Trying on Turkish 01

I walked into the stuffy classroom clutching my computer close to my chest…no doubt an unconscious attempt to protect myself from whatever embarrassment was to come. I spotted a seat near the back of the classroom and made my way over. To my relief, two of my girlfriends came strolling in about a minute later. We chatted amongst ourselves for a few minutes and then… “MERHABA!” Our attention was immediately startled to the front of the classroom. Here we go…I thought silently to myself.

At the front of the room stood a dark completed man, probably about twenty-five years old, rattling on to the class in Turkish. Yes, you heard right, Turkish. I had voluntarily signed up for a non-credit, non-graded, two hour, weekly Turkish class. I had overheard my two girlfriends chatting about it no less than 24 hours before and when I inquired they invited me to come along. I couldn’t say no. After all, I was a Yes Girl now!

The extent of my Turkish so far...

So there I sat, listening to our instructor, Husnu, flail about the front of the classroom in 100% Turkish. Holy sharks! Was this one of those classes where “beginner” meant “I actually have at least 3 years of this language under my belt!?” As I opened my laptop to re-check the email to make sure I had entered the right classroom, I heard a familiar word. “Hello!” Husnu addressed the class once again, this time in thickly accented English. A wave of relief flooded through me.

Within 10 minutes I had shut my laptop and opened my notebook and mind to learning Turkish. I came to learn that merhaba meant hello, and that once you saw it written down it wasn’t nearly as intimidating as it had initially sounded. Husnu went around the classroom asking us to repeat words that we had learned that day and when it was my turn I royally butchered a simple “thank you.” Don’t laugh! You try to say teşekkür ederim out loud! Yea, that’s what I thought!

No. 1 place on my Dream Vacation list! I would KILL to go there!

Husnu could hardly contain his laughter as each of his new students attempted to pronounce words in his native language. It was as if the Turkish dictionary had just added about a hundred new words with all of the mispronunciations this class was inventing! The whole class was in stitches by the end of the exercise, including me.

As the two hours came to an end my cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling so much. Who would have ever thought that I would be learning (or attempting to learn…) Turkish? Ironically Turkey is at the top of my Dream Vacations list. At least now I know enough to say a simple hello, and who knows, maybe by the end of the semester I’ll even be able to ask where the bathroom is! (A pretty critical question as far as I’m concerned!)

It’s funny to think that I had been so nervous that I hadn’t even noticed the overwhelming stench of B.O. in the room. I laughed to myself. What was I so nervous about? Other than the smell, (nothing a Bounce sheet can't fix...) that was fun! As I walked out of class that day I held my computer confidently at my side.

 Until next time! Güle Güle!