Essential Turkish phrases

'Welcome' and its obligatory reply, 'I find it pleasant'. Anyone who says the first expects the second — getting it right marks you out immediately.

'May it come easy' — said to anyone who is working: the shift changing at a factory gate, the waiter, the man fixing your boiler. In a city that runs on shifts you'll hear it fifty times a day.

'Health to your hands' — said to whoever cooked or made something. The right compliment in a city built on one dish and a craft tradition.

Shift. Bursa's day is set by the plants — 'vardiyadayım' means I'm on shift, and it explains why the traffic peaks at 6am and 4pm rather than 9 and 6.

Not a generic dish. Doner over pide with browned butter and tomato was invented here in 1867 by İskender Efendi; ordering it in Bursa means ordering the original.

'One and a half portions' — how locals actually order İskender. One is a light lunch, two defeats most people.

Candied chestnut, Bursa's signature sweet, made from the chestnuts on Uludağ's lower slopes. You are expected to bring some back from any visit.

The 8.8 km cable car from the city up Uludağ. 'Teleferikle çıkalım' — let's go up by cable car — is a normal Saturday suggestion here.

'Is there snow?' Asked about the mountain, not the city, and it decides the whole weekend from December to March.

'Let's meet at Koza Han' — the 1491 silk caravanserai in the old centre is the city's default meeting point, the way a clock tower is elsewhere.

'How much?' — blunter and far more everyday than the textbook 'ne kadar'. Useful in the covered bazaar, useless in a supermarket.

Help! — for emergencies. Dial 112 for police, fire and ambulance; on Uludağ and in the villages it is the jandarma who respond.