At Fethiye Times we love the Turkish language and truly believe that, if you are going to live here, even part-time, you should try and learn some Turkish. But if you can’t get to organized courses what’s your next best option?

We’ve seen many courses both on-line and in book form that promise you’ll learn Turkish easily but many fall short in some way or another. But when one of our readers contacted us to say how good the computer language package he was using, we decided to give it a trial.

The program is offered by a company called BYKI – ‘Before You Know It’. They provide learning materials for 64 different languages of which Turkish is one.

‘Before You Know It’ lets users see and hear the foreign language with native speaker pronunciation, and then leads them through a proven, proprietary learning process. BYKI monitors the user's responses and constantly adjusts to focus on the unique words and phrases that each user finds more challenging. The result, claims the company, is the fastest possible learning with perfect recall.

We decided to give the program a go and downloaded the free introduction software. After 15-20 minutes to download and set up we were up and running.

The program breaks down words and phrases into related areas. You choose the area you want to learn and then go through the on screen cards one by one. The program reads out the word in perfect Turkish and you repeat and memorise it. When you feel confident that you understand and remember the words you can test yourself. The program will even let you record your pronunciation and offer tips on how you can improve it. We found the whole process interesting and effective. We’ve even improved our pronunciation which is so important as the Turkish language relies so much on phonetics.

All in all we found the program an excellent tool to learn Turkish words and phrases and all with the correct pronunciation. And, at between £14.99 and £29.99 (less if you get an offer such as the one below), is great value and much cheaper than some other methods such as one to one lessons!

So why not give it a go yourself? There’s nothing lose. The program is available for PC and Mac users and can be downloaded from this link 15% off your order at the Transparent Language™ UK Store (discount taken at checkout)* You will be taken to an offers window but click the Transparent Language logo at the top of the page and you can choose Turkish from the home page.

Güle güle kulan!

(*) Sponsored link. A proportion of any purchase will go to Fethiye Times