Learning Turkish in Athens: A Greek Neighbour's Path

Continuing the series, this week’s letter comes from Georgina.

This is becoming one of my favorite parts of the blog. In my lessons, I get to hear so many different stories and meet such lovely people from different parts of the world. I’m genuinely excited to share some of those stories here, because I think they deserve to be heard beyond our lessons.

I started this series because I have written everything on this blog from my perspective as a Turkish teacher. My students experience the language from a completely different side. And with every student I meet, I find myself learning something too, especially about persistence, curiosity, and the many unexpected ways a language can become part of someone’s life.

Georgina lives in Athens, and her story with Turkish began one evening with a Turkish TV series and the landscape of Cappadocia. A trip to Türkiye followed, then years of teaching herself Turkish, and eventually a rather humbling encounter with spoken Turkish in Istanbul. Here is her experience in her own words.

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I live in Athens, Greece. One evening, I was watching a Turkish TV series on Greek TV called “Yer Gök Aşk” that was filmed in Cappadocia. The landscape was absolutely stunning, with its cave dwellings and “fairy chimney” rock formations. I knew I had to see it for myself, so I booked an 8-day trip there.

It proved to be the trip of a lifetime and just the beginning of my love affair with Türkiye, its people and culture. Many visitors are captivated by the difference in culture, whereas I was struck by its similarities with Greek culture. It is amazing how the history of both countries is so closely woven together.

Driven by a desire to connect more deeply with my neighbours, I looked into taking private Turkish lessons, but they were beyond my financial reach. So I decided to teach myself. I invested in language and grammar learning books, and I used a variety of language learning websites. Such websites tend to rely on screen word recognition, and I was quite good at that. My confidence grew, and I believed I was making real progress... until my next visit to Istanbul!

That’s when reality hit me hard! I froze. I couldn’t speak... and much worse, I couldn’t understand a word anybody said to me. I asked for directions to somewhere, but couldn’t understand the answer. I’d ask for the price of something; they would answer, but I was still none the wiser as to its cost!

All those months of successful screen word recognition, but totally failed word recall and listening! My memory is like a dusty old filing cabinet! Unfortunately, when a native speaker speaks, I don’t have the time to search for the files. It was a humbling experience!

But I was not to be deterred. I found Seda on one of the websites I was using. She was so encouraging and helpful. I had planned a one-month stay in Istanbul, so I reached out to Seda and asked if we could meet there. I instantly “clicked” with her. Her “bubbly” personality and positive energy were just what I needed.

We transitioned to weekly lessons about a month ago. She suggested I “think” in Turkish by talking to myself when performing daily tasks at home. I tend to do it at night, just before I fall asleep. I try to sum up my day in Turkish.

I no longer go blank when called upon to speak Turkish, but I’m still at the “baby steps” stage. I continue to struggle with the language, particularly with understanding a native speaker, but I’m feeling more confident that I’ll eventually learn the language.

Despite the challenges, every slow step forward has been worth it. If you feel that you learn ten words one day and forget 20 the day after, you are not alone! Don’t let the “filing cabinet” scare you! To anyone thinking of taking up a foreign language, it’s never too late. It opens up new opportunities, new horizons, and new friendships!