The Turkish alphabet is your first step to speaking the language. The good news is that it uses the Latin script, so most of the letters will look familiar. It has 29 letters in total, and it's almost completely phonetic. That means each letter has only one sound, and words are pronounced exactly as they are written. Once you know the sounds, you can read Turkish without much trouble.

Six of these letters don't exist in English: Ç, Ğ, I, Ö, Ş, and Ü. We'll go over how to pronounce these, along with a few familiar letters that have different sounds in Turkish.

Let's start with the letters that are brand new. Mastering these will make a huge difference in your pronunciation.

• Ç (çe) sounds like the "ch" in "church."

• Ş (şe) sounds like the "sh" in "shoe."

• Ö (ö) is like the "u" sound in "fur" or "burn." Keep your lips rounded when you say it.

• Ü (ü) is a bit like the "u" in the word "cute." To make this sound, say "ee" but round your lips as if you were going to whistle.

Now for two special letters. The dot on top of an "i" makes a huge difference in Turkish.

• I (ı), the one without a dot, has no direct English equivalent. It's the sound you make at the back of your throat, similar to the vowel sound in the second syllable of "cousin" or "rhythm."

• İ (i), with the dot, is easy. It's just like the "ee" in "see" or "feet."

Finally, there's the soft g, or yumuşak ge.

Notice how the "a" sound is stretched out a bit because of the ğ.

A few letters you already know have different sounds in Turkish. The most important one is C.

• C (ce) is always pronounced like the "j" in "jam." It never makes a "k" or "s" sound.

The rest of the vowels are straightforward:

• A (a) is always like the "a" in "father."
• E (e) is like the "e" in "bet."
• O (o) is like the "o" in "go."
• U (u) is like the "oo" in "boot."

The other consonants sound just like they do in English. The key is consistency. A "g" is always a hard "g" as in "go," and an "s" is always an "s" as in "snake." There are no silent letters (besides ğ) and no tricky combinations. What you see is what you say.

Time to check your understanding.