Tips and notes

HO GELDINIZ! WELCOME!
Turkish, unlike many Indo-European languages, contains no articles at all! Surprisingly simple, right? Turkish does have its
own little quirks that will make it a challenge.

Word Order
Turkish is a Subject-Object-Verb language, meaning that sentences take on a different word order than that of English,
French, German, or most other languages that English speakers most commonly study. That being said, a background in
Japanese, Korean, or Hungarian will prove very useful. The verb always comes at the end of the sentence in written
Turkish (spoken Turkish allows for some flexibility).
For example: Ben gazete okurum. Literally I newspaper read., meaning, I read newspapers.

Verb Tenses
The Turkish language does distinguish between a present continuous and a simple present tense. In this lesson, we
have included the simple present form of a few verbs, but this will be taught later in greater detail. This means that there is
a difference in the sentences:
I eat a sandwich. (present simple) I am eating a sandwich. (present continuous)
Be careful while you are translating, because this does make a difference, just like in English!

Pronouns
The Turkish pronouns are as follows:
Singular

Plural

1st Person

Ben

Biz

2nd Person

Sen

Siz

3rd Person

Onlar

Siz behaves just like vous in French, serving both as you (plural) and you (formal).

Articles
There are no articles in Turkish! The number one (bir) is sometimes used to distinguish between the/a(n). However, if a noun
is in the subject position, there is no way to tell! Cool, right? This being said, if the noun is in the object position, Turkish does
distinguish between the/a(n). In this lesson, we will only use a(n) in the object position, but we will teach you in the
Accusative skill how to do it the other way.

Commands
Forming the informal imperative form in Turkish is extremely simple. All you have to do is use the root form of the verb. More
information about the formal imperative can be found in the skill to be. Here are the two verb in this lesson in their
dictionary (infinitive) and informal imperative forms:

Infinitive

English

Inf. Imp.

English

yemek

to eat

Ye!

Eat!

imek

to drink

Drink!

Adjectives 1

Tips and notes

Adjectives and all modifiers in Turkish must always come before the nouns that they modify when they operate as modifiers.
This does not stand true if it is used as a predicate adjective with the verb to be in English (e.g. The dog is happy). If you
use the number bir as an article, this will come directly before the noun. For example:
souk elma --The cold apple
souk bir elma -- A cold apple
Elma souk -- The apple is cold.
Adjectives are also not declined according to gender and number like what is common to many European languages. This
means that adjectives behave pretty close to their English counterparts and shouldnt pose too big of a challenge.

Food

Tips and notes

General Direct Objects
Selam!
In Turkish, if you have a general direct object, there is no need to put any case or suffix on the object itself. A general direct
object is one that uses a/an or the plural without the. If you want to be extra specific, you can add the numeral bir to make
sure that the meaning a/an is given. For example:
Turkish

English

O portakal yer.

He/She/It eats oranges or He/She/It eats an orange.

O bir portakal yer.

He/She/It eats an orange.

Just keep in mind, "O portakallar yer" is simply wrong in Turkish.

Happy Learning!

Accusative

Tips and notes

Welcome to your second of the 7 cases in Turkish. You have already been using the nominative case to describe subjects
and some objects. The accusative case in Turkish is used to mark specific direct objects. What does this mean exactly? A
specific direct object is one that uses the article the. For example:
Turkish

English

Ben gazete okurum.

I read newspapers. or I read a newspaper.

Ben gazeteyi okurum.

I read the newspaper.

Ben bir gazete okurum.

I read a newspaper.

As you can see above, the accusative is only used when referring to the newspaper. Now, how do we form the accusative
case? This will bring you to one of the funnest aspects of the Turkish language, vowel harmony.

Vowel Harmony
In Turkish, vowels within a (native) word and any suffixes that are attached to said word must obey vowel harmony rules.
This means that vowels tend to either be the same or similar, making words easier to pronounce than they may look. There
are two types of vowel harmony in Turkish, 4-way and 2-way. The accusative case uses 4-way vowel harmony. In order to
figure out what may go on the end, you will have to look at thefinal vowel in the word.
Turkish

Accusative Suffix

-(y)

o,u

-(y)u

e,i

-(y)i

a,

-(y)

If the noun ends in a vowel, you have to insert the buffer letter y. Here are some examples:
Turkish, Nominative

Turkish, Accusative

English

elma

elmay

apple

gazete

gazeteyi

newspaper

st

st

milk

limon

limonu

lemon

Consonant Mutations
There is one final thing to talk about in terms of the accusative case. That would be your first taste of consonant mutations,
often called consonant harmony. Consonants often change at the end of words depending on if it is followed by a vowel or
a consonant. If they are followed by a vowel, they will generally change into voiced consonants. For example:

Turkish, Nominative

Turkish, Accusative

English

kitap

kitab

book

aa

aac

tree

kpek

kpei

dog

This means:

pb

td

This rule in general does not affect single syllable words, but there are exceptions of course. You will even come across
exceptions to vowel harmony in loanwords from Arabic, Farsi, and French. These must be learned as you encounter them.
In the meantime, happy learning and kolay gelsin.