90 Day Turkish Challenge - Day 15 - 22 - Time

Hello Dear Followers,

I have realized that sometimes it is hard to understand certain texts I listen to. Sometimes I listen more than twenty or thirty times to a particular spoken text while reading until I understand all of the words. Even easy texts.

Especially when learning Turkish that is one of the main issues I deal with because it differs so much from my native language German. Almost no similarity.
The grammar could not be more different, the vocabulary and the vowelharmony are also entirely different from the germanic languages. And I have to get used to it.


While at learning Swedish I learn about 20 or more words a day just by listening and reading, that is completely at Turkish. About 80% Vocabulary are similar to English or German, so it is quite easy for me to pick those words up. The grammar works also quite similar to my native one.

I give you an example for the different Vocabulary:

Swedish: Hallå, min namn är Alex.
English: Hello, my name is Alex.
Turkish: Merhaba, benim adım Alex.

And one for the different grammar:

Swedish: Finns det oliver?
English: Are there olives?
Turkish: Zeytin var mı?

You see there are no similarities in vocabulary and almost no in grammar. So how do I accomplish to learn all those differencies and new things?

The key is time and attention!

Of course it will take ways longer for me to learn Turkish than it did learning Swedish, but I am not in a hurry. So I listen as much as possible, I decode texts which interest me and I read them (while listening. Slowly I get used to the sound system and the most important structures become clearer. The word order is now easier to understand for me. Firstly I was a little glum because I had not done as much progress as I did learning Swedish, but I soonly realized that I have got so much time that I do not have to hurry.

As I wrote in a previous article, it is really important to stay motivated at learning. For this you can set yourself goals and use content that excites you. I just discovered a great turkish rock band called "Malt" and I think I will try to decode their lyrics to learn more. But as I said, I do not hurry, I just let it come. If some material is too difficult to deal with, just let it be. Take something else and when you feel more confident, use the older material again.

So how long does it take to learn a language?

This is a question everybody starting to learn a language asks. And the answer is as easy as it is difficult.
First of all, there is no point, when you can speak a language fluently and when you are "finished" learning the language. You are learning new words in your native language everyday. Or at your first foreign language. So you never stop learning a language. Everytime you hear somebody talk, read something or speak by yourself, you actually learn.

Take this example:
Kids start speaking when they are really young, maybe two years, maybe three years or some by the age of four. And this does not depend on their mother tongue. So in this case, you learn every language in the same speed. Furthermore it depends more on the child itself than on the language it is learning.

But when you already have got knowledge of a language, take English, you are already experienced. In this case it is easier for you to learn languages that are quite similar to your own. For example English and German. Those have huge lexical similarities what makes them really easy to learn for one another. Then there are languages that have less in common for example German and Russian. They share some similarities in the structure and some in vocabulary but are quite distinct from one another.
Then there are languages that have almost nothing in common. For example English and Turkish. Or French and Mandarin, or Japanese and Arabic. In this case it takes much longer to acquire a decent knowledge, because you have first: no lexical (or very little) similarities; and second: quite different grammatical structures.
Thre Turkish language has got a vowel harmony, has got particles and puts suffixes at the end, uses no prepositions and there are no genders. But for example if you are a native speaker of Korean for example, you allready know some of that features. So it will be easier for you to learn turkish, than it would be for someone who speaks English as a native language.
To learn all of those differents I need time. And I take that time.

Many people have tried to sort languages on how long they take to be learnt. But that depends, as I showed above on what languages you allready speak. So I will not give any numbers, because some of my readers speak German, some English, Some Swedish, Some Turkish, French, or whatever.

It also depends on how you are learning and on how long you are practicing every day. If you practice for eight hours a day, you might be conversational after 4 months in a language that is quite distant (for example English - Arabic), but if you only practice 15 minutes a day, it can take you years learning a quite close language (English - Dutch).
And as everywhere else: the longer and more timeintensive you learn, the better you will become and the faster you will actually learn it. But: do not stress yourself! Time will bring succes!

"The challenging time of life will teach you two things, History: where did I get it wrong? and Future: How will I get it right?"                                                                        - Anurag Prakash Ray

As always, thank you for reading, please subscribe to my blog and follow me on Facebook.
Best regards,
Alex.