Türkçe öğrenmelisin! > You must learn Turkish!

[loftyD]

Merhaba! Hello!

Welcome to loftyD's Learn Turkish Lessons! Here you will learn about noun case endings, vowel harmony and more!

Conventions used in sentences / words:

: Something Cypriot Turkish related.
Underlined Text : Used for highlighting where noun cases in a sentence.
Bold Text: Used for highlighting where possessive adjectives in a sentence.
Italic Text: Handy hints!

Lesson 1: Alphabet, Phonology, Vowel Harmony

The Turkish alphabet is: abcçdefgğhıijklmnoöprsştuüvyz . Turkish is an SOV language:

"Ben ekmek istiyorum" -> "I bread want".

The "yumuşak ge" (ğ) never has a majuscule form in Turkish, however in Azerbaijani, You can see it in some words and the male name "Ğabdullah".

Phonology Breakdown:

Consonants:


Vowels:



The concept of vowel harmony is very very important. There are two types of vowels, Back Vowels and Front Vowels.

Front Vowels:
Unrounded High: i
Rounded High: ü
Unrounded Low: e
Rounded Low: ö

Back Vowels:
Unrounded High: ı
Rounded High: u
Unrounded Low: a
Rounded Low: o

For example the sentence: "Yalnız kaldım bu şehirde".

Because the last syllable of şehir, is an "i", the noun case ending for the front vowels gets agglutinated with it.
It is the same for yalnız. If you front voweled that word, you would get "yelniz", which obviously isn't a real Turkish Word.

Vowel harmony exercises:

1) Kıbrıs'da or Kıbrıs'de ?
2) Yanarım or Yanarim?
3) Karanlıkteydiler or Karanlıktaydılar?
4) Yüzüyor or yüzuyor?
5) Saate or Saata?

Answers:

Spoiler:

1) Kıbrıs'da
2) Yanarım
3) Karanlıktaydılar
4) Yüzüyor
5) Saate * One would think it should be saata but as it is a word from direct Arabic Origin, those words usually do not obey vowel harmony and because of that, it is actually saate.

[Sankon]

Fun! I'll definitely be following this.

Do you mean yüzüyör instead of yüyüzor? I can't make heads of it otherwise.

[loftyD]

"yüzüyör instead of yüzüyor"

no, the "yor" is a present continuous construction for he/she/it.

yüzüyor = He is swimming

[Sankon]

But how would that fit the vowel harmony?

[loftyD]

it doesn't. The yor is part of the present tense ending and doesn't change.

basically in brief:

Yüzmek = To swim

Present Tense = "(V)yor(pronoun ending)", where (V) = the vowel which would match the vowel harmony.

Olmak = To be
ölmek = To die
dağlamak = to set alight

oluyorum = I am being
ölüyorsun = you are dying
dağlıyorum = I am setting alight

These are the vowel harmony combinations!

a-ı
e-i
i-i
o-u
u-u
ö-ü
ü-ü

[loftyD]

Lesson 2 - Basic Phrases, Pronouns and Present Tense Formation


Hello! | Merhaba
How are you? | Nasılsın/Nasılsınız? | Napang? *
I'm fine thanks! | İyiyim teşekkür!
I need water! | Su olmam lazım!
Any news? / What's up? | Naber?
Goodbye! (polite/plural, used by the person leaving) | Hoşçakalın
Goodbye! (informal/singular, used by the person leaving) | Hoşçakal **
Goodbye! (used by person staying) | Güle güle!
Please to meet you! | Memnun oldum!
Excuse me? (beg your pardon) | Afedersiniz

Pronouns

Ben : I
Sen : You(s)
O: He/She/It
Biz: We
Siz: You(pl)
Onlar: They

Present Tense

There are two present tenses, the simple present and the present continuous. We will cover the simple present as it's slightly more complicated than the present continuous.

Simple Present : e.g I go, I eat

Get the verb you want to conjugate. If the verb, when had it's infinitive removed, has one syllable, do this:

Spoiler:

e.g. Koymak: To put | Koy||| Gitmek : To go | Git

Add "ar" (back vowels) or "er" (front vowels):

Spoiler:

Koyar | Gider

Then add the pronoun endings as follows. (Bold)

Spoiler:

Back Vowel Verb:

Ben koyarım
Sen koyarsın
O koyar
Biz koyarız
Siz koyarınız
Onlar koyarlar

Front Vowel Verb:

Ben giderim
Sen gidersin
O gider
Biz gideriz
Siz gideriniz
Onlar giderler

However, if the verb has more than one syllable or the verb is one syllable and ends in a "L" or a "R", add ‘-ir/ır/ur/ür' , then the pronoun ending.

