Turkey: teaching the language I grew up inside

Every other story here starts with an airport. This one starts with a kitchen, a glass of tea and a language I never had to learn.

Teaching your own language is stranger than teaching a second one. Nothing is neutral. A student asks why the verb goes at the end and I hear myself say "because it does" before I catch it and go and find the actual answer.

Most of my Turkish students are about to visit — a wedding, a work trip, a partner's family. That changes what we practise. They do not need to write essays. They need to survive a table where everyone talks at once and nobody lets them pay.

So we start with the words that do social work: the greeting you give someone who is working, the thing you say when a plate is put in front of you, the thing you say when someone looks tired. Those five words earn more warmth than a year of grammar.

The part I did not expect is how much I have learned about Turkey from people who have never been. They ask questions I would never think to ask. Why do you say that? Who says it back? What happens if I get it wrong?

Nothing happens if you get it wrong. That is the honest answer. Someone will correct you, laugh, and pour you more tea. That is roughly the whole national policy on foreigners trying.