Turkish → English
English uses 43 sounds. You already own 20 of them from Turkish. The other 23 are the work — and 15 of those are the dangerous kind: close enough to something you already say that you will substitute them without hearing yourself do it.
The silent swaps
Your mouth has something close enough to reach for. These survive for years precisely because they sound right to you — the fix is hearing the difference first, not trying harder.
the move: labiodental → dental
English: think · written "th"
Tongue between the teeth, no voice.
Your /f/ is the one in fırın (oven / bakery).
the move: labiodental → dental
English: this · written "th (function words, between vowels)"
the, this, that, they, mother, breathe.
Your /v/ is the one in ev (house).
the move: close → near-close
English: sit · written "i", "y", "e (unstressed)"
Your /i/ is the one in iki (two).
the move: open → near-open
English: cat · written "a"
Between /ɛ/ and /a/; mouth wide.
Your /a/ is the one in anne (mother).
the move: close → near-close
English: book · written "oo (book)", "u (put)", "oul (could)"
Your /u/ is the one in kuş (bird).
the move: longer
English: see · written "ee", "ea", "e_e", "ie"
Your /i/ is the one in iki (two).
the move: longer
English: food · written "oo", "u_e", "ew", "ou (soup)"
Your /u/ is the one in kuş (bird).
the move: close, but not identical
English: water · written "w", "wh", "u (queen)"
Your /j/ is the one in yol (road).
the move: open → open-mid
English: bed · written "e", "ea (bread)"
Your /a/ is the one in anne (mother).
the move: tap → approximant
English: red · written "r", "rr", "wr"
Silent after vowels in British English (car /kɑː/); pronounced in American.
Your /ɾ/ is the one in araba (car).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
English: make · written "a_e", "ai", "ay", "ei (eight)"
Your /e/ is the one in el (hand).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
English: time · written "i_e", "igh", "y", "ie (pie)"
Your /a/ is the one in anne (mother).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
English: house · written "ou", "ow"
Your /a/ is the one in anne (mother).
the move: it glides, yours would hold still
English: hair · written "air", "are (care)", "ear (bear)"
American: /ɛr/.
Your /e/ is the one in el (hand).
Words you may say identically
Two or more English sounds landing on one sound of yours. Until the ear separates them, the mouth cannot — which is what the ear trainer is for.
Genuinely new
Nothing in Turkish sits close to these. They sound foreign in your mouth — which is the good news: you can hear that you are not saying them yet.
law
Closest thing you own: — but close-mid → open-mid, longer.
cup
Closest thing you own: — but close-mid → open-mid, unrounded.
near
American: /ɪr/.
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, close → near-close.
hot
American: /ɑ/.
Closest thing you own: — but close-mid → open.
boy
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, close-mid → open-mid.
car
Closest thing you own: — but front → back, longer.
bird
American: /ɝ/ with the r.
Closest thing you own: — but open → open-mid, front → central, longer.
home
American: /oʊ/.
Closest thing you own: — but it glides, yours would hold still, close-mid → mid, front → central.
Rhythm and pitch
The layer spelling never records, and the one that makes a correct sentence still sound foreign.
| Turkish | English | |
|---|---|---|
| Rhythm | Syllable-timed, rising to the end | Stress-timed |
| Stress | Regular by default: the last syllable, and it travels rightwards as suffixes are added (kiTAP, kitapLAR, kitaplarDAN). The exceptions are what make it a real system. Place names are stressed early, on a pattern borrowed from their shape (ANkara, İsTANbul, İZmir); many adverbs and old loans stay on the first syllable (ŞIMdi, YArın, LOkanta); and some suffixes refuse the stress and push it onto the syllable before them — the negative -me-/-ma- above all, so that the same letters can be a noun or a command. | Contrastive, and unmarked in writing — the single most common cause of not being understood. Dozens of noun/verb pairs differ only in where the stress goes, and every unstressed vowel collapses to /ə/. |
What you have that English doesn't
11 sounds with no job in English. They are not mistakes — but they are where an accent leaks in, because a sound you own is easy to use when a hard one is due.
The honest caveat
This is a prediction from the shape of two sound systems, not a recording of you. It says what your inventory makes likely — it cannot know that your Turkish has a regional variety that already owns one of these, or that you learned English from someone whose accent you copied. A teacher listening to you beats it. Use it to know what to listen for.
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