We are both doing well. We have been doing some house or pet sitting, which also allows us to not be quite so, “The man who came to dinner” (old movie) for Mike & Susan. They are the people that handle our mail for us and show up as our nominal address. They have very kindly put up with us for a long time now.
Janet studies Turkish on the computer every morning and a few of our monolingual friends, understandably wonder why Janet is not fluent in Turkish.
Well, because there is a lot to learn. Turkish is very different from English, and Spanish which Janet speaks quite well.
For example, the Turkish sentence, that we are told, when literally translated is:
“Assistant-of mine’s to you giving the Turkish economy about book yet shelf-onto put-not-has-been.”
Just go ahead and rearrange that into correct English order, because I am not clear on what is being said.
And, just to be crystal clear, I am not in any way making fun of Turkish, Turkey or Turks. I am just trying to say, “Wow! This is hard.”
The corrected version is:
“The book my assistant gave you about the Turkish economy has not yet been put on the shelf.”
Janet now knows a few hundred words and many useful phrases, but to really encode and decode Turkish is still hard for her. Impossible for me. I have about a 5 word vocabulary,down from 10 or 15 words when we were living there.
My plan? Stay close to Janet. Fun for many reasons.
Fortunately, some Turks speak somewhere between useful and excellent English, and on several occasions, when we were in a restaurant or shop and having a tough time, the waiter or clerk, ran off and brought someone who spoke very good English. Once, it was about a 19 year old college student who just happened to be walking by the restaurant. A total stranger. She was captured and happily help us all. We are all aware of the humor of the situation.
Turks are usually very kind to strangers, even Americans. Wonderful country Turkey. Wonderful people.
Dave & Janet
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