The Delights of Learning Turkish: A self-study course book for learners of Turkish

I don't usually take the time to write book reviews on Amazon, unless the book is REALLY good! Well this is one of those times! I have been trying to get my head around the Turkish Language for the past few years. You would think that a language that is completely phonetic and written in the Latin Alphabet would give an English Speaker an advantage when learning it. It does not! Turkish is an agglutinative language. Basically this means that it pretty much makes a whole sentence and expresses in two or three words. And many time in just one word! Why so few words - because they cram all the words of a sentence together in a series of suffixes to make nice long words. Words that take the english speaking mind minutes to pick apart! You literally have to learn to think a little differently. It is not impossible - it just takes a little training. I am making progress - but not as fast as I usually do with other languages (Portuguese, Korean, Hebrew, Arabic and several others). I have purchased over 35 books on learning Turkish in my journey. Some of them old and out of print, several published in Turkey for school children or Immigrants, and just about all the other newer "usual suspects" for learning a language. I only wish that I could have found this book first! It is absolutely the best book available to learn Turkish. Where do I start - it is logically set up with great vocabulary. The Grammar is really explained well - so that anyone could understand it. The exercises all make sense and they all have an answer key. Even the type face in the book seems to help with reading the lessons! The only thing lacking is an audio component. But Turkish is a totally phonetic language (like Spanish!) and you can easily get pronunciation practice from many other sources and courses available on Amazon. In short, buy this book! You will not be sorry and you will even learn Turkish!

The book is smartly organized into real-life subjects -- shopping, going to a restaurant, travel, family, etc -- with grammar and vocab interwoven in such a way as to maximize one's ability to communicate in those circumstances. There is also an entire section dedicated to folk sayings in the language, something extremely important to any culture, but often overlooked in most texts. This is one of the better introductory language books I have read, and the only one of this pedagogical quality for studying Turkish. All the other introductory Turkish material I have been exposed too (including apps like Duolingo) teach the grammar of the object definite (aka definite accusative) first or close to it. Kuzucu's Delights of Learning Turkish does not take this approach, relegating the object definite to much later in the text -- and I wholly support this. Yes, without the ability to properly specify "the apple" vs "an apple" one does sound like a child, but in my opinion, sounding like a child is the point of learning any new language, since it means that one can actually communicate. The finer nuances of the language can get ironed out later, once communication actually happens. There are other positive's to this book as well, but they are too numerous to list. Iyi kitap ^.^b

I do not regret buying this book. I was slightly nervous starting with teaching myself Turkish because it is more different than what I'm used to, even though I'm a self-taught learner of Italian and German and have managed to reach a B2-C1 level well within a year to a year and a half with each. This book is very well organized and similar to the books I used for Italian and German in terms of its layout: seperated in "Units", introducing grammar concepts, weaved in with a few culture concepts, gradually in a logical, easy-harder way. I've noticed the vocabulary provided with the grammar can tend to be a bit more advanced than what I find fits my learning level (for example, not even knowing how to use the verb "to have" yet introducing words beforehand like conversational phrases and words relating to more advanced topics---"suffering", "to expire", "forgiveness", etc--- though I understand learners don't have to go page-by-page in order like I tend to do as part of my learning style). It is just something I noticed that has stood out to me a bit more. However, other than this the book is very comprehensive with helpful charts, excercises, and a dictionary in the back of it. It seems I am on the right track to reaching a solid intermediate level by the time I will have seen all the concepts provided by the book. Definitely the top source that I have used since beginning my journey with Turkish 3 months ago.

includes a lot of details about Turkish grammar and language rules, very good source to learn the language

"The Delights of Learning Turkish." - Y. Esendal Kuzucu. I have been leaning Turkish for 35 years and over that time I have purchased and studied many books and courses about the Turkish Language both by native Turks and foreign writers. This book is streets ahead of them all. It can be used as a learning tool for beginners and for reference for advanced students. There are many exercises and explanations together with lots of examples. Basic Turkish grammar is explained clearly without any technical linguistic terms. If you work through all the exercises and explanations for a second time then you can reach the intermediate stage of learning Turkish in a very short time. This book is a must for any serious student. In each unit there is a block Turkish text which introduces the grammar (Turkish) points and related vocabulary. These texts are excellently written to ensure that the reader can put into practice his received knowledge up to that point. To my mind the logical progression of these texts is one of the many highlights of this brilliant book. I take my hat off to Esendal bey for an excellent course and appreciation of the Turkish language. This book deserves far more stars the five maximum which are allowed. I just wish it had been available in my own early learning days. John Guise , New Zealand - Author "The Turkish Language Explained for English Speakers"

I just got it, and I am happy! I did not expect it to be so thick! Leafing through it, I can see I’m going to be enjoying using this book to help me learn Turkish. Bu kitap güzel! Teşekkür ederi to the publisher-please re issue the cd!

The first thing I want to say about this is that it lacks consistency. There are vocab lists scattered through the chapter at seemingly random intervals and never all in one place, and sometimes the words that are used don't have a translation or are added to several lists and places inconsistently. Additionally, The first few conversations have translations which are quickly removed so that I have no idea if I am actually comprehending the text correctly. I would recommend this book if you have a Turkish teacher or if you are teaching a class. As long as there is guidance, it is better. However if you are just learning on your own, I would not recommend this book.

I've been learning turkish on and off for the past 20 years. Also i've been reading a lot of books on the subject. Throughout years I've advanced of course, but I would be very grateful if somebody, long time ago, would explain to me some of the grammar forms in a way they are explained in this book, they would save me a lot of time and crazy situations. Generally I think this book is a gold. Everything is very well explained but do take in consideration that Turkish is not an easy language to learn, so this book helps only and only if you take your studies seriously and committedly repeat and practice what you've learned here. Stay focused and enjoy your journey 'cause Turkish is one absolutely beautiful language.

Livre pas mal, niveau structure, organisation et contenu.

This is an excellent textbook to learn Turkish. It goes well beyond the basic conversations that are stilted and unnatural that you will see in most language books. I’m here, you are given conversations that will challenge you to look up, think and deduce in order to learn a language. I am only beginning Unit 3 but I e already learned a lot.

Livro excelente com explicações detalhadas.

I've been struggling to find a good Turkish self-learning book, literally emptied all the book stores in Istanbul. Wouldn't have thought I'd find the best one on Amazon! Logically structured, no crazy grammar or complex texts on the first pages. Good explanations, a lot of useful exercises.

The middle page came out on the day I received the book.