Colloquial Turkish: The Complete Course for Beginners

A few days ago I posted a harsh review of this book. I decided that my criticisms were unfair in that my reactions had as much to do with my approach to learning a language as they did with the book itself. I've acquired a professional interest in learning Turkish. My ultimate goal is to be able to read Turkish journals and Turkish publications in history and social science. I wouldn't mind acquiring some spoken fluency as well, but it is not my first priority. I am clearly not the audience for whom "Colloquial Turkish" was published. (The title should have been my first clue.) Some of my frustration with the book arise from the fact that the authors didn't write the book that I wanted them to. That being said, even those who are most interested in conversational Turkish should be forewarned. Aarssen and Backus clearly believe in learning through immersion without much comment about how the language actually works. The book's central pedagogical device is the dialogue, one of which begins each lesson. These dialoques present situations -- meeting a friend on the street, introducing one's English family to one's Turkish friends, etc. The dialogues are followed by vocabulary lists. There is very limited discussion of the mechanics of the language. This makes for a slow start indeed. One can memorize vocabulary, but if you want to start putting together sentences and in other ways build your repertoire, you will find yourself frustrated. You'll want to start thinking in Turkish and trying out your own little expressions based on the content of the dialogue, but you won't have the tools. In other ways, the presentation appears to be needlessly obscure. The exercises that appear in each unit are pretty sparse, and the explanations are often cryptic. This problem is compounded by the fact that examples and explanations often use vocabulary that hasn't been introduced in the vocabulary lists, and they may use verb tenses that haven't been covered. This makes for tough sled