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Rating: 
Summary: Worth while
Review: I just returned from traveling all over Turkey and this little phrase book was incredibly helpful. It fit in my pocket, and though most Turks speak english, it helps you find more difficult words or phrases. It helped in explaining that my husband is vegan, providing us with the words to say " I do not even eat meat juices." and when we suspected that we had a baby on the way we went to a pharmacy and the book told us how to say "I think I am pregnant." It was very helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: Just a reply
Review: I would just like to reply one of the reader who is from Austin Texax, had a comment on this book.
i am a Turkish student in America and I have read your comments about the book. However, the comment about the "How are you?" phrase is wrong. The second one is the correct one.
There is also another point i would like to refer to. There is an "i" in turkish without a dot. In some places if you pronounce "i" without dot it may mean something else; for example a common sentence "I'm bored" written as "SIKILDIM"; however if you pronounce with "i" it refers as a slang.
In addition, I totally agree that the writer should take in consideration that the pronounciation differences should held carefully.
Enjoy your holiday in Turkey
Rating: 
Summary: better than nothing, but get Berlitz Turkish phrasebook
Review: In the bookstore, I compared LP Turkish with the newer Berlitz Turkish phrasebook/dictionary. Even though Tom is an expert, I thought the Berlitz offering. Nice attractive layout and reasonably comprehensive entries. It's good to be able to compare similar products but LP didn't win in this comparison for me.
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Summary: A necessity for a traveller to Turkey (but you also need...)
Review: This book is excellent for many reasons but three are paramount: (1) it includes an EXCELLENT explanation of the grammar, without which I would never have been able to go beyond memorization to actual comprehension & interaction; (2) it includes Turkish phrases that you will really use, relevant to actual situations you will encounter in Turkey (including conversation on topics like politics and social issues!); (3) the dictionary in the back is truly comprehensive. If you're travelling to Turkey, you need this book--outside of Istanbul, and off the beaten path, few people speak workable English, and efforts to speak Turkish are not only warmly welcomed, but help tremendously in getting through the day. There was only one thing I found problematic with this book. The book I was using was NOT the one with the incorrect pronunciation (at least, I don't think so), but I just found the pronunciation (the phonetic rendition of each phrase) really hard to read & use, and I didn't think it produced an accurate rendition of Turkish sounds (if I just read the phonetic phrase, no one would have understood me). My strong recommendation to other prospective travellers: also get the "Berlitz Turkish Phrasebook" with its audiotape, and listen to the tape about a thousand times--then you won't need the pronunciation guide--you'll know how to pronounce the Turkish words, and more important still, you'll be able to hear & understand quickly-spoken Turkish. You will, however, still need this Lonely Planet phrasebook for your actual travel in Turkey, because the Berlitz one has some fatal flaws (read my review of that book for more details). Two suggestions for the authors: 1) If you create an audiotape to go with your book, people wouldn't have to buy the silly Berlitz audiotape to learn how to listen & speak! 2) There was one section in the Berlitz book that I really thought was useful: a diagram of a car and labels for all its parts. The same might be good for a bicycle too. Just a thought. In sum, this phrasebook is a necessity for the traveller, and since they apparently read these reviews, I would like to thank the authors for helping to make my trip to Turkey one of the best of my life.
Rating: 
Summary: Lonely Planet Pronounciation Warning..
Review: Well we were headed to Turkey so we obtained The Lonely Planet book on Istanbul. No problems there and we read up on the phrases and did some practice with the phonetics.. Then we said, Well.. there is a New Lonely Planet Phrase Book for Turkish and so we brought that and really did a lot of practice and memory work for the trip. Well, two hours inside Turkey and we realized that the Phrase Book is wrong.. in particular the phonetic for that odd turkish i (without the dot) !! It appears that the Lonely Planet Istanbul version is the accurate one. Eg: Lonely Planet Istanbul Pg 207 : How are you = NAHS suhl suh nuhz (Correct by the way) Lonely Planet Turkish Phrase Book Pg 36 : How are you = nah sihl sih nihz ( Not only wrong but embarrassingly so) Unfortunately this renders the Turkish Phrasebook by Lonely Planet a waste of effort as this incorrect use of the short i (without the dot) is perpetuated throughout the phrasebook and will confuse and embarrass the user. My Turkish friends were rolling on the floor laughing at the wierd combinations of using these form incorrectly.. How would you sound in english if you were told to pronounce the A sound as an O sound instead :0) Lonely Planet should be aware of the significant descrepancy between the two books and how they differ in pronouncing this important sound in Turkish. They both can't be right :0)
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Summary: February 2001 Announcement -- New printing of the 2nd Ed.
Review: When ordering our Phrasebook, be sure to specify that you want the *most current* printing of it (in which the ISBN designation on the publisher's information page [inside the book] *exactly* matches the ISBN on the book's back cover --- 0-86442-436-1). This latest printing has been cleaned of all those embarazZing prinnting erroz, found in the initial printing of the 2nd edition...Jim and Perihan Masters
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