The Importance of Similar Proverbs and Idioms in Teaching Turkish to Foreigners and the Usue of Them in Teaching Turkish to the Speakers of Polish Language

Abstract

Proverbs and idioms are short, concise statements that are reflected in the memories,lives, experiences, cultures, events and situations and the views of nations. Thesepre-fabricated expressions which create deepness, easiness and fluency to expressionoccupies an important place in teaching theTurkish language by the transmission andcontinuity of the cultural awareness from one generation to another. The features thatproverbs and idioms possess have made them one of the key issues in teaching bothTurkish to the speakers of foreign languages and native language teaching. Culturaltransmission whose importance is often highlighted in teaching Turkish to foreignerscan be done easily and quickly via proverbs and idioms. There are a good number ofopinions and suggestions about the importance of these concise expressions whichenable cultural transmission by themselves and provide convenience to expression.One of the ways to teach proverbs and idioms to which many students are indifferentand which are known to be both difficult to learn and use, is by presenting similaritiesbetween the mother language and the target language.This paper intensely focuses on the importance of learning the similarities ofproverbs and idioms between L1 and L2 in Turkish language learning process. Thus,two hundred proverbs and idioms which show similarities betweenTurkish and Polishlanguages have been found and prepared in a list. The list has been considered intwo ways; the similarities between vocabulary and meaning, and similarities onlyin meaning and it has been presented for the benefits of researchers. Qualitativeresearch methodology, document analysis is used for this study.