Lost in Translation

Even though I have been here for three months or so, the Turkish language is still a mystery to me. Of course I know some words and phrases that will probably come out of my mouth when I get back home. As frustrating as it is at times, sometimes it makes me laugh when talking to Turks and they try to translate to English.

I was with two of the Turkish friends at lunch in one of the cafeterias and I asked about a certain dessert. They were telling me it was “chocolate pasta”.  I was confused and asked “Like noodles”. They both laughed, as they do a lot, and I finally figured out that pasta means “cake”.

With the same two girls, we were in our Ottoman class and one of them asked me a question. She showed me a picture of a gorilla on her electric translator. She was asking about what are professor meant by gorilla warfare as the only gorilla she knew was the animal. So I then had to explain that our professor did not mean a real animal!

But it is also the other way around, I am trying to talk in Turkish. Usually if someone comes up to me and asks a question in Turkish, I say “English Pardon” meaning Sorry, I just speak English. Usually the then just stop talking to me. But on Tuesday, Trista and I went to a park to do some homework. While we were reading, two old men sat down. They then started asking us questions in Turkish. Since Trista has been here longer then me, she knows some Turkish. We were trying to communicate but it was so hard with the very little Turkish we knew. But overall, it was cool that the two men were trying so hard to talk with also.

On Wednesday, we were trying to convince our professor to make our final open book and I said “lutfen” (please). Everyone thought it was so funny and awesome as I never talk Turkish in the class. It was just really funny.

So even though the language barrier can be frustrating, it makes it much easier to manage when I think positively and not get so worked up about it.