HandsOnTurkish blog

News and articles relating to Turkish business and culture as well as project updates
Groz-Beckert Invests in Turkey’s Textile Industry

Groz-Beckert Invests in Turkey’s Textile Industry

Albstadt, Germany / Istanbul, Turkey At the start of 2015 the newly founded sales affiliate of the Groz-Beckert Group started business in Istanbul, Turkey. Since then, Groz-Beckert Turkey offers its products and services for the sectors of Knitting, Felting, Tufting...

Turkish Companies Emerge on the World Stage

Turkish Companies Emerge on the World Stage

As our colleague, Jeroen Lichtenauer, reported last week on the Dutch site (praktischturks.nl), the huge Dutch fashion brand, Mexx, was taken over and rescued from bankruptcy by a Turkish company, Eroglu. As Jeroen pointed out, words and numbers about how great...

Doing Business in Turkey

Doing Business in Turkey

Businesses from all over Europe are attracted to this large and growing market. Dubbed the "Pearl on the Bosphorus" and the "China on the Bosphorus", this emerging economic powerhouse cannot not be overlooked or underestimated. Here is an overview of some key points...

More Turkish Content and Bug Fixes

More Turkish Content and Bug Fixes

Some big news coming up! Unit 6 and Unit 7 are almost ready to be released to public beta! But firstly: Recently we also discovered a bug which suddenly appeared when we embedded the Turkish interface into the CMS website. Even stranger, the bug only manifested on...

Turkish business etiquette: Introducing somebody

Turkish business etiquette: Introducing somebody

If you are traveling in Turkey, especially for business purposes or to meet friends, there is a good chance that introductions will form a crucial part of a conversation and probably quite early on in the conversation, too. Introducing people (and being introduced to...

Turkish Course January Updates

Turkish Course January Updates

Work continues on the Turkish language course and after the Christmas break, it's full steam ahead for the Neptune Team. The first visible improvement came in the form of an updated website for the English version. The site's design is now harmonised with the other...

Asking for Directions in Turkish

Asking for Directions in Turkish

Turkish language tips and advice. A key part of any journey to a new country is asking for directions(in Turkish). Here are a few Turkish phrases and some cultural advice that will help you on your way. Asking for directions in Turkish on the street It is polite to...

LiveCode review for eLearning

LiveCode review for eLearning

This LiveCode review is by Dr Jeroen Lichtenauer, programmer for the HandsOnTurkish project. Livecode is a multi-platform programming language, IDE and compiler that is capable of compiling to mobile devices. The following evaluation is based on Livecode versions...

Programming meeting, Italy

Programming meeting, Italy

This was an important meeting where the two partners had to consolidate previous work, check all the developments and clarify the next stages. It was a very 'hands-on' meeting (no pun intended) so there was as much development as discussion. A full protocol was made...

Have you given us feedback yet?

Have you given us feedback yet?

HandsOnTurkish is an innovative, new EU-funded project to develop an eLearning course of Turkish for businesses available online and on the appstores. We put a lot of effort and passion into our work but we do require feedback from our learners to ensure that the...

Typing the Turkish Alphabet

Typing the Turkish Alphabet

One of the first comments from the feedback from some professional expats working in Istanbul was: how to type in the Turkish characters. Turkish alphabet  The Turkish language has 29 letters in the alphabet including six letters which aren't found in the English...

New Turkish role-play exercise

New Turkish role-play exercise

Currently, we have a role play exercise where learners can record single lines, play them back and compare them to the original. We have decided to take this one step further and allow learners to take part in a conversation. They will hear speak A (usually a question...

Turkish language course taking shape

Turkish language course taking shape

Mrs Bayan Güler (Autorendiesnt Güler), Udo Hennig (littlefolks) and Carl Taylor (Pendragon Educational Publishers) met in the Merhaba Cultural and Training Centre in Koblenz Germany for a three day working session. They agenda covered the following topics: Writing the...

Pera Palace Hotel

Pera Palace Hotel

The Pera Palace Hotel is a magnificent building with views over the Golden Horn. It  is conveniently located for sightseeing. And it is steeped in history. It first opened in 1892 in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Some of its famous guests include Alfred...

The Storyline So Far …

The Storyline So Far …

Frank and Sarah are a young couple who own a small business selling fashion articles. They are based in Edinburgh in Scotland. They want to expand with their own label and they have ideas for new fashion items. They want to outsource the production to Turkey. They...

Author’s Content Meeting

Author’s Content Meeting

Carl Taylor, Udo Hennig and Mrs Beyhan Güler met in Koblenz to discuss the content for the Turkish course. During the weekend they established the main characters and storyline for all the units and discussed in greater detail the input dialogues for the first 8...

First demo version coming very soon

First demo version coming very soon

We have already started developing some demo content which will be released shortly. This is firstly to start transferring the technology from the Webstar project and stress-testing it with the Turkish content. NT and MP created a new folder with the assets and used...

First Full Project Meeting

First Full Project Meeting

October 6th 2013, Leiden, Netherlands. Six members of the NEPTUNE project met in the Leiden Tulip Inn to officially begin the project. Leiden is a beautiful and typical Dutch city situated south-west of Amsterdam and only 20 minutes from Schiphol International...