1. Turkish belongs to the Ural-Altaic family of languages, and is rather different from languages of the Indo-European family. There are 29 letters in the Turkish alphabet, and it may be helpful to look at the list of letters following this phrase list to familiarise yourself with the pronunciation. You can see that some of the endings (especially the questions in these examples) have an  '-iz' . This indicates a formal, less familiar tone, similar to "vous" in French.
   
2. Turkish pronunciation is phonetic, very few letters are 'swallowed' in most instances each letter is pronounced, usually in pairs; i.e., Merhaba is pronounced MARE - HA - BA with the MARE being pronounced as mare in english, HA as in haha :o), BA as in bah humbug  :o)
3. Try using a little Turkish whilst you are here, it will be greatly appreciated and bring a big smile.
4. One very important phrase is Hoş Geldiniz pronounced "hosh gel din iz".  You may well hear this a lot as you enter a resturant or shop, it's a form of greeting, it's near literal translation is "You came well", basically well come or welcome :o) The proper response is Hoş Bulduk pronounced "hosh bull duk", " we found well". If you remember nothing but this, you'll go a long way :o)
5. The phonetic pronounciation is written using english English pronounciation, sorry to any Americans, etc. just pretend you're English and use that pronounciation :o)
   

Pronunciation guide of Turkish alphabet:

A – sounds like ah as in " awful"

B – sounds like b as in " bed"

C – sounds like j as in " juniper"

Ç – sounds like ch as in " chipper"

D – sounds like d as in " dog"

E – sounds like eh as in " hey"

F – sounds like f as in " fun"

G – sounds like g as in " gift"

Ğ – silent letter ( The English word 'yoghurt' (or yogurt) is taken from the Turkish yoğurt, pronounced: 'yo-urt')

H – sounds like h as in " happy"

I – sounds like ə as in "th e"

İ – sounds like i as in " interest"

J – sounds like je  as in  "mira ge"

K – sounds like k as in " king"

L – sounds like l as in  " love"

M – sounds like m as in " man"

N – sounds like n as in " none"

O – sounds like o as in " over"

Ö – sounds like ö as in "c ook"

P – sounds like p as in  " pickle"

R – sounds like r as in  " river"

S – sounds like s as in " supper"

Ş – sounds like sh as in " shelf"

T – sounds like t as in " top"

U – sounds like u as in  " oodles"

Ü – sounds like ü as in "astute"

V – sounds like v as in " vestibule"

Y – sounds like y as in " yes"

Z – sounds like z as in  " zoo"