I am back in the states for the summer and enjoying time with family and friends and seeing the kids enjoy life on the farm. (right now they are taking care of a baby lamb)  The time has allowed me to do some thinking and a little research and so soon I will be making one change to the website that I think will be a better fit for all of you learning Turkish.  I have discoverd the ease of which making podcasts is and so will be creating a weekly podcast that will feature a handcrafted audio recording.  Each episode will be short, around 2-3 minutes, will give a brief summary of the week's audio and then you will be able to listen to the Turkish.  Hopefully it will be a more efficient way for you to keep up with your listening.  All you will need to do is to subscribe to the podcast in itunes and then each time a new episode comes out, it will automatically download into your itunes account.  I will as well, post each podcast on this website.  I am excited for the advantages of the podcast and look forward to hearing what you think.  Let me know if you have any ideas for the format of the podcast.  I will try and get the podcast up and running in the next two weeks so check back soon. Happy listening!

Our move is complete.  We've a new address now, and as of yesterday we also have the internet.  We've been promised hot water by Monday.  By then, I hope as well to write a little about the many language lessons this move has offered.  Have a great Sunday and get some rest.

The University of Texas at Austin and Brigham Young University have teemed up to produce a fantastic site called Cultural Interviews with Turkish-Speaking Professionals.  There are literally hundreds of short video interviews with Turkish professionals and executives talking about: professional activities, negotiation practices, courtesy, and stereotypes.  The Turkish is very clear, they speak quite slowly and really well.  As a source of narrow listening it can’t be beat.  Everybody is talking about the same topics!  Check it out today!  And a huge thanks to this website for our first real narrow listening files.  We are slowly getting recordings together here, but don’t yet have enough to put a narrow listening file together.  It is coming though!  For now, check out this great site.  Just click on the tabs at the top and then click on the person you want to listen to.  Each video is accompanied by the transcript of what they are saying as well.  Happy Listening!

RSS stands fro Really Simple Syndication.  Really simple?  Well if you are like me, RSS is new to you.  It basically allows you to create a subscription to a particular site and the new content or articles of the site.  You can "subscribe" to this blog by clicking on the RSS Feed symbol in the top right corner of this page.  Then, when something new is added to the site and announced on the blog, when a tip of the bi-week is added or when other ideas are discussed, it will come to you.  So, if the stuff you find here is useful and if you're not one to remember to get back and check out The Turkish Listening Library's we

A new feature has been added to the contribute page allowing you to upload your files from this site.  Just head over to the page and scroll down to the contact form.   Fill in the form, upload your file and send it over.  Easy as 1, 2, 3.  Except that you need to record something first.  Get started.  Together we can make this a better site. 

Also, a pole has been placed on the side bar.  Please let us know what you think.  Handcrafted Journals have had the Turkish text removed. Handcrafted Stories still has them.  Compare the two and vote today! (the pol

Finally, a new story has been added to Handcrafted Stories called "The Parable of the Tenant."  It is a basic retelling of an old parable.

Well, we have done a bit of work on the site in order to make it more user friendly.  Mostly it is a change in how the audio files are organized.  Most of the changes can be seen in the Handcrafted Audio page.  I have also stopped putting the Turkish under each English summary, but will shortly have all the Turkish transcripts together in one word document.  It was getting too busy with all the text.  Hopefully this will help.  Let me know what you think.

I am excited to be creating this site and hope that it will be a useful piece of our overall language learning experience.  I say our because I really do envision all of us sharing our audio for others to benefit from. The site really stems from my own reading of language learning theory, my own early desires to find listening material and my pursuit of my Masters in ESL.  For now, the site will have two listening sections: Handcrafted Audio and Narrow Listening.  I hope to expand this in the future.  If you have quality audio (sermons, speeches, testimonies, etc) I would love to create another page for those types of audio.  As well, I really do want this to be more of a community project, a clearing house of audio in particular and ideas in general, so I ask that you do your part - grab a recording device and get started!  Together we can make this a powerful part of our collective learning of Turkish.  Kolay Gelsin!