Useful Turkish Medical Terms for Travelers!

Lesson Transcript

Hey you guys! I'm so cold today.

Okay, let's start over.

I'm a terrible actor.

Okay, I'm gonna get rid of this blanket.

Hey you guys! I'm Seda.

Merhaba, ben Seda. Hoş geldiniz.

Welcome to turkishclass101.com

Today we'll talk about going to the doctor.

I hope you don't need it, but if you are visiting a country or you are planning to live in Turkey

or you are already living in Turkey, you may need these phrases.

So let's start, okay?

But before we start, I want to talk quickly about Turkish health system.

We have normally government security, social security, health security thing we call

SGK, sosyal güvenlik kurumu.

It's like social security, governmental institutions, social security institutions, something like that.

Anyway, normally if you are working in a company, they pay the fee for social security.

But if you are not working legally, I don't know how it works,

but you can pay your social security by yourself.

There are rules for that.

But for non-Turkish students, I'm not sure, but you can always check Turkish E-Devlet.

I will put it somewhere here.

It's the government website.

You'll probably find whatever you are looking for about these kinds of issues.

But in general, we have social security.

And with that, you can go to, in case of emergency, all the hospitals.

But if it's not an emergency, you can go to government hospitals.

We have government hospitals, we have private hospitals, private hospitals.

And we have family medicine, family doctors in our neighborhood.

So government hospitals are, as I told you, private hospitals are generally really expensive.

If you don't have a private insurance, you can, again, with your company or by yourself,

you can buy private insurance and you can use that insurance.

But I think it's the same everywhere that private insurance companies are like really messed up.

So you need to be careful about what it's covering and how much you are paying, blah, blah, blah.

But other than that, we have these neighborhood family doctors.

It's automatically assigned to you by the government based on your address.

So for example, you are living here, but you moved somewhere else.

Then the government assigned you another family doctor.

The point there that you need to have a, for example, you just have a cold and you need basic needs or, you know,

you don't need to go to hospitals.

So it's supposed to lessen the work of the big hospitals.

So you go and get help from your family doctor and those family doctors keep track of elderly.

They do visits on some days.

It depends on the family doctor.

And if you are, for example, pregnant, they keep track of your pregnancy and after you give birth,

they come and they help you with breastfeeding and stuff like that.

So that's basics.

And I think that's it.

And I have one more thing.

It's, you know, in American movies, it's always call 911, call 911.

There's someone here.

We need a doctor. Call 911.

There's a fire. Call 911.

We need police. Call 911.

It's not like that in Turkey.

You know, fire station, police station, the hospitals, the ambulance, they all have different numbers.

Actually, one number may be a good idea, but I don't know.

In Turkey, for an ambulance, you need to call 112 or the way we say it, 112.

So you call 112.

Ambulansa ihtiyacım var. 112 arayın.

I need an ambulance.

Call not 911, but 112.

So I think these things cover the basics, right?

Yeah.

Okay, then let's start with our phrases.

First of all, yeah, kendimi pek iyi hissetmiyorum.

Kendimi pek iyi hissetmiyorum.

I'm not really feeling very well.

So this is the basic sentence.

After this, of course, the doctor will ask, you know, what do you feel then?

What is the symptoms?

What are the symptoms?

What is happening to me today?

I don't know.

Okay, so the doctor will ask you “neyin var” or the formal way “neyiniz var.”

Neyin var, informal.

Neyiniz var, is formal.

Neyiniz var, what do you have?

What's wrong with you?

Literally it means what do you have?

Var means I have, var means have, has or there is, there are.

So literally it means what do you have?

But in the meaning of like what's wrong with you?

So you may say halsizim.

Halsizim, halsizim.

Like I'm weak, I don't feel, you know, I'm down, I'm weak, I can't move myself, something like that.

But actually hal normally means condition, situation and halsiz, this siz/sız suffix, it means without.

So it literally means something like I am without condition or something like that.

Like I'm without situation, condition.

It's like I'm lack of energy.

Hal in this case means a little bit of energy, so I'm lack of energy.

So, okay, this one.

Okay, ateşim var, ateşim var.

Do you, you know, Turkish moms generally kiss the foreheads of the kids like

Because, you know, your hands may be cold or, you know, the hands are really affected by the weather.

Either, you know, if it's cold outside, it gets cold easier or if it's hot, it gets sweaty easier.

So it's not a very good way to look at the fever.

And if you don't have the thing, I forgot what was that called.

But if you don't have that thing, you need to, you know, measure the fever to check up.

So the Turkish moms like put their lips on like that.

And my mom used to always can tell like, oh, okay, you have like 38 centigrad.

We use centigrad, not Fahrenheit.

So it's like 38, no, 39.

It's like she had like super lips.

And I'm now still doing that, I think.

It passed on to me from my mom.

Okay, so one more thing about this, ateşin var.

Ateş means, in English it's fever is different, fire is different.

But in Turkish ateş means both fever and fire.

The fire that we know that you start fire or you light fire if you are smoking.

And this is also fire.

We don't have any different word for that.

So, I really hate this, but you can also say, I have a sore throat and a stomach ache.

Something like that.

Boğazım ve karnım ağrıyor.

So this literally means my throat and my stomach hurting, is hurting.

It's like my throat is hurting, my stomach is hurting, my head is hurting.

We use the structure like that.

Başım ağrıyor.

I have a headache.

In English, it's like I have this, I have that.

But in Turkish, it's ağrıyor, it's aching.

My head is aching.

My throat is aching.

My stomach is aching.

So, boğazım ağrıyor, karnım ağrıyor, parmağım ağrıyor, dirseğim ağrıyor.

You can guess the words.

Okay, let's see.

I'm so sorry, but your arm is broken.

Something like that.

Your arm is broken.

Kolunuz kırılmış.

So you got an x-ray.

The x-ray is röntgen, röntgen.

And they say kolunuz kırılmış.

Okay, so they say something like please come back for check-up next week.

Lütfen kontrol için önümüzdeki hafta gelin.

That's it.

So this is not nice to hear, but they may say you may need a surgery.

Ameliyata ihtiyacınız olabilir.

That's not nice.

So for example, the doctors generally check with their hand as well.

So they press on your body and they ask if it's hurt or not.

So for example, buraya bastırdığımda acıyor mu?

Does it hurt when I press here?

Yeah.

Okay, and the last one.

Sağ bileğinizi burkmuşsunuz.

So you sprained your right wrist.

Not wristle.

Yeah, right wristle.

So I think that's the sentences I have.

You need to check for the words for body parts.

You need to remember.

You know there's a song in English like hey shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes.

We don't have a song like that.

But we can say kafa, omuz, diz.

I can't sing it in Turkish.

Kafa, omuz, diz.

Hey shoulders, knees and toes.

Parmaklar.

Kafa, omuz, diz.

Parmaklar.

Kafa.

No.

I know I'm not funny.

But you guys go and we have PDF files.

If you want to look for more content, check out turkishclass101.com.

We have PDF files, more videos.

And you can just log in and check the files.

And you can learn about the body parts there.

And if you have any illness, you can explain it to the doctor.

But I hope you are well and you don't get sick.

Okay, I'm going.

Gidiyorum.

Hoşçakalın.

Bye.

Comments

Hide