Introduction to the Turkish Language

Though this is by all means not meant to be comprehensive, it should act as an introduction to pronunciation and phrases and words that show up often in songs.

Turkish is a phonetic language. That means you pronounce it the way you spell it. However, there are characters in the Turkish alphabet that don't exist in English.
Those would be:  ç  ş  ö  ü  ı  ğ  â  (and their capitalized counterparts)
On the other hand, Turkish does not have:  q  w  x

Turkish vowels are short. For example, the u is pronounced as the u in supper, not super. Below is a vowel pronunciation table (left) and a consonant pronunciation table (right).

A a As the a in father E e As the e in get İ i As the i in it O o As the o in box U u As the u in pull I ı As the i in cousin Or the e in butter Ö ö  As the i in bird Or the German ö Or the eu in the French deux Ü ü As the German ü Or the u in the French word tu â Same as a normal a sound, but stretched out longer

C c As the j in John J j As the j in the French word Jacques Or the s in pleasure V v Pronounced halfway between the English v and w letters Ç ç As the ch in child Ş ş As the sh in show ğ This letter has no sound

Ü is probable the hardest for English-speakers to pronounce as there is no sound in the English language that resembles it. Note that there are two kinds of i letters. One has a dot and the other doesn't. The letter ğ is referred to as the "soft g." It always comes after a vowel and makes the vowel's sound longer. Think of it as doubling the vowel that comes before it. Think of the Turkish word sağ as saa, or the word öğle as ööle. No word ever begins with ğ.

As a crude rule of thumb, generally words are accented on their last syllable, though there are some exceptions here and there. Also, Turkish pronouns have no gender, so the pronoun for he and she is the same. The context of the sentence tells you whether it's a man or woman.

Below are some words and phrases that often appear in pop songs, and their meanings: