How to crack Turkish?

[Tristano]

Hi guys,
said that I will probably change my mind tomorrow, but I was considering to wanderlust with Turkish
There are many things I like, from the exotic look and sound, the regularity and being the first agglutinative lagnauge that I ever attempt.

This last feature requires me to learn it in a different way. Normally I would keep the grammar last but here I really need to learn it first I guess (and after all it is incredibly regular from what I read). I was thinking to work with some tutor but I need some advice on how to crack the most efficiently possible the grammar of this language. First of all I will do a lesson to learn to read it aloud. Second, I need to memorize some basic vocabulary (radical words). Then? In which order should I ask to learn things? I don't intend to learn the whole grammar, but the basics, so that I can move easily to programs like assimil and duolingo and retain the most. Thank you in advance for any suggestion

[Hrhenry]

It's been a long time since I used it, but Pimsleur Turkish was a nice introduction to the language. It's enough to keep you busy with proper vowel harmony, word order, and a bit of grammar.

I followed that up with Teach Yourself Turkish. You'll get more grammar in that course. In fact, you'll be swimming in it about half way through the course.

R.
==

[Chung]

If you want to focus on Turkish grammar first, I'd recommend reading Hugo's "Turkish in 3 Months". This is out of print but you can sometimes find used copies for a few dollars / euros / pounds on Amazon or any other book reseller. The explanations are among the clearest, most concise and best laid-out I've ever used. It's become my go-to reference manual for grammar as a beginner. Nevertheless I can't see how anyone can retain that much from it even when using it as directed because it has few exercises.

Otherwise and since you're feeling just wanderlust, I'd recommend saving your money and playing with DLI Turkish Headstart2 to get a feel for the audio and correspondance of sound and script, as well as build a small stock of basic vocabulary. You can look things up about grammar in Manisa Turkish.

hrhenry's suggestions are good too. I'm using TY Turkish now as one of my courses, and I'm glad that I had already learned a lot of the bare basics with "Turkish Self Study Course 1" and the first half of "Elementary Turkish 1". The pace in TY Turkish indeed takes off halfway through and could overwhelm a total beginner.

[Φιλόσοφος]

Don't create an expectation of difficulty regarding Turkish grammar. It is different, but it is not daunting or unapproachable. I haven't studied this language, but I have tackled Hungarian which shares many of its features, and with a good textbook -in my case, a 1980's edition of Colloquial- it was no different than studying other languages.

[Tristano]

Hi guys, thank you very much for your advice.
I see that you mainly recommended textbooks, but it was actually not my original question:
which are the features of the language that I have to learn absolutely before to work in a more input based way?

[Hrhenry]

which are the features of the language that I have to learn absolutely before to work in a more input based way?

I think any of the beginning courses mentioned will be enough to get you comfortable enough with the language to then proceed on to Assimil. They all cover the different and unfamiliar aspects of Turkish.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "input based way", but all these courses begin as input based. And really, they're not all that different from one another. They all cover roughly the same things - vowel harmony, word order, agglutination, cases and basic vocabulary. What other aspect do you believe you need prior to starting a textbook based course?

My opinion of Assimil Turkish: I completed Pimsleur and Teach Yourself before looking at it. After completing those two courses, I wasn't all that impressed with Assimil, honestly. But if you're set on the course, just use that instead of, say, TY or HI3M.