Reasons for learning Turkish

1. Turkish has a huge number of loan words from other languages.

If you know other languages like Arabic, Farsi, or French, you are in luck! Turkish has a large number of loan words from these languages. For instance, if you need a haircut in Turkey, just head over to a kuaför (kua-fuhr). Similarly, the French word for a hairdresser is coiffeur, with almost the same pronunciation.

2. You don't have to pull out your hair over memorising exceptions to grammatical rules.

Unlike a number of other languages, Turkish—at least at my current level—is pretty consistent in terms of how its words are formed. Once you learn about the rules governing a certain suffix, you can be pretty certain that it will be consistently applied across virtually all words. On the other hand, while I was learning Spanish, I often had to fret about memorizing all the various exceptions to the rules on how to conjugate verbs. It was such a relief when I found out that such exceptions are literally the exception rather than the norm in Turkish.

3. Travel without hassle.

Thanks to many menus, signs, and customer service options including some English, Istanbul is fairly easy to navigate without any knowledge of Turkish. It's also not hard to find English-speaking Turks to befriend or for some quick language help in a sticky situation. Outside of Istanbul, though, it's another story. Just knowing some very basic Turkish can go a long way while trying to find your way around the wild frontiers outside of Istanbul.

4. More than 75 million people speak Turkish as their first language, which puts it in the top 15 most widely spoken first languages in the world. In addition, another 15 million people speak Turkish as their second language.

5. Turkish has recently gained ground in terms of popularity due to its increasingly strategic position in the world – being geographically connected to Europe, Asia and the Middle East. For those with an interest in international business in these regions then learning Turkish is a huge advantage and as Turkey grows as a global economic power this will become more and more apparent. The future importance of Turkey in international business cannot be underestimated.