Spoiler:

Konuşmak - Konuş - Konuşur ->

Ben konuşurum
Sen konuşursun
O konuşur
Biz konuşuruz
Siz konuşursunuz
Onlar konuşurlar


Hastalanmak - Hastalan - Hastalanır ->

Ben hastalanırım
Sen hastalanırsın
O hastalanır
Biz hastalanırız
Siz hastalanırınız
Onlar hastalanırlar

Kalmak - Kal - Kalır ->

Ben kalırım
Sen kalırsın
O kalır
Biz kalırız
Siz kalırınız
Onlar kalırlar

Remember the vowel harmony combinations. It is impossible to have the same vowel in a verbal construction.

Spoiler:

Possible Vowel Harmony Combinations:
a-ı
e-i
i-i
o-u
u-u
ö-ü
ü-ü

Sanmak = To think -> Sanar -> Sanarım NOT Sanaram:


For verbs that end in a vowel, just add an "r" and then the ending: Oynamak = To play -> Oynar -> Oynarım -> I play.
Present Continuous will come soon.

Additional Notes:

* Turkish has TV distinction which means the first word should be used formally and the second should be used informally and for groups of people} {Napang can be used when talking to Turkish Cypriots, Napang does not have a formality indicator. Do not say Napang to Turkish people, they may not understand, but if they do, they'll think you're lower class!

** I have been surrounded by Turkish all thoroughout my life and I have never heard this form used. I've always heard Hoşçakalın; even with close family!


Exercises

1) Is Turkish SVO or SOV?
2) Bilmek = To know. What would "I know" (in simple present) be in Turkish?
3) Translate in bold from Turkish to English:
Orhan: Merhaba! Nasılsınız?
Celâl: İyiyim teşekkür! Sen?
Orhan: Hem de iyiyim. Naber?
Celâl: Evet, ben sana arkadaşım Mehmet tanıtmak isterim.
Mehmet: Tanıştığımıza memnun oldum!
Orhan: Celâl şimdi hade!
Mehmet: Görüşörüz!

Answers:

Spoiler:

1) SOV
2) Bilirim
3) Orhan: Hello! How are you?
Celâl: I'm fine thanks! You?
Orhan: I'm also good. Any news?
Celâl: Yes, I want to introduce my friend, Mehmet to you.
Mehmet: Nice/I am pleased to meet you!
Orhan: Come on Celâl, we gotta go!
Mehmet: See you soon!

[loftyD]

Lesson 3: The Negative Simple Present

Today we will learn how to form negative simple present constructions.

First of all: Get a verb: Let's use Yemek (to eat) for front vowels and Açmak (to open) for back vowels.
Remove the 'mek' and 'mak' from the verb and add the appropriate ending.

-mam | -mem - I don’t....
-mazsın | -mezsin - You don’t...(singular/familiar)
- maz | -mez - He/She/It doesn’t...
-mayız | -meyiz - We don’t...
-mazsınız | -mezsiniz - You don’t...(plural/polite)
-mazlar | -mezler - They don’t....

So using those two verbs given, what would be:
1) They don't eat...
2) We don't open...
3) We don't eat...
4) I don't open...

Spoiler:

Answers:
1) Yemezler
2) Açmayız
3) Yemeyiz
4) Açmam

[loftyD]

Lesson 4: Present Continuous: Positive and Negative forms

To form the present continuous tense you remove "mak" / "mek" from the verb and then judging by vowel harmony you add one of these particles to it: ıyor / iyor / uyor / üyor, then after that you add the simple present endings accordingly to each pronoun :D

Ben kalıyorum : I am staying
Ben gidiyorum : I am going
Ben konuşuyorum : I am speaking
Ben ölüyorum : I am dying

Negation:

This is really easy, put an "m" after the verb when you remove "mak" / "mek".

Common irregular verbs [Verb | Pos Form | Neg Form]. Bolded verbs show that extra attention is needed!

İstemek = To want | İstiyorum | İstemiyorum
Yemek = To eat | Yiyorum | Yemiyorum
Demek = To say | Diyorum | Demiyorum
Gitmek = To go | Gidiyorum | Gitmiyorum
Etmek = To do | Ediyorum | Etmiyorum

[loftyD]

Lesson 5: Perfect Tense: Positive and Negative

In Turkish, well at least in my experience, the Turkish Perfect Tense can substitute as a Present-Perfect Tense and a Perfect Tense (like in French: j'ai étudié, "I have studied" / "I studied").

We will use 4 verbs to demonstrate the Perfect Tense:

kalmak : To stay
ölmek : To die
olmak : To be
zehirlemek : To poison

First of all, remove the infinitive from the verb. Add <d>, then choose the applicable ending:

Verb + <d> + :

Ben: <ım / im / um / üm>
Sen: <ın /in / un / ün>
O: <ı / i / u / ü>
Biz: <ık / ik / uk / ük>
Siz: <ınız / iniz / unuz / ünüz>
Onlar : <ılar / iler / ular / üler>

Mini Exercises:

1) We stayed.
2) They poisoned.
3) You have become. (Sen)
4) Celâl died.

