Yunus Emre Institute (YEI) organized a 6 month course program for officers serving in the Mauritanian army to learn Turkish. The Turkish course that YEI started in February 2021 at the Mauritanian Gendarmerie Command ended on July 29, 2021. Officers who learned Turkish received their certificates at a ceremony. The ceremony was attended by General Mohamed Abellahi Taya, Colonel Mohamed Yebra Eminou and Colonel Mohamed Eyde from the Mauritanian Gendarmerie General Command, and Halil Atik, Second Clerk and Interim Charge d'affaires from the Turkish Embassy in Nuakchott, and Gendermarie Colonel Kürşat Soysal, Ministry of Interior Counselor.

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES WILL BE FURTHER DEVELOPED BY COMMON LANGUAGE

In his speech at the ceremony, General Taya stated that the ties between Turkey and Mauritania would develop further with a common language and it would be a good decision to use Turkish as this language. Taya has expressed a demand that the course to be carried out continuously.

Mehmet Akif Alkaya, Lecturer from Kırşehir Ahi Evran University, who worked in the course on behalf of YEI, made the following evaluations regarding the Turkish teaching process:

"Four basic skills of students have been developed in our 6 month course for A1 and A2 levels. Our trainees have reached a level where they can speak, understand, listen and write Turkish at a simple level. In addition to expressions used in daily life, gendarmerie soldiers were also taught simple command sentences, which are at the level of military basic education and that they will often use in their professional lives."

Alkaya also noted that during the course, the soldiers were given information about Turkey's historical and touristic sites, especially Cappadocia and Pamukkale, and the country's domestic production defense technologies, including armed unmanned aerial vehicles named SIHA (drones).

THEY STRENGTHEN THEIR LANGUAGE LEARNING WITH TURKISH TV SERIES

Sharing their thoughts on the Turkish education they received in the course, the officers stated that they felt ready for military training in Turkey and that Turkish TV series also contributed to language learning throughout the process.

The officers expressed that they learned about Turkish history and life from TV series they watched during the language learning process such as "Uyanış: Büyük Selçuklu" (The Great Seljuks: Guardians of Justice), "Kuruluş: Osman" (Establishment: Osman) and "Söz" (The Promise), and the songs they listened to improved their Turkish.