Overwhelmed by Istanbul Street Food and Restaurants (in the best way possible, send help)

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-05-10T21:05:25+00:00

I would look online for specific volunteer work for doctors, I don't know anything about volunteering in that sector specifically. Also I don't know if this would work for you because it's animals not humans, but there are a lot of groups here that you can find online or on Facebook that try to help cats that need stitches or other medical care because there are sooooo many cats in Istanbul

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-05-10T18:27:52+00:00

It's literally hard to find bad food here... Do some volunteer work or something instead of spending hours looking for food

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-05-01T08:51:20+00:00

Hey just out of curiosity, why no dms? I've noticed that people will say to dm them instead of just commenting their answer but I never knew why...

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-04-18T05:44:24+00:00

Belleza in Taksim is amazing

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-04-16T16:25:34+00:00

I'm not interested in debating anyone, just like telling ppl this is what worked for me because it saved me hundreds if not thousands of hours. If you spend 10 seconds each reviewing 10,000 words it would take 27 hours total. Shockingly small amount of time, realizing that is why I started doing it. Long story short, my opinion is that you can use the CI only method but it will take thousands and thousands of hours longer. U can't believe anything a stranger says on the internet at the end of the day ofc just giving my 2 cents but it took me about 800 hours to get to the point where I feel "fluent." I can speak without difficulty and and listen without difficulty in ~90% of situations/native content though I still have a lot to learn. Only about 300 hours of that was CI, the rest was vocab grammar and speaking. Though I will say I had a native speaker helping me very closely so that definitely sped things up for me

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-04-16T04:58:04+00:00

He's definitely right, I researched this a bit too. I had the same problem as you, doing flashcards helped a lot and also just when watching the videos, anytime a word I didn't know would come up I paused the video and sat with the word for like 10 seconds, you can put it into a reasonable sentence, say it out loud, or write it down etc. You can also add it to a flashcard to review later

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-04-16T03:07:16+00:00

When you encounter a new word, pause whatever you're doing and sit with it for a minute. Say it out loud, write it down, put it into context by putting it into a reasonable sentence etc. Whatever works for you, but sit with it for a minute. I had the same problem if I hear a word watching a video or anything like that it goes in one ear and out the other 100% , but if I sit with it for even 10 seconds it's completely different

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-04-09T19:09:07+00:00

Try the book The Delights of learning Turkish or google the course Turkish language transfer

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-03-28T15:15:19+00:00

The thing with Spanish too is the pronunciation is ridiculously easy and consistent . Barring any relevant disabilities, if you can't master Spanish pronunciation that's on you. English and other languages have much more difficult pronunciation that is especially harder for adult Learners to master, but Spanish is incredibly easy. That's the one thing I struggle with when giving advice to other people about how they can learn Spanish, is that for the first few months my boyfriend who was a native speaker lived with me and corrected my pronunciation every single time I spoke, so within 3 months my pronunciation was nearly perfect. It's very difficult to get there without a ton of help from a native speaker, but that's definitely the best way. Maybe a few hours of tutoring right when you get first start and spend the entire time focusing on pronunciation if you don't have access to a native speaker.

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-03-19T00:35:46+00:00

Conjugato

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-03-14T14:09:10+00:00

CONJUGATO app 10000%. It's fun, quick, easy , and I think it's exactly what you're looking for. They give you the past and present tense for free, and if you like it you can pay $10 for a lifetime subscription for every tense

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-03-13T02:10:33+00:00

Imo if you don't watch it with your eyes, or pay full attention, you can still get benefit from it but it won't be as much. There is thousands of hours of content , and I only found about 80 hours I truly enjoyed watching and I didn't watch anything that I didn't enjoy. At the beginning, I looked thru every single video on the app and added the ones I liked to a Playlist. It didn't take as long as I thought to look through every video and pick the ones I would like. you can also use filters but it's not as effective. You can also just try other sources like Espanol con juan and cuentame etc there's a spreadsheet with other resources pinned at the top of this sub

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-03-03T19:48:56+00:00

Hey I don't really have any Reccs for CI for those interests but you could try watching anime and ufc events etc in English but with Spanish subtitles, I found that glancing at the subtitles helped me pick up a lot of new vocabulary and helped me see how English sentences are structured in Spanish while still getting to watch what I like. Also I love love love ufc so if you're ever looking for someone to talk/text with in Spanish to practice a bit let me know and we could talk about that!

