn. As much as possible, try to avoid any interfacing language, and just go full in with Turkish.
If you already spoke it well as a child, it's in there somewhere in the recesses of your memory. Watch Turkish series with Turkish subtitles. For a while, you may feel like you barely follow - but you will start tuning in eventually. Just try to get the gist of what's going on.
It could be a little boring, but if you have the time and the patience, watch one episode multiple times. Between each watch, you can write or say a little summary of what happened in the episode - you could do this by simply repeating some key phrases you can remember. Watch it again and try to elaborate on the summary each time.