Practise Turkish with a native speaker, and give them English conversation practice in return. Roughly 88 million people speak Turkish natively, so partners are easy to find; the useful discipline is showing up on time.
Endonym
Türkçe
Script
Latin alphabet, plus ğ ı ş ç ö ü
Spoken in
Turkey, Northern Cyprus, Germany, Bulgaria
First thing to learn
Merhaba — "Hello"
US Foreign Service Institute estimate for an English speaker starting from zero
~36 weeks
Distant from English
Turkish builds whole sentences by gluing suffixes onto one root, so a single English verb can arrive as a long word carrying subject, tense and negation at once. Vowel harmony then dictates which form each suffix takes, depending on the vowel already in the word.
Knowing this in advance changes what you do with a partner. Grammar drills on Turkishwill not fix a habit your first language gave you — only producing the sentence out loud and being corrected will. That is the specific thing an exchange gives you and an app does not.
A language exchange dies when nobody has anything to talk about. Take these into the call and you will fill the first half without silences.
Say Merhaba (mer-hah-BAH) as your first line, then ask your partner when they would use it and when they would choose something more formal.
Ask your partner to write your own name in Türkçe, then explain which sounds in your name do not exist in Turkish.
Talk for two minutes about what you imagine daily life is like in Turkey. Have your partner correct the parts you got wrong - in Turkish first, then again in English.
Talk for two minutes about what you imagine daily life is like in Northern Cyprus. Have your partner correct the parts you got wrong - in Turkish first, then again in English.
Ask your partner for one sentence that exposes the hard part: Turkish builds whole sentences by gluing suffixes onto one root, so a single English verb can arrive as a long word carrying subject, tense and negation at once.
Switch to English and ask your partner to explain their own language's hardest feature to you. This is the half where you pay for the practice, so take it as seriously as your own turn.
You are not here to improve your English — you already have it. Practise Turkish with someone who speaks it natively, and pay for it by answering their English questions properly. Fluent English speakers are the scarcest resource on an exchange, which is why you will match quickly.
Turkish people are usually looking for English practice for travel, study and remote work, and the exchange suits them because Turkey gets a steady stream of English-speaking visitors and residents.
36 weeks of full-time study to working proficiency, on the US Foreign Service Institute scale - distant from english. Turkish builds whole sentences by gluing suffixes onto one root, so a single English verb can arrive as a long word carrying subject, tense and negation at once. Vowel harmony then dictates which form each suffix takes, depending on the vowel already in the word.
Around 88 million native speakers, concentrated in Turkey, Northern Cyprus, Germany. English has already borrowed yogurt, kebab, caviar from it, so you are not starting from nothing.
Latin alphabet, plus ğ ı ş ç ö ü. The alphabet will look familiar, which is exactly the trap - the letters are the same while the sounds behind them are not, so reading fluently is not the same as pronouncing accurately.
Merhaba (mer-hah-BAH) - "Hello". Merhaba is friendly and works nearly anywhere. Selam is more casual and İyi günler is a polite daytime greeting.
yogurt, kebab, caviar and tulip all reached English from Turkish - 4 words you can use on day one.
Free matching, free voice calls, free video calls. One twenty-minute call is enough to know whether it works for you.
Start your exchange