Learning Multiple Languages : A Self Story

Almost two decades ago, during my summer vacations, I decided to learn Turkish. People around me thought it would take years. For me, it didn’t. I was able to start speaking in a few months, and the reason was simple: I wasn’t starting from zero.

I already spoke Urdu at home and English at school. That gave me two big advantages. First, I was used to learning another language. English had been hard in the beginning too, but once I learned it, my brain understood how to learn a new one. Second, Urdu and Turkish share a lot. Not in the alphabet, but in words, culture, and even in the way we make sentences.

When I started, I didn’t have apps or online tools. This was long before Duolingo or ChatGPT. What I had was a Turkish-English Dictionary and time. Every day of that summer I would sit with the dictionary, look up words, and try to make my own sentences. The dictionary became my best friend. Whenever I didn’t know a word, I found it there, wrote it down, and used it the same day.

The other thing that helped me the most was speaking with native speakers. I got the chance to talk to Turkish people who were visiting Pakistan. At first I was very shy. My sentences were broken. I would start in Turkish and then switch to Urdu in the middle. But they were patient. They smiled, corrected me, and kept talking. That daily practice did more for me than anything else. Speaking, even badly, taught me faster than just reading.

Urdu and Turkish felt familiar because both languages have been shaped by Persian and Arabic for centuries. So many words were already in my head. _Kitap, kalem, dost, çay , pencere, saat, adalet, hükümet_. We use all of these in Urdu. Sometimes the pronunciation was a little different, but the meaning was the same. That gave me confidence. Instead of memorizing 500 new words from scratch, I was just learning the Turkish way to say things I already knew.

The sentence order also felt natural. In Urdu we say “Main kitab parh raha hun.” In Turkish it’s “Ben kitap okuyorum.” Subject, then object, then verb. That similarity made forming sentences easier from the start.

Of course Turkish had new things too. The biggest one was the endings. Turkish doesn’t make new words the way we do in Urdu. It adds pieces to the end of one word. `Ev` means house. `Evler` means houses. `Evlerimiz` means our houses. `Evlerimizde` means in our houses. In the beginning it felt confusing. But after a few weeks it started to make sense. It was like building with blocks. The vowel sounds were also new. `ı, ö, ü, ğ` don’t exist in Urdu. I practiced by repeating words again and again until my mouth could say them properly.

I didn’t follow a strict timetable. I just used my summer vacation to focus. Morning was for the dictionary. Afternoon was for talking to anyone I could find who knew Turkish. Evening was for listening. I would try to catch words in conversations and then look them up later. There were no language apps back then. No YouTube lessons. Just a book, people, and practice.

What surprised me later was how learning Turkish helped my Urdu and English too. Once you learn how to learn a language, the next one becomes easier. You start seeing patterns. You get better at guessing meaning. You stop being afraid of mistakes. The first foreign language is always the hardest. After that, your brain knows what to do.

The shared history between Urdu and Turkish was my biggest shortcut. Because both languages took words from Persian and Arabic, I didn’t have to learn abstract words from zero. When I heard _adalet_ I already knew it meant justice. When I heard _hükümet_ I knew it meant government. I only had to learn how Turkish people pronounced and spelled them.

By the end of that summer I could have basic conversations. Within a few more months of practice I could understand more and speak more freely. A Turkish friend told me my accent was understandable, and that encouragement kept me going.

If I look back now, three things made the difference for me. First, the Turkish-English Dictionary. I carried it everywhere. Second, speaking with native speakers and friends as much as possible. Third, looking for similarities with Urdu instead of only focusing on the differences. If I had treated Turkish as something completely foreign, I would have struggled a lot more. But because I kept finding connections, it felt like meeting a distant relative.

Today things are different. If someone wants to learn Turkish now in 2026, they have many more tools. They have Duolingo, YouTube, ChatGPT, and online classes. I would still suggest the same two things I did: get a good dictionary and talk to people. Apps can help you practice daily, but real conversation is what makes the language stick.

Now when I hear Azerbaijani or Uzbek, I can catch a few words. That’s because Turkish opened a door to a whole family of languages. One language led to more.

If you speak Urdu and you’re thinking about learning Turkish, I would say go for it. It’s not as hard as it looks. You will find familiar words. You will find a sentence structure that makes sense. And you will find people who are happy you are trying.

For me, this journey was not only about Turkish. It was about learning how to learn. Urdu gave me my foundation. English taught me discipline. Turkish, which I learned almost twenty years ago during one summer, taught me that with the right tools and the right people, a new language can be learnt much faster in an easy way.