Language Progress

So, I keep telling myself my next blog post is going to be about food. Well, guess what? This one isn't. it's an update about learning Turkish.

First of all, the bad news: I made a complete fool of myself today.  After insisting I would be fine walking myself home, I made it all the way to the door only to remember I can't use a key.  This disability is as of yet diagnosed, but I'm pretty sure it's real.  Anyways, I spent a good ten minutes fiddling with the key before taking a seat outside the door and seriously considering ringing the neighbors doorbell to ask for help.  

Luckily, it didn't get to that point because someone else living in the complex came by to use the elevator

"Yardim edebilirmiyim?' I asked, which means "Can I help?"  In case you're wondering, this makes no sense.  Luckily,  he didn't say anything about it. He opened the door in approximately one and a half seconds and told me not to forget the key in the lock.  

Now that that's out of the way... on to the good news.  I've been trying for months now to get a residency permit.  A while ago I asked the principal for my residency permit so I could see the day it expires. He said I don't have one. several months, phone calls and facebook messages later I still don't have one. So I decided to call the president of my rotary club. 

I didn't really want to do this because for about a month I've been talking to him in pretty much just Turkish. Before I called I accepted there was no way I could explain this in Turkish and it was painful to press the call button... I really didn't want to have to go backwards in my progress.  But I called anyways.

We started out in English and I explained the situation- twice. He couldn't understand.  "Kyla, can you explain in, Turkish?" He asked.

I was fairly certain this was impossible. However the first few words came to me right away and soon I had explained the whole thing.

"I understand" he said. I felt like dancing around the room.

There you have it, probably my proudest learning-turkish-moment to date. As they say in Turkish  "adım adım" step by step