Spoiler:

1) Kaldık
2) Zehirlediler
3) Oldun
4) Celâl öldü

Negative Perfect:

Even easier, First of all, remove the <k> from the verb. Add <d>, then choose the applicable ending:


Verb with <ma/me> + <d> + :

Ben: <ım / im>
Sen: <ın / in >
O: <ı / i >
Biz: <ık / ik >
Siz: <ınız / iniz >
Onlar : <ılar / iler >

Mini Exercises:

1) We have not stayed.
2) They have not poisoned.
3) You have not become. (Sen)
4) Celâl didn't die.

Spoiler:

1) Kalmadık
2) Zehirlemediler
3) Olmadın
4) Celâl ölmedi

Next lesson will be imperfect tense.

[loftyD]

Imperfect Tense:

The imperfect tense is formed using part of the present continuous and preterite.

kalmak: to stay / yemek: to eat / konuşmak: to talk / ölmek: to die

To form the imperfect, remove -mak , -mek from the verb and add the ending appropriately. If the verb has an irregular present continuous construction, use that.

Ben: <ıyordum / iyordum / uyordum / üyordum>
Sen: <ıyordun /iyordun / uyordun / üyordun>
O: <ıyordu / iyordu / uyordu / üyordu>
Biz: <ıyorduk / iyorduk / uyorduk / üyorduk>
Siz: <ıyordunuz / iyordunuz / uyordunuz / üyordunuz>
Onlar : <ıyordular / iyordular / uyordular / üyordular>

To negate, simply add an 'm' before the ending. Oynuyordum = I was playing. Oynmuyordum = I was not playing.
What would [in bold] be:

1) I was staying at home.
2) He was dying from the Ayran.
3) We were not talking to the cat.
4) You were eating octupus on Friday.
5) They were smoking [Sigara içmek] .

Spoiler:

1) Evde kalıyordum
2) Ayrandan ölüyordu
3) Keddiye konuşmuyorduk
4) Cuma'da ahtapot [sen: yiyordun] [siz: yiyordunuz].
5) Sigara içiyordular.

[alexander]

This is great!

I've been taking a free Turkish class at my university, but I haven't yet come into contact with any Turkish outside of the class. I'm not very good yet, but I can understand a fair amount so far!

Thanks for the guide!

[Prinsessa]

Do not say Napang to Turkish people, they may not understand, but if they do, they'll think you're lower class!

What a disgrace.

Anyway, great job on putting in the effort. It can be a bit hard to follow sometimes, but I suppose that goes for any language. Just make sure you're not jumping too quickly ahead of yourself (or more importantly, your students). Turkish is a cool language.

[Santophrin]

4) Cuma'da ahtapot [sen: yiyordun] [siz: yiyordunuz].

That doesn't seem like a very good example to me. It sounds as if you were eating octopus at Cuma Namazı.
What about something like "Sen evde ahtapot yiyordun." You were eating octopus at home.
Do we ever use "-de/da" for time? (nothing comes to my mind except stuff "sonrasında" but those are different grammatical situations) We don't normally say "yarında" or "sabahda".

[zyma]

An old thread, I know, but I still thought it would be fun to do.

---

These are a bunch of questions I had about the thread other than the exercises. I put them under a spoiler to save space and whatnot.

Spoiler:

The "yumuşak ge" (ğ) never has a majuscule form in Turkish, however in Azerbaijani, You can see it in some words and the male name "Ğabdullah".

Is Turkish ever written in all capital letters for one reason or another? Would <Ğ> be used in one of those cases?

Phonology Breakdown:

Hmm… it's a bit of a shame the images have expired or whatever the term is, but at least there are explanations of Turkish phonology and phonemic inventory charts for Turkish elsewhere, like on Wikipedia.

it doesn't. The yor is part of the present tense ending and doesn't change.

Are there any rules concerning which suffixes are changed by vowel harmony and which ones aren't? Or is "-yor" the only one that doesn't change?

These are the vowel harmony combinations!

a-ı
e-i
i-i
o-u
u-u
ö-ü
ü-ü

That's only seven vowels out of eight. What happens if <ı> is the last vowel of the root/stem?

İyiyim teşekkür!

<-kk->? Is consonant gemination phonemic?

Gitmek : To go | Git
[…]
Gider

Why "gitmek" with a <-t-> but "gider" with a <-d->?