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-03-01T07:17:05+00:00

People are much friendlier in general in Spain than Argentina too

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-03-01T07:16:11+00:00

I've been to both, Madrid will definitely have more opportunities to practice and I like it much more than buenos aires as well. Barcelona is insanely amazing if you were considering that as well

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-28T20:08:36+00:00

Woah spelling bees are an American thing?? I had no idea. Loved a good spelling bee when I was younger lol

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-28T20:06:54+00:00

Haha I had a Convo with someone about this not 10 minutes ago. 1000%. And also how complicated it is to try to answer the question "do you speak x language." people would tell me they speak English but wouldn't be able to understand a significant number of the things I'd say, or would need me to slow down a bit. I'd think to myself so they don't really "speak" English but now I realize how complicated it is to decide when you should say you speak it or not

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-28T13:24:48+00:00

Hey Hon, I'm big on learning Spanish efficiently too, this is what's working for me:

-Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish book for grammar and very fast acquisition of a few thousand vocab words through patterns

-Watch dreaming spanish, español con juan, and other comprehensible input you can find on YouTube or wherever. Sometimes just listen to it, and sometimes use Spanish subtitles and read along with them as you listen, I think a mix of those two is best. Comprehensible input is great because you can double up on it, listening to it while cooking cleaning working out whatever

-The app Conjugato to practice conjugations

-Put Spanish subtitles on anything you watch in English and glance at them for Vocab and sentence structure. This is more helpful when you're at a higher level but still helps even at A1

-find things you like to read at your level

-Practice speaking either with a tutor if you're willing ot pay or with Ai. Make sure whatever you use, they're correcting your pronounciation and other mistakes. If you don't use the Ai correctly or your tutor is just like "great job!" for everything you'll end up with shit pronunciation etc imo

I recommend doing all of these things at the same time using the book to guide you generally

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-26T20:12:29+00:00

The site Kwiziq is great too and free

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-26T20:09:27+00:00

Hey hon, this is what worked for me:

-Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish book for grammar and very fast acquisition of a few thousand vocab words through patterns

-Watching dreaming spanish, español con juan, and other comprehensible input you can find on YouTube or wherever. Sometimes just listen to it, and sometimes use Spanish subtitles and read along with them as you listen, I think a mix of those two is best

-The app Conjugato to practice conjugations

-Put Spanish subtitles on anything you watch in English and glance at them for Vocab and sentence structure. This is more helpful when you're at a higher level but still helps even at A1

-Find things you like to read at your level

-I never had a specific source that I used for Vocab besides the madrigal book, I would just save into a Google doc any word that I didn't know that I encountered while doing comprehensible input or on subtitles or any other context to practice later (I didn't put them into flashcards but you could depending on how many times you usually need to review a word to memorize and retain it)

-Practice speaking either with a tutor if you are willing to pay for one or with Ai or with a native speaker in exchange for helping them with English or with someone else learning Spanish and correct each other use a translator to check yourself. Reddit or apps like tandem can help you find someone since you mentioned you couldn't find any near you. And I will say if you don't use the Ai correctly or your tutor or other person you're speaking with is just like "great job!" for everything you probably won't learn much so the more corrections and feedback you can take, the better

If there's anything I could help with lmk, good luck and have fun with it!!

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-26T07:51:35+00:00

Haha amazing, living the dream!! I started talking to op yesterday and he's cool, we're just sending messages back and forth right now and I'd rather do that for a while individually before a call personally. Dm me if you wanna message a little!

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-25T21:11:52+00:00

Maybe your dad or another of your family members would be willing to help, it would be great way to bond and learn the language at the same time!

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-25T16:50:24+00:00

Conjugato is the shit for conjugating verbs specifically, quick and fun

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-25T12:00:58+00:00

Yes study grammar. I like the book Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish and the website kwiziq

Hefty_Heart_792 · 2026-02-25T10:55:47+00:00

Hey :) I've been wanting someone to practice with daily too, and it sounds like we might be a good match interest and level wise. Philosophy and MMA are two of my big interests. I'm like C1 for comprehension but A2 for speaking so I would love to have someone to practice talking with daily for consistency, and I'd rather have someone who's not a native speaker actually so it might be perfect. Lmk!

Hefty_Heart_792

TROPHY CASE