Learning Turkish language

[alp_er]

Turkish is a language of the Ural-Altaic family. It's quite logical, with few exceptional rules and no genders, but its agglutinative structure is so different from Indo-European languages that speakers of those languages may find its grammar a challenge to learn at first.

(Agglutinative means that words and sentences are made by adding suffixes to a root-word.)

Suffixes
A Turkish word starts with a short root (such as git-, 'go'). One or more suffixes are added to modify the root (gitti, 's/he went'). English uses only a few suffixes, such as -'s for possessive, -s or -es for plural, but Turkish has dozens of suffixes.You can make whole sentences in Turkish out of one little word root and a lot of suffixes.

NOUN SUFFIXES

Plural: -lar, -ler
Bankalar, banks
Oteller, hotels

To, Toward: -a, -e (or -ya, -ye)
Bankaya, to the bank
Otele, to the hotel

From: -dan, -den
Bankadan, from the bank
Otelden, from the hotel

Possessive: -ın, -in, -nın, or -nin
Bankanın, the bank's
Otelin, the hotel's

With: -lı, -li, -lu, -lü
Et, meat; etli, with meat
Süt, milk; sütlü, with milk

Without: -sız,-siz,-suz, -süz
Et, meat; etsiz, without meat, meatless
Süt, milk; sütsüz, without milk

You may see -ı, -i, -u or -ü, -sı, -si, -su or -sü added to any noun. An ev is a house; but the ev that Mehmet lives in is Mehmet'in evi.

VERB SUFFIXES

Infinitive: -mak, -mek
Almak, to take or buy
Gitmek, to go

Simple present: -ar, -er, -ır, -ir, -ur, -ür
Alır, he/she/it takes or buys
Gider, he/she/it goes

Future: -acak, -ecek, -acağ-, -eceğ-
Alacak, he/she/it will take, buy
Gidecek, he/she/it will go

Simple past: -dı, -di, -du, -dü
Aldı, he/she/it took, bought
Gitti, he/she/it went

Continuous: -ıyor-, -iyor- (like English '-ing')
Alıyor, he/she/it is taking, buying
Gidiyor, he/she/it is going

Question: -mı, -mi, -mu, -mü
Alıyor mu? Is he/she/it taking (it)?
Gidecek mi? Will he/she/it go?

First Person Singular (I):-ım, -im, -um, -üm
Alırım, I take

Second Person Singular (you-informal): -sın, -sin, -sun, -sün
Alırsın, You take

Third Person Singular (he/she/it): (no suffix)
Alır, he/she/it takes

First Person Plural (we): -ız, -iz, -uz,-üz
Alırız, we take

Second Person Plural (you-formal): -sınız, -siniz, -sunuz,-sünüz
Alırsınız, You (plural) take; or You (singular-formal) take

Third Person Plural (they): -lar, -ler
Alırlar, They take.



WORD ORDER
Nouns and adjectives usually come first, followed by the verb. The subject of the sentence is often the final suffix (unless the sentence is a question):

İstanbul'a gidecegim, I'm going to Istanbul.

Halı almak istiyorum, I want to buy (take) a carpet (literally 'Carpet to buy want I')



THE FUN BEGINS
Now you can slap a lot of suffixes together and get Afyonkarahisarlılastıramadıklarımızdan mısınız? It's actually a word, and also a complete sentence! But, it must be admitted, it was made up just to show off the agglutinative facility of Turkish.

What does it mean? "Are you from among that group of people whom we attempted to make to resemble the citizens of Afyonkarahisar, but were unable to do so?"

Yeah, right.

*alıntıdır/its taken from a web site


i hope it helps with ur Turkish

[bogazici86]

hey, that's very good alp! I will have done it tomorrow, you did it! thank you! so, you made my work simpler

[maria_gr]

Aha! Alp that's really good. Just a question:

I know that in plural we put -ler when there are before ü, ö, e, i and -lar when there are o, u, a, ı. With the other suffıxes happens the same?

