Learn how to use the negative to lodge a simple complaint
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Hi everyone, and welcome back to TurkishClass101.com. This is Beginner Season 1 Lesson 12 - Is There a Problem with Your Turkish Hotel Room? Eric here. |
| Elif: Merhaba. I'm Elif. |
| Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to complain politely about evident issues. The conversation takes place on a hotel internal phone. |
| Elif: It's between Zeynep and a receptionist. |
| Eric: The speakers are strangers, so they’ll use formal Turkish. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Zeynep: Alo, resepsiyon mu? |
| Resepsiyon görevlisi: Evet, buyurun. |
| Zeynep: Havlularımız eksik. Bir baş bir de ayak havlusu lazım. |
| Resepsiyon görevlisi: Hemen görevlimizi yönlendiriyorum. Oda numaranız? |
| Zeynep: 305 (üç yüz beş). Bu arada, klima kumandasını da bulamadık. |
| Resepsiyon görevlisi: Masanın gözüne baktınız mı? |
| Zeynep: Bir dakika bakayım. Aa, evet burada. Teşekkür ederim. |
| Eric: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| Zeynep: Alo, resepsiyon mu? |
| Resepsiyon görevlisi: Evet, buyurun. |
| Zeynep: Havlularımız eksik. Bir baş bir de ayak havlusu lazım. |
| Resepsiyon görevlisi: Hemen görevlimizi yönlendiriyorum. Oda numaranız? |
| Zeynep: 305 (üç yüz beş). Bu arada, klima kumandasını da bulamadık. |
| Resepsiyon görevlisi: Masanın gözüne baktınız mı? |
| Zeynep: Bir dakika bakayım. Aa, evet burada. Teşekkür ederim. |
| Eric: Listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Zeynep: Hello, is this reception? |
| Receptionist: Yes, please go ahead. |
| Zeynep: We don't have enough towels. We need one head and one foot towel. |
| Receptionist: I will direct our attendant immediately. What’s your room number? |
| Zeynep: 305. By the way, we couldn't find the AC remote either. |
| Receptionist: Did you check the desk drawers? |
| Zeynep: Just a minute, let me check. Oh yes, it's here. Thank you. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: Elif, we’ve already talked about Turkish hotels in a previous lesson, could you tell us something more? |
| Elif: The most common services like breakfast, wake-up service, and room cleaning that you'll find in a Turkish hotel are the same as any other hotel in the world, so I don’t think there will be any surprises. In addition to those, Turkish hotels might also feature hamams, Western style saunas, pools, water slides, open buffets, and so on, depending on the hotel's type and price range |
| Eric: What does an average room service menu include? |
| Elif: It includes a few entrees, snacks, desserts and alcoholic beverages, though they'll most likely be overpriced. |
| Eric: Anything else we should know about this topic? |
| Elif: Although more and more Turkish people prefer to stay in hotels nowadays, a classic traveler will try to arrange lodging at a relative's or friend's house. For some people, it's considered an insult for a friend or relative to stay in a hotel instead of staying at their house, so keep this in mind if you're going to travel. |
| Eric: Is there any useful vocab related to this? |
| Elif: An important part of any traveler's vocabulary is yola çıkmak, |
| Eric:...meaning "to depart." |
| Elif: This describes the action of starting your journey, so it's mostly used for intercity or international travel. |
| Eric: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Elif: havlu [natural native speed] |
| Eric: towel |
| Elif: havlu [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: havlu [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Elif: baş [natural native speed] |
| Eric: head |
| Elif: baş [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: baş [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Elif: ayak [natural native speed] |
| Eric: foot |
| Elif: ayak [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: ayak [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Elif: lazım [natural native speed] |
| Eric: necessary |
| Elif: lazım [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: lazım [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Elif: hemen [natural native speed] |
| Eric: instantly, immediately, prompt, right away. |
| Elif: hemen [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: hemen [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Elif: görevli [natural native speed] |
| Eric: attendant |
| Elif: görevli [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: görevli [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Elif: yönlendirmek [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to direct |
| Elif: yönlendirmek [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: yönlendirmek [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Elif: klima [natural native speed] |
| Eric: AC, air conditioner |
| Elif: klima [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: klima [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| Elif: kumanda [natural native speed] |
| Eric: remote control |
| Elif: kumanda [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: kumanda [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And last.. |
| Elif: masa [natural native speed] |
| Eric: desk |
| Elif: masa [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Elif: masa [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Let's have a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is.. |
| Elif: ayak havlusu |
| Eric: meaning "foot towel." |
| Elif: Breaking it down, Ayak means "foot" and havlu is "towel." Havlu receives the possessive suffix -i which changes into -u because of the vowel harmonization rule. The extra consonant -s goes between the u's as we can’t have double vowels. Altogether, ayak havlusu means "foot towel." |
| Eric: Where will you hear this phrase? I guess places like spas, foot care salons, resorts, hotels, hostels and hamams? |
| Elif: That’s right. Families may also use foot towels in their bathrooms but they will most likely call them yer havlusu, where yer means "ground." In hotels and hamams, foot towels usually have feet printed on them. But if you can't see any, ask which towels are for your feet. |
| Eric: Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| Elif: Sure. For example, you can say Pelin ayak havlusunu yenisiyle değiştiriyor. |
| Eric: ..which means "Pelin is changing the foot towel for a new one." Okay, what's the next word? |
| Elif: yönlendirmek |
| Eric: … meaning "to direct." |
