Learning Turkish When You’re Married to a Turk: Eliza’s Story

Continuing my student stories series, this time I’m sharing a piece by Eliza, one of my students.

Eliza started learning Turkish in 2013 after meeting the man who would later become her husband. At first, her goal was small and very personal: his mother was coming to visit them in America, and Eliza wanted to be able to say a few things to her in Turkish.

Thirteen years later, Turkish has a very different place in her life. She and her husband are raising their daughter bilingually, their family spends time in Türkiye each year, and Turkish has gradually become part of everyday life at home. Her story is also about something many people married to a Turkish speaker will recognize: having Turkish around you does not automatically make learning easy. Eliza has had to find her own way into the language, through family conversations, mistakes, periods of frustration, and years of returning to it.

How Turkish Became Part of Who I Am

My journey to learning Turkish began in 2013 when I met my now-husband while living in Florida, USA. He is Turkish, and I am originally from England. I had always had a love of languages and different cultures, and I had previously learned French, Greek, and Italian. So, when I met my husband, I was excited about the opportunity to learn another language.

Not long after we met, my husband's mother was coming to visit him in America, and I wanted to be able to say at least a few words to her in Turkish. I worked hard to learn some basic phrases before her visit. It began with expressions such as “How are you?”, “Are you thirsty?”, and “Are you warm enough?” Little did I know at the time just how much deeper I would eventually fall in love with learning Turkish.

Having learned other foreign languages, one of the things I have come to appreciate about Turkish is how logical it is. As difficult as I sometimes find it, Turkish follows a fairly consistent set of rules and very rarely deviates from them. Once you understand the rules, you can apply them again and again. I found this particularly helpful when learning verb conjugations and different tenses. Another thing I love about Turkish is that it is largely pronounced as it is written, which makes reading aloud much more straightforward than in some of the other languages I have studied.

The Challenge of Learning Without Immersion

One of my biggest struggles has been learning Turkish while living in America. In the past, I had lived in countries where the language I was learning was spoken, which made immersion much easier. This time, I had to make a much greater effort to create opportunities to speak and listen to Turkish.

Although my husband is Turkish, speaking Turkish together was difficult in the early years. My level was so basic that he often became impatient when I didn't understand him and he had to repeat himself in English. Looking back, I can understand why.

Having a conversation when one person understands very little of what the other is saying can be frustrating for both people.

After our daughter was born, however, I knew I really had to make more of an effort. My husband spoke Turkish to her from the very beginning, and I quickly realized that if I didn't step up my game, I would be the one getting left behind.

Fortunately, our daughter grew up hearing both languages. I spoke English to her, while my husband spoke Turkish, so she was raised bilingually. Watching her learn Turkish was also a valuable opportunity for me to experience language learning from a completely different perspective.

Young children don't begin by learning grammar rules, memorizing vocabulary from flashcards, or studying verb conjugations. They learn by listening, observing, repeating, and gradually making sense of what they hear. Having Turkish spoken around me at such a basic level gave me an unexpected opportunity to develop my own listening comprehension. I began to appreciate how much can be learned simply by listening to a language being used naturally and repeatedly in everyday situations.

She has no problem switching between the two languages, including when we take our annual vacation to Türkiye.

Those holidays have become an important part of my own language journey. They are a wonderful opportunity for me to put my acquired skills to the test and push myself further. Every year, I learn something new when we visit Türkiye. I hear expressions that I haven't encountered before, have conversations that challenge me, and find myself understanding more than I did the previous year.

At the same time, being surrounded by Turkish gives me the opportunity to reinforce what I have already learned. Hearing familiar words and expressions repeatedly, and using them in real conversations, helps to cement them in my memory in a way that studying them from a book simply cannot. I often return home feeling that the Turkish I already knew has become more firmly embedded, alongside everything new I have learned.

The frustrating part is what happens when we return to America. Inevitably, we slip back into our normal routine of speaking English, and the progress I made in Türkiye gradually becomes harder to access. Within a few months, I can feel as though I have lost some of what I gained.

To combat this, our family established a new rule this past year: we speak Turkish at the dining table whenever we are eating, as well as throughout the entire day on Sundays. It isn't always easy, but creating these opportunities to use Turkish has made me realize that learning a language isn't just about studying it. It is about actually using it.

Learning to Make Mistakes

I know how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to visit Türkiye and to speak with my husband on a daily basis. Many language learners don't have regular access to someone with a native accent who can correct them when they make mistakes.

And that brings me to one of the most important things I have learned during my journey: don't be afraid of making mistakes when you speak.

In life, we learn by making mistakes, and learning a language is no different.

Sometimes, my mistakes can even be funny. Turkish has many words that sound very similar, and I have a habit of mixing them up. For example:

aynı and ayna

yılan and yalan

gül and göl

And then there is my personal favorite: aç.

There is a big difference between saying, “Aç değilim” (“I’m not hungry”) and saying “Kapıyı aç!” (“Open the door!”), although I perpetually manage to confuse the two.

These mistakes can be embarrassing in the moment, but they are also memorable. And when you make a mistake and someone corrects you, you are much less likely to forget it the next time.

The Never-Ending Puzzle of Turkish

As my Turkish improved, I eventually reached the point where knowing individual words and simple sentences wasn't enough. I wanted to express myself in more detail. I wanted to say longer sentences and sound more natural and proficient. That meant tackling one of my biggest frustrations with Turkish: verbal nouns and word order.

Learning to construct longer sentences can feel like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. I may know all the individual words, but putting them in the correct order and adding all the necessary suffixes can be a completely different challenge. I have been working on these structures for the past couple of years, and only recently have they started to really click. That feeling of finally understanding something that has confused me for a long time is one of the most rewarding parts of learning a language.

The Highs and Lows of the Journey

Over the years, I have tried countless websites, videos, podcasts, and other resources. For much of my journey, however, I was essentially teaching myself. I would learn something new, try to figure out how it worked, and then attempt to put it into practice. Unfortunately, my learning path lacked direction and structure.

Thankfully, two years ago I found an amazing teacher, Seda, who has helped my Turkish progress by leaps and bounds. With her knowledge, guidance, patience, and gentle motivational encouragement when I need it, I have been able to move beyond simple sentences and begin expressing more complicated thoughts.

Of course, after thirteen years, my journey has not been linear. There have been periods when I have felt incredibly motivated and other times when I have struggled to find the energy or focus to continue. Over the past year, I have gone through periods when hormonal changes have made it more difficult to maintain my concentration and motivation. There have been times when frustration has taken over and I have genuinely felt like giving up.

One of the most frustrating experiences is when I am faced with a whole passage of Turkish and realize that I understand every individual word but somehow cannot understand the overall meaning. In those moments, it is very easy to feel as though I am not progressing at all.

These are the moments when Seda has been particularly important to me. She has helped me to pause, breathe, and remind myself that learning a language is an unhurried journey. I don't have to understand everything today just because I have been learning for thirteen years. I can give myself permission to slow down and embrace the small moments along my learning path.

Thankfully, there are also moments when I realize just how far I have come.

Sometimes it happens when I respond to my husband in Turkish as naturally as if I were speaking English. Texting with my husband in Turkish has become more natural, and when I watch a Turkish drama series and hear familiar expressions, they sometimes feel almost as natural and familiar to me as English. These are the moments that remind me that, despite all the times I feel like I am not progressing, I really am.

Other times, it happens in a completely unexpected way. For example, this year in Türkiye, I made a joke in Turkish about a funny situation, and my friends understood the joke and laughed. It may sound like a small thing, but to me it was a huge breakthrough. Being able to spontaneously make a joke in another language and have someone understand not just the words, but the humor behind them, made me realize how much Turkish has become a part of who I am.

Thirteen Years Later

After thirteen years of learning Turkish, if I could go back to 2013 and give myself a few words of wisdom, I would tell myself not to focus so much on reaching a certain level. The goal isn't simply to reach a point where I can say, “I have learned Turkish to C2-level fluency.” Rather, learning Turkish is something that never really ends.

There will always be another word to learn, another grammatical structure to understand, another expression that makes me stop and think. There will be days when I feel like I have made incredible progress and days when I wonder if I have learned anything at all. But perhaps that is what makes learning a language so rewarding.

When I think back to 2013, I realize that although my initial motivation was simply to be able to say a few words to my husband's mother, I knew from the beginning that I would want to learn much more. As someone who has always loved languages, when I start learning a language, I am all in.

I could never have imagined exactly where that commitment would take me over the next thirteen years. Turkish has challenged me, frustrated me, surprised me, and ultimately become a part of who I am. And while I still have so much more to learn, I wouldn't want the journey to end.