[alp_er]

Originally Posted by maria_gr

Aha! Alp that's really good. Just a question:

I know that in plural we put -ler when there are before ü, ö, e, i and -lar when there are o, u, a, ı. With the other suffıxes happens the same?

yes my friend,its the same

[bogazici86]

Turkish is a language of the Ural-Altaic family. It's quite logical, with few exceptional rules and no genders, but its agglutinative structure is so different from Indo-European languages that speakers of those languages may find its grammar a challenge to learn at first.

(Agglutinative means that words and sentences are made by adding suffixes to a root-word.)

Suffixes
A Turkish word starts with a short root (such as git-, 'go'). One or more suffixes are added to modify the root (gitti, 's/he went'). English uses only a few suffixes, such as -'s for possessive, -s or -es for plural, but Turkish has dozens of suffixes.You can make whole sentences in Turkish out of one little word root and a lot of suffixes.

NOUN SUFFIXES

Plural: -lar, -ler (-lAr)
Bankalar, banks
Oteller, hotels

To, Toward: -a, -e/ -ya, -ye ( -A/-yA)
Bankaya, to the bank
Otele, to the hotel

From: -dan, -den, -tan , -ten (-DAn)Bankadan, from the bank
Otelden, from the hotel
iş-ten => from the work

Possessive: -ın, -in, -nın, or -nin [ -(n)In ]
Banka-nın, the bank's
Otel-in, the hotel's

With: -lı, -li, -lu, -lü (-lI)
Et, meat; et-li, with meat
Süt, milk; süt-lü, with milk

Without: -sız,-siz,-suz, -süz (-sIz)
Et, meat; et-siz, without meat, meatless
Süt, milk; süt-süz, without milk

>>>Possesive suffix=>You may see "-ı, -i, -u or -ü" , -sı, -si, -su or -sü added to any noun. An ev is a house; but the ev that Mehmet lives in is Mehmet'in evi. ( -(s)I )=> (third person singular) Ali'nin kedi-si (Ali's cat)

VERB SUFFIXES

Infinitive: -mak, -mek
Almak, to take or buy
Gitmek, to go

Simple present: -ar, -er, -ır, -ir, -ur, -ür (-Ar/-Ir)
Alır, he/she/it takes or buys
Gider, he/she/it goes

Future: -acak, -ecek, -acağ-, -eceğ (-AcAK)
Alacak, he/she/it will take, buy
Gidecek, he/she/it will go

Simple past: -dı, -di, -du, -dü, -tı, -ti, -tu, -tü (-DI)
Al-dı, he/she/it took, bought
Git-ti, he/she/it went

Continuous: -ıyor-, -iyor, - uyor, -üyor ( -(I)yor ) (like English '-ing')
Al-ıyor, he/she/it is taking, buying
gel-iyor , she/he is coming

Question: -mı, -mi, -mu, -mü (-mI)
Alıyor mu? Is he/she/it taking (it)?
Gidecek mi? Will he/she/it go?

First Person Singular (I):-ım, -im, -um, -üm (-Im)
Alır-ım, I take

Second Person Singular (you-informal): -sın, -sin, -sun, -sün ( -(s)I(n) )
Alırsın, You take

Third Person Singular (he/she/it): (no suffix)
Alır, he/she/it takes

First Person Plural (we): -ız, -iz, -uz,-üz (-Iz)
Alır-ız, we take

Second Person Plural (you-formal): -sınız, -siniz, -sunuz,-sünüz ( -(sI)nIz )
Alır-sınız, You (plural) take; or You (singular-formal) take
geldi-niz , you came
Third Person Plural (they): -lar, -ler (-lAr)
Alır-lar, They take.



WORD ORDER
Nouns and adjectives usually come first, followed by the verb. The subject of the sentence is often the final suffix (unless the sentence is a question):

İstanbul'a gideceg-im, I'm going to Istanbul. ("-im" shows us the subject of the sentence. We call this kind of subjects as "hidden subject" Subject is "ben" (I) in this sentence.)

