Next Adventure: Turkey September 2014?

Bürüngüz Mosque in Kayseri

This post seems a little preemptive, as I haven't actually signed the contract yet, but I'm on the verge of accepting a job offer in Kayseri, Turkey with my fiance, Alan.

In any case, my current roommate is Turkish, and of course, I've already sought out my first Turkish lessons.

The furnishings of our apartment are now labeled with index cards to teach me their Turkish names through repetition and association. It's gotta be time for a word wall! (Sorry, this is a TESLer joke). What I love about Turkish is that they use the Roman alphabet, and for the most part follow direct phoneme-grapheme relationships. That is, anytime I see an "o" it has the same pronunciation. For learners, this is a blessing--I should know after three years of trying to persuade students to pronounce "food" and "good" with different vowel sounds, and trying to convince native English speakers that my name is in fact pronounced Gee-nuh, as opposed to Jenn-uh. By the way, yes, I am sure about how to pronounce my name...

Another concept that I'm enjoying as I learn Turkish vocabulary is vowel harmony. Vowel harmony in a language means that words (excluding foreign loan words) include only front or only back vowels. I hope it will make spelling and pronunciation easier. Check out the name of the mosque above: ü, ü, ü. Awesome.

Anyway, you can most likely look forward to some posts about the complexities of Turkish grammar, and the deliciousness of Turkish tea and coffee.

Maybe one day I'll post in Turkish!