In an Istanbul market, I came across an old German phrase book and a reminder of how not to speak to migrants | Carolin Wurfel

"The book I found 60 years later at a flea market in Istanbul would have been in the suitcases of many of these workers."

"Learning a new language as an adult is hard. I am struggling, as a German speaker, to learn Turkish myself."

"Turkish suffixes, for example, add meaning to the ends of words. Where German needs four words to say I am at home, Turkish needs just one: evdeyim."

"Even sentence structure is reversed. In German, we say: Iris drinks coffee. In Turkish: Iris coffee drinks."

A visit to the Bomonti flea market in Istanbul led to the discovery of a 1965 language textbook for Turkish guest workers in Germany. This book symbolizes the migration of Turkish workers to Germany during the 1960s and 70s, prompted by a labor shortage. The language barrier faced by these workers highlights the challenges of learning a new language as an adult. Differences between Turkish and German, such as sentence structure and grammatical gender, further complicate the learning process for those trying to adapt to a new culture.

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