Aylin Blog
This blog is my stage outside the chat. I unpack the language the way I’d tell a smart friend: honestly, with real-life examples, and zero textbook boredom. Binge the posts or drop in before a lesson.
You can also argue with me in the comments. Ask, doubt, try your own phrasing — I reply myself. This blog is for people who want to sound human, not just “finish the unit”.
Most learners arrive at Turkish expecting a giant list of irregular verbs, the way Spanish or French torture you with them. Here's the honest truth I tell every new student: Turkish barely has irregular verbs in that sense. What it has instead is one verb that behaves strangely in almost every tense, and that verb is…
Read more →Every week a student sends me a beautiful email in Turkish, full of effort, and then asks: "Why did nobody answer?" The grammar is fine. The problem is tone. Turkish business writing has its own social choreography, and a few innocent choices scream "foreigner" before the reader reaches your second sentence. The good…
Read more →I've taught Turkish to English speakers for eleven years, and I can spot one in a conversation within about thirty seconds. Not because of vocabulary — most of my students have great vocabularies. It's the grammar. Perfectly correct grammar that still sounds like a translation. You say and every word is right, but a…
Read more →The first time a student of mine addressed his Turkish landlord with sen, the man's eyebrows did a small, polite jump. Nothing catastrophic happened. But the temperature of the conversation dropped two degrees, and my student had no idea why. That tiny word — sen — is a social thermostat in Turkish. Get it right and…
Read more →Every language hides its soul in its jokes. In Turkish, one figure towers above all others: Nasreddin Hoca, the wise fool of Akşehir whose stories have been told for over 600 years. My students always ask me why Turks laugh so hard at these tales. The answer isn't just the punchline — it's the grammar. Let me show you…
Read more →Every Turkish learner eventually meets yapmak, and most of us underestimate it. It means "to do" or "to make," which sounds simple until you realize Turks use it for everything: (to do homework), kahve yapmak (to make coffee), spor yapmak (to work out), even alışveriş yapmak (to shop). One verb, a hundred jobs. Think…
Read more →Let’s be honest: when you first hear kafayı yemek, your brain does a double take. Literally, it means “to eat one’s head.” But no one is munching on skulls — it simply means “to go crazy.” I’ve seen students freeze mid-conversation after hearing this, picturing a very unfortunate breakfast. That’s the beauty of…
Read more →say teşekkür ederim (thank you) with perfect diction. But the moment you step onto İstiklal Avenue in Istanbul, you’ll hear something else entirely. The Turkish people speak a living, breathing language that shifts faster than a dolmuş (shared minibus) weaving through traffic. Textbooks are frozen in time, but the…
Read more →I’m Aylin, and today we are going back to the absolute bedrock of the Turkish language. Forget complex grammar rules and obscure idioms for a moment. If you want to build a house, you need a solid foundation, and in Turkish, that foundation is built on four mighty pillars: olmak (to be/become), sahip olmak (to have),…
Read more →Let’s be honest: nothing kills a punchline faster than a robotic, word-for-word translation. I see it in my classes all the time. A student proudly tells me a joke from their English feed, translates it directly into Turkish, and the result is... silence. Not because the joke is bad, but because they just said…
Read more →Hey, I’m Aylin, your Turkish teacher at GoTxt, and I have a confession: I’ve wasted more hours doom-scrolling memes than I’d like to admit. But as a language nerd, I can’t help noticing what happens when a meme crosses from English into Turkish. Sometimes it’s a smooth ride. Most times, though, it’s a spectacular…
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