Bear with me for a bit. (Or don't and just scroll down to JUMP TO HERE below.) I've been learning Turkish on Duolingo for a while. It's good for vocabulary and some grammar. There is a listening component that is helpful. But this is language learning like I had in Jr. high and high school. It's aimed at teaching through vocabulary and grammar. For Peace Corps training (and later with the Confucius Institute) we were taught by memorizing dialogues.
This latter method was much more effective for learning to speak. We just repeated the dialogues, over and over and over, mimicking native speakers until the sentences were imbedded in our heads. This is how children learn a language. By mimicking what they hear. And only later when they instinctively know the grammar, do they learn the rules that explain why they say it the way they do. There were also substitution drills - where the instructor would say a word and we had to use it to replace a word in the sentence. For example:
I am going to the store.
"office"
I am going to the office.
When I arrived in my town, I had lots of useful sentences that I would roll off my tongue without thinking. But when I learn the Duolingo way, with grammar and vocabulary memorization, I struggle to remember the rules so I can put a sentence together correctly.
Today as I was doing my Turkish lesson, I was wondering why they sometimes used the word üzürinde to mean 'on' and sometimes used üstünde. Googling got me to a Quora page which had several explanations. Basically they are used interchangeably said one responder. Another agreed that practically, that is the case, though üstünde means more 'above'.
JUMP TO HERE
Below the explanation of two Turkish words that mean 'on' there was another explanation of two words for 'man' - erkek and adam. These are also words I've learned and never asked why one or the other. One is longer and uses a story. One is short and to the point.
Let me put it that way, only a small percentage of all “erkek”s are also “adam”s.
Here's a famous story about the concept of “adam”ness. Once there was a boy who was good for nothing. His father, after seeing his attempts for reforming the youth frustrated, said finally “You will never be adam! “
(This is the part that is difficult to translate. The father means “upright man” when he says “adam”, but the boy in his ignorance perceives it as “great man”)
Later, the boy leaves his village and after a lot of adventures, becomes the grand vizier of the Sultan. One day he remembers his father (whom he never visited) and his harsh words. He sends a group of soldiers to fetch him, without ever telling them he is his father. So they bring the old guy in terrible condition, as if he is a criminal.
In the palace, the son proclaims “You said I would never be a man. As you can see, I am the vizier now! “
Which the father responds:
“But I never said you will not be vizier. I said you will not be “adam”. Seeing how you treat your father, I can say you still haven't become an adam!”
Bachelor in Language, Marmara University (Graduated 2010)3yErkek is how you are called when you are born with a dick while adam is how you are called when you are not a dick.
The second answer cleverly gets right to the point. Though I'm sure having read the first explanation, helped me appreciate the second.
And I immediately thought that this would be a great way to differentiate between Kamala Harris' newly announced vice presidential running mate and Trump's.
Now I need someone who knows Yiddish and Turkish to tell me whether my guess that adam is akin to mensch.
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