The Young Turks

So I have decided to go ahead and keep posting about this stuff. Thanks for the comments last week, keep them coming.

First, 2 bits of haber (news) from the last week or so:

1. The 'head-filled-with-spider-we bs' ruling party (crazy conservatives) in Turkey, otherwise known as the AKP, barely got away with their asses when the highest court let them off on charges of violating the secular part of the constitution. However, the AKP did get landed with a 20ish million dollar fine. That coupled with the fact that they are trying to suck up to Europe in order to become part of the EU, should serve to deter them from future anti-secular bs.

2. There was a nasty bombing in İstanbul that killed 19 or so and injured dozens. Since then, German intelligence has determined that it was probably not the PKK (radical Kurds). Let me just say something about this. Why doesn't the organization responsible claim responsibility? Isn't that how you get your message out? Isn't that the whole frikkin point? Anyway there are 11 million people in İstanbul and I know about 15 of them. As expected none of them were hurt but this thing still hits a bit close to home for me. Sort of my second home, if you will.

Ok, Turkish lesson number 1: some basic pronunciation

c sounds like j. example: Cenk sounds like Jank.

ç sounds like ch, ş sounds like sh.

ğ is silent. example: yoğurt (meaning yogurt) sounds like a monosyllabic yo-urt.

ı sounds like a short u, i sounds like ee. example: balık (fish) sounds like "ball-look" and bira (beer) sounds like "bir-uh" example highlighting the importance of getting this right: sıkıl = get bored, sikil = get f*cked

j is pronounced like in French

ö is like the french eu sort of. pronounce it more like a short u than an o. Sort of how Cenk says "shai labeouf"

ü is like a long u

ay sounds like the ay in kayak

ey sounds like the ey in hey

The following sentence contains every letter of the Turkish alphabet.

Pijamalı hasta yağız şoföre çabucak güvendi.

That means that if you can say it, you can pronounce almost anything in Turkish.

Pijamalı = pee-dja-mah-luh (remember the French j thing)

hasta = hahsta

yağız = yah-uz

şoföre = show-foour-*long a*

çabucak = cha-boo-jock

güvendi = goo-vend-ee

Phrase of the day: Genç Türkler (gench tuurklair) = The Young Turks