Language Barriers

I have about 50 reliable Turkish words.  Those are the words I can pronounce and remember when needed. I can ask how much and often I can understand the reply. I can say yes and no, thank you and please. I can ask "where is the ...?" and "do you have any ...?".  I know that adet is piece and raf is shelf.  I can say welcome and hello.

But with only 50 words, many words escape me.  I stood in the shampoo aisle at the grocery store for long time last week trying to choose shampoo.  I knew it was the shampoo aisle because one of the brand names was Head and Shoulders; same packaging and logo as North America.  Unfortunately Head and Shoulders sells shampoo and conditioner and I had no idea what word was which. (shampoo = sampuan).

We grocery shopped in Kesan a couple of weeks ago.  This grocery store has more choices than our local Kipa, so I wasn't surprised to find two brands of yeast on the top shelf of one of the aisles.  I knew it was yeast because it was packaged just like I find it at home.  Unfortunately, I was so sure of it that I didn't open it or google translate it when I got home.  I just opened it moments before I needed to add it to the pizza dough recipe.  I knew as soon as I opened it that the little yellow grains weren't yeast.  Turns out semolina is sold in little vacuum packed rectangles.  I solved the pizza problem with biscuit dough but it just wasn't the same. And now I have two cups of semolina to turn into pudding or porridge!