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Tag: erasmus exchange

  • Turkish Language

    Merhaba! Benim adım Bas. Nasılsınız?

    After just two days in Istanbul, I realized why so few Turkish people speak English. If it’s anywhere near as hard for them to learn English, as it is for me to learn Turkish, I can imagine most don’t even want to bother with it if they don’t need it.

    When I came here and didn’t speak one word of Turkish 3 days ago, I longed for Bulgaria where I actually am able to make myself understandable, but told myself to stop being a p***y and stop whining. After all, I didn’t speak any Bulgarian when I arrived there either.

    I arrived at my language course 2.5 days late but I figured I could catch up because I’m a fast learner and I as willing to do the work. When I opened my books at home that day, I was looking at a 100% Turkish book. Not only were the exercises in Turkish, so was the explanation. Looked like catching up will be a bit harder to do, so yesterday when they announced a test for today I decided to aim for something I hardly ever aim for. The middle. Not the top 5%, but just be somewhere in the middle. After all, I had missed 3 days, so I had an excuse for myself.

    The Turkish language is very tough for a Western European. We start sentences with the subject and then the verb, but the Turkish do it differently. The verb has to wait until the end of the sentence, which is very unnatural for us. Imagine going to a bar and ordering a drink. “I want a coke.” In Turkish the structure would be more like “I coke want”, but this of course is still a very simple sentence. It gets incredibly complex, the verbs get many suffixes, quite a few grammar rules are unlike anything I’ve had to deal with, even in Bulgarian.

    However, I really can’t stand being perceived as a tourist (I’d rather be seen as a foreigner who’s living here) and if you speak English and no Turkish at all, you will get ripped off. Constantly. My frustration with this, my impatience, and high demand of myself to understand the language cause me to pick up the language faster than I anticipated and I even don’t mind doing some studying, 😉

    I’m sure within one month my Turkish will be quite okay and I won’t have to fall back on my English, or, since many people don’t understand English, gestures and body language. 🙂

    Gülü gülü!

  • Erasmus Intensive Language Course… To do or not to do?

    Since I’m going to study at a university in Istanbul through the EU’s Erasmus program, I was allowed to sign up for a (free) Turkish language course under the Erasmus Intensive Language Course (EILC) program. I immediately jumped on it, since it had many other advantages, such as free accommodation at the Istanbul University campus.

    Then I found out that my own university, Yeditepe University, would also be offering Turkish language courses. I found out that the EILC courses overlap with the courses I’m supposed to be following at Yeditepe. Plus, they decided to put us into hostels instead of the campus and we’d have to pay for it ourselves. If I’m going to be in a hostel, I’d like to pick it myself, besides… I’d have enough to do anyway, such as finding an apartment, people to live with and getting myself orientated. So I sent them an email.

    EILC Cancellation Email

    Hi,

    I’d like to inform you by this email that I won’t be able to attend the EILC courses starting this August. It’s a great service, but I’m afraid time won’t allow me to attend a considerable number of the classes, so I feel it’s better for me to withdraw.

    Kind regards,
    Bastiaan
    Student at INHOLLAND Amsterdam/Diemen
    The Netherlands

    Apparently they won’t take no for an answer. As you see I sent this email on July 28 and today I got an email back with an acceptance letter dated August 8.

    This got me thinking… Should or shouldn’t I do the EILC? It will offer me an opportunity to meet Erasmus students from all over the city, going to one out of many universities in Istanbul. Maybe I can team up with some people and find an apartment even. Having said that, I’m sure the hostel will evening clocks and things like that and I really enjoy my freedom.

    If any of you have experience with studying abroad, help me out. When I was living in Sofia, Bulgaria, quite a few of my friends were Erasmus students and they had gone through the EILC course… I must say, I wasn’t very impressed with the level of their Bulgarian. A few were ok, but most hadn’t really learned anything. Compared to most of them, my Bulgarian, that I learned on the street, was better. And learning a language on the street is of course much more exciting than learning it in a classroom or protected environment. 😉

    What are your thoughts on this? Should I remind them I cancelled, or just go to the courses?

  • Rush!

    Letter of Acceptance

    I’ve been officially accepted to Yeditepe! Time to sit back and relax, right? Not.

    Last week: 2 final exams. This week: 1 final exam, 1 deadline for a website, some work assignments. So at this point I was already busy. Anyway, I decided to figure out how I would get my ERASMUS grant. I went to the international office and they informed me I should have my forms in before the 15th of July (I would be in Bulgaria/Macedonia from the 25th of June to the 17th of July), including a certificate of enrollment for the NEXT study year. I handed my enrollment in last Friday and was going on holiday this Saturday, so that got me quite stressed.

    “No worries, mate” I told myself. I figured I’d just take care of something that I could take care of immediately. I googled a bit to find out more about the Turkish embassy in Holland and visa. The embassy site was nearly completely in Turkish, but I found a number and called them. After passing through 2 rude receptionists and being connected to a person, I was informed that I should not call her but someone asked and she asked me why I called her. I blamed television and she gave me the number of the Turkish consulate. I called the consulate, had to go through the same annoying type of receptionists and finally got someone who knew anything about what I was asking. Turns out the studentvisum for Turkey is… 446 euros! Awesome. Perfectly reasonable to ask from a student, right?

    More stress.

    Then I did something I should do more often before asking stuff to people who don’t really know the answer either. I used my eyes and applied them to some text. I did some reading. I saw I could get an advance on the Erasmus grant, which meant I could probably use that money to pay for the visum. Also, I got in contact with the central international office of my degree factory (commercial university) and found out my enrollment for this year would be enough.

    Last time I had stress relief like this I decided it would be best not to blog about it. So I won’t.

    Nervewrecking stuff if you’re going on a holiday for a month in just a few days. Anyway, it all seems to be okay now. Still nervous about the visum, since I’d rather not borrow money for it, but we’ll see. Let’s hope the woman was confused and told me the normal or work visum instead of a studentvisum. Not counting on it though. The very worst is that I will have to go visit the consulate which is built in Holland’s pit of doom, Rotterdam. Lord, help me :sad:

    Oh! So I’m going on a holiday this Wednesday. Expect to see many stories and pictures! :cool:

  • What’s up?

    Hey, figured it’s about time I give a small overview of what’s up with me. A couple of things.

    • Doing a project on International Affairs Representation (lobbying) for university. Very interesting. Looking at all that the IUCN organisation has to offer on their website. What a great organisation!
    • For the same course I’m going to Brussels for a field trip on the 27th of this month.
    • Got a potential marketing/sales project coming my way. If I decide to take it on, I expect I could make about two thousand Euro with it this summer. Which would be great, because I’m broke now. Looks like my interest in internet marketing and entrepreneurship is finally manifesting itself in my day to day reality, right?
    • Looking for a job doing some promo-work (like handing out samples and stuff) for a while, so I can make some money. Or maybe doing work at the homes of elderly people. Although I’m not sure if it would be productive to invest my time in that instead of the above project. Probably smart to have an extra, small income stream though.
    • Figuring out when I’m done with the semester and when I can fly to Bulgaria to go see my girlfriend!
    • Figuring out when I would probably be broke and have to fly back to Holland…  together with my girlfriend… to show her Holland. First time she’ll be in Western Europe. Culture shock :shock:
    • Applying to a Turkish language course at the end of August and beginning of September.
    • Getting my stuff handled with Yeditepe University in Istanbul, so my Erasmus exchange will start smooth. Or at least smoother than when I went to Bulgaria last year.

    That’s about it. If you think you can help me out with any of this. Please contact me.

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