| Elif: This is the causative form of yönlenmek, which stems from yön. |
| Eric: Which means “to have a direction” and “direction.” |
| Elif: Attaching -lenmek, meaning “to attain a quality,” to a noun or adjective is one of the ways to derive a verb from it. |
| Eric: In formal situations where you're seeking assistance, especially on the phone, if the first attendant you ask can’t help you, you'll hear this verb as he or she directs another attendant to help you. |
| Elif: Right, you can expect to hear: X'i yönlendiriyorum or Sizi X'e yönlendiriyorum. |
| Eric: Meaning "I'm directing X to you" or "I'm directing you to X" as you might hear in call centers, hotel receptions, stores, help desks, and offices. Can you give us a complete sentence using this verb? |
| Elif: Sure. For example, you can say Beni 5 (beş) dakika içinde müdür yardımcısına yönlendirdi. |
| Eric: .. which means "She directed me to the assistant manager in five minutes. " Okay, what's the next word? |
| Elif: masanın gözü |
| Eric: … meaning "desk drawer" |
| Elif: When pairing masa for "table" with göz for "drawer," masa receives -in and göz receives -i suffixes which transform into -ın and -ü respectively, due to the vowel harmonization rule. These suffixes are added to create the possessive form: masanın gözü. |
| Eric: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Elif: Sure. For example, you can say Kullandıktan sonra makası ve tutkalı masanın gözüne koyun. |
| Eric: .. which means "Put the scissors and glue in the desk drawer after using them." |
| Elif: A nightstand or wardrobe has çekmece instead of göz, although the meaning is the same. So "Put it in the dresser drawer" becomes Onu şifonyerin çekmecesine koyun. |
| Eric: Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: In this lesson you'll learn how to complain politely about evident issues. Let’s start with a related topic, which is how to understand half question sentences. |
| Elif: Some context-based questions actually don’t need question words, just like in: Oda numaranız? |
| Eric: “Your room number is…?” |
| Elif: The implied question here is nedir, “what is.” Here are some more examples: Adınız? |
| Eric: “Your name is…?” |
| Elif: Adresiniz? |
| Eric: “Your address is…?” Ok, now let’s take a look at how to ask for help implicitly with a complaint. |
| Elif: We’ll also see how to use compound nouns. |
| Eric: Is there an example of a complaint in the dialogue? |
| Elif: Yes, we had Havlularımız eksik. Bir baş bir de ayak havlusu lazım. |
| Eric: Meaning “We don't have enough towels. We need one head and one foot towel.” Can you break it down? |
| Elif: Havlularımız means “our towels” and eksik means “to be lacking,” so when put together, it means “We don’t have enough towels.” The next sentence, Bir baş bir de ayak havlusu lazım, is a bit more complex. Bir, meaning “one,” is before baş meaning “head,” and is indeed a numeral adjective, but bir de in front of ayak havlusu meaning “foot towel” is a conjunction meaning “and.” Also, no one is asking for a person’s head in this request sentence of course, the conjunction bir de ties baş with havlusu. It’s unnecessary and grammatically incorrect to use havlusu twice. |
| Eric: There are three sub-categories of words that are categorized by their structure – compound nouns, compound adjectives, and compound verbs. In this lesson, we'll show you compound nouns. |
| Elif: There are four main rules for compound noun formation. The first is that a compound noun can be formed by a determinant followed by a determined. For example: Ateşböceği |
| Eric: … which means “firefly.” |
| Elif: This is composed of ateş, meaning "fire," and böcek meaning "insect." |
| Eric: What’s the second category of compound nouns? |
| Elif: Compound nouns that are adjective clauses. For example, Pazartesi, |
| Eric: … which means "Monday." |
| Elif: This noun is composed of Pazar meaning "Sunday" and ertesi which means "following." Altogether, they form Pazartesi. Note that the first vowel of ertesi, which is ''e,'' is missing. When two nouns are combined, a vowel deletion occurs for easier pronunciation. |
| Eric: What’s the third category? |
| Elif: The third category is formed when a noun and a verb or an auxiliary verb come together. For example, Gecekondu, |
| Eric:.... which means "squatter house." |
| Elif: It’s composed of gece, meaning "night," and kondu, meaning "to be put." Gece is a noun and kondu comes from the verb konmak. |
| Eric: What’s the fourth and last category? |
| Elif: The one made up of two inflectional verbs. For example: Kaptıkaçtı, |
| Eric:... which means “bag snatching." |
| Elif: Kaptıkaçtı is made up of kaptı, which is the past tense containing the -dı suffix added version of kapmak and kaçtı, meaning "run away," where kaçtı is the past tense containing the -dı suffix added version of kaçmak. Kaptıkaçtı is the act of stealing something by snatching it. |
| Eric: Ok, now let’s take a look at how we would answer a possible complaint. It would probably be an imperative statement to denote future actions. |
| Elif: Right, some imperative statements can indicate future actions or inclinations to perform future actions. For example, Dönerken size şeker getireyim. |
| Eric: Which means “I will bring you candy when I return.” |
| Elif: Though the future tense suffix -ecek isn’t used in this sentence, there is a promise of an action to be performed later, which is “bringing candy”, şeker getirmek |
| Eric: There are two points to be considered. First, compared to the future tense conjugation, an imperative statement indicates a lower level of possibility. Secondly, such imperative statements are largely context based, so pay attention to the conversation. Let’s illustrate these two points with an example. |
| Elif: For example, compare Yarın elimizden geleni yapalım with Yarın elimizden geleni yapacağız. |
| Eric: “Let’s do our best tomorrow” and “We’re going to do our best tomorrow.” The imperative case indicates possibility, whereas the future tense indicates certainty. Ok, let’s conclude this lesson by giving a couple of sample sentences. |
| Elif: Odayı bulamadık da, yardımcı olur musunuz? |
| Eric: "We couldn't find the room, so could you please help out?" |
| Elif: Sağınızdaki tuşa basarsanız perde açılır. |
| Eric: "If you could just press the button to your right, the drapes will open." |
Outro |
| Eric: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Elif: Hoşçakalın. |
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