Konuşmak - Konuş - Konuşur ->

Ben konuşurum
Sen konuşursun
O konuşur
Biz konuşuruz
Siz konuşursunuz
Onlar konuşurlar

Why is it "onlar konuşurlar" and not "onlar konuşurlor"? I would have thought the suffix vowel would be back and rounded like the verb's other vowels.

* Turkish has TV distinction which means the first word should be used formally and the second should be used informally and for groups of people}

Does this only apply to certain expressions/sayings/phrases/greetings/exclamations/interjections/etc. like these, or are there formal and informal verb endings or something like that?

Common irregular verbs [Verb | Pos Form | Neg Form]. Bolded verbs show that extra attention is needed!

İstemek = To want | İstiyorum | İstemiyorum
Yemek = To eat | Yiyorum | Yemiyorum
Demek = To say | Diyorum | Demiyorum
Gitmek = To go | Gidiyorum | Gitmiyorum
Etmek = To do | Ediyorum | Etmiyorum

Are these the only irregular verbs, or are there less common ones? Are these verbs only irregular in the positive present continuous forms (and positive imperfect forms), or in other forms as well? Are there verbs that are regular in these forms, but irregular in others?

The imperfect tense is formed using part of the present continuous and preterite.

Do you mean "perfect" instead of "preterite"?

To negate, simply add an 'm' before the ending. Oynuyordum = I was playing. Oynmuyordum = I was not playing.

I assume that these forms are regular even when their positive counterparts are irregular, like in the present continuous?

---

I checked my answers with the ones given. Questions regarding the exercises are written under the spoilers in this color.

Self-corrections are written in this color.

Lesson 1:

Spoiler:

Vowel harmony exercises:

1) Kıbrıs'da or Kıbrıs'de? Kıbrıs'da What does the <'> represent?
2) Yanarım or Yanarim? Yanarım
3) Karanlıkteydiler or Karanlıktaydılar? Karanlıktaydılar
4) Yüzüyor or Yüzuyor? Yüzüyor Is "-yor" special, or are there other endings that are uninfluenced by vowel harmony?
5) Saate or Saata? Saata Saate Heh, I guess this one was a trick question.

Lesson 2:

Spoiler:

Exercises

1) Is Turkish SVO or SOV? SOV
2) Bilmek = To know. What would "I know" (in simple present) be in Turkish? bilirim
3) Translate in bold from Turkish to English:
Orhan: Merhaba! Nasılsınız? Hello! How are you?
Celâl: İyiyim teşekkür! Sen? I'm fine, thanks! You?
Orhan: Hem de iyiyim. Naber? ??? ??? ???. Any news? I'm also good. Any news?
Celâl: Evet, ben sana arkadaşım Mehmet tanıtmak isterim. ???, I ??? ??? Mehmet ??? ???. Yes, I want to introduce my friend, Mehmet to you.
Mehmet: Tanıştığımıza memnun oldum! ??? pleased to meet you! Nice/I am pleased to meet you!
Orhan: Celâl şimdi hade! Celâl ??? ???! Come on Celâl, we gotta go!
Mehmet: Görüşörüz! ???! See you soon!

Were we supposed to use an outside resource for the translation? I couldn't find a good amount of those words in the thread.

Lesson 3:

Spoiler:

So using those two verbs given, what would be:
1) They don't eat... yemezler
2) We don't open... açmayız
3) We don't eat... yemeyiz
4) I don't open... açmam

Lesson 5:

Spoiler:

Mini Exercises:

1) We stayed. Biz kaldık.
2) They poisoned. Onlar zehirlediler.
3) You have become. (Sen) Sen oldun.
4) Celâl died. Celâl öldü.

Mini Exercises:

1) We have not stayed. Biz kalmadık.
2) They have not poisoned. Onlar zehirlemediler.
3) You have not become. (Sen) Sen olmadın.
4) Celâl didn't die. Celâl ölmedi.

Wait, so is Turkish pro-drop, or not? Sometimes you've given examples where pronouns are used with the verbs, but they aren't in the answers to these exercises.

Also, what does the <â> in words like "Celâl" represent? And wouldn't the two 3) exercise sentences be translated in English as "You have been" and "You have not been", since the given translation of "olmak" is "to be", not "to become"?

Lesson 6:

Spoiler:

What would [in bold] be:

1) I was staying at home. ben kalıyordum
2) He was dying from the Ayran. o ölüyordu
3) We were not talking to the cat. biz konuşmuyorduk
4) You were eating octupus on Friday. sen yiyordun / siz yiyordunuz Did you want 2s or 2p here? …According to the spoiler, both, so it was a lucky guess on my part to do both.
5) They were smoking [Sigara içmek]. onlar sigara içiyordular

Again, I wasn't sure whether or not to include the pronouns.

What's the situation with "sigara"? Would the sentence be "onlar sigara içiyordular" or just "onlar içiyordular"?