Halı almak istiyor-um, I want to buy (take) a carpet (literally 'Carpet to buy want I') (hidden subject; ben)



THE FUN BEGINS
Now you can slap a lot of suffixes together and get Afyonkarahisarlılastıramadıklarımızdan mısınız? It's actually a word, and also a complete sentence! But, it must be admitted, it was made up just to show off the agglutinative facility of Turkish.

What does it mean? "Are you from among that group of people whom we attempted to make to resemble the citizens of Afyonkarahisar, but were unable to do so?"

Yeah, right.

*alıntıdır/its taken from a web site


**you see that I wrote some of the letters with capital letters in the suffixes:
"A" => a,e
"I"=> ı, i, u, ü
"D"=> d, t
"K"=> k, ğ
They're written in this way in linguistics. I hope it helps you with memorizing the suffixes easier.

Alp; I hope there's no problem for you because of my adding and improving some of the things here

[maria_gr]

Originally Posted by alp_er

yes my friend,its the same

Thanks!

[alp_er]

Originally Posted by bogazici86

hey, that's very good alp! I will have done it tomorrow, you did it! thank you! so, you made my work simpler

im glad you like it and im happy for making ur work simpler..i like ur works too(anything about turkish language)

[alp_er]

Originally Posted by maria_gr

Thanks!

anytime my dearest friend

[bogazici86]

I'll give grammatical information in this thread and I'll add new words in "turkish mini-dictionary" thread. So you can find new words in mini-dictionary thread here's some grammar about adjectives:

A BASİC PATTERN TO MAKE A PHRASE
>>The article in Turkish is “BİR” (a, an)

bir ev (a house)
bir kız (a girl)
bir çocuk (a child)

>>HOW(Nasıl) +Article+noun
Questions
Nasıl bir ev(dir*)? (What kind of a house?)
Nasıl bir kızdır? (What kind of a girl?)
Nasıl bir çocuktur? (What kind of a child?)

*This suffix is the auxiliary verb(like “am/is/are” in english) for the third person singular.
Answers (Adjective+article+noun)
Güzel bir ev ( a pretty house)
Çirkin bir kız ( an ugly girl)
İyi bir çocuk ( a good child)

ADJECTİVES
>>In Turkish, adjectives come before the nouns:
güzel ev (pretty house)
çirkin kız (ugly girl)
>>Comparative form: The comparative degree of an adj. Or an adv. is formed by placing “DAHA”(more) in front of the adj and the adv.
İyi (good) => daha iyi (better) ; daha iyi kız (better girl)
Büyük (big) => daha büyük (bigger)
>>Superlative form: The superlative degree of an adj. Or adv. is formed by placing “EN”(most) in front of the adj. or the adv.
Küçük (small) => en küçük
Yavaş (slow) => en yavaş
>>Interrogative Form of Adj.s: (Subj.)+adj.+-mI*?
Güzel mi? (Is it pretty?)
*”-mI” is question suffix; it’s always written seperately, like an individual word. The vowel in “-mI” changes depending on the vowel in the last syllable of the word:
>after “a,ı” => -mı
>after “e,i” => -mi
>after “o,u” => -mu
>after “ö,ü” => -mü

The Negative Form of Adjectives (adj.+değil)
>> güzel değil ( (It’s) not pretty)
****Special usage; not applicable to all adjectives=> adj.+-lI(-lı, -li, -lu, -lü) (for positive) ; adj.+-sIz(-sız, -siz, -suz, -süz) (for negative)
akıl-lı (clever)  akıl-sız (stupid)
güç-lü (strong)  güç-süz (weak)


Demonstrative Adjectives
Bu (this) => bu kız (this girl)
Şu (that) => şu ev (that house)
O (that) => o çocuk (that child)

All these are also used in plural forms like “bu çocuklar” (these children). As you see, while forming adj.s in Turkish, we don’t touch the adj.s themselves (I mean, their plurality or singularity), but we change the nouns by adding suffixes.

[Thin Air]

Well done peeps!

I'm actually trying to learn Turkish on my spare time, although lately, I've been too lazy to practice it myself.

I've actually bought myself a small pocket dictionary and CD in Turkish as well which helps you learn the langauge and I've been trying