Turkçe Ders: August 28

My Turkish classes have been getting pretty intense lately. We have been studying the present tenses, sentence structures and also learning more vocabulary. It has not been easy at all but it has been awesome to be able to practice with a few of my Turkish friends. They have helped me immensly. It has helped my studies to have both the classroom and then the friends to practice with, which allows me to practice in real life situations. Although, I have been laughed at countless times. I guess that helps keep my ego down a little bit.

My homework lately has consisted of several 100 word essays where I would have to descirbe what kind of things I have been doing outside of the classroom and over the weekends, mainly topics that I would use outside among society. Also man true/false questions, matching, and etc... We also have gotten to the point in class where we are not allowed to use English or any other language except Turkish. Well, we are not supposed to unless we have a question regarding the sentence structure, grammar and things like that. It has its cool moments but can be very frustrating at times too. Sometimes I can't even say the simplest sentences which makes me want to pull my hair out. Then there are those times where I say a good sentence or two followed by a "Cok Guzel," meaning very beautiful or good from my Ogretman (teacher).

I just had my first Turkish exam on friday and passed with an 82%. To be honest I did a lot better than I anticipated. There were several multiple choice questions, followed by an oral true and false section. We also had to write down everything that our teacher said for another part of the oral examination. Yes, we had to right it all in Turkish. Then to end the exam we had to write a 100 word essay explaining either "what all do we do in a day" or "what we are doing after class." I chose the first topic with only recieving minimal marks. This exam was a huge moral boost for me. It helped me realize that I am learning although sometimes it does not seem like it.