During the learning process of a new language, there are many disagreements, especially regarding the use of politeness expressions. This is also true for Turkey and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, despite having a common history spanning 500 years. Bosnian students living in these countries experience disagreements based on the use of politeness expressions in Turkey, where they come for educational purposes, and these disagreements lead to conflicts. This study aimed to determine the opinions of Bosnian students learning Turkish as a foreign language regarding politeness expressions, strategies and usage in Turkish. An interview form developed by the researchers was used as the data collection tool and the interviews were conducted with 10 Bosnian students from the aforementioned countries via the online application Zoom. The findings were analyzed using the content analysis technique. As a result of the analysis of the data, “thanking, wishing well and making a compliment, making a request and apologizing” were determined to be the most commonly used politeness expressions. The study also found that there were significant differences between the politeness expressions used in Turkish and the expressions in Bosnian, and that as these expressions were learned over time, the students became successful in communicating and the disagreements were resolved; It was revealed that although the students had a certain knowledge about politeness strategies in general, this knowledge was not sufficient and the students were limited to using a few politeness strategies. At the end of the study, it was suggested that the practices that include polite expressions in Turkish lessons should be increased so that students can better understand and use politeness strategies.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, language use, politeness expressions, student opinions, teaching Turkish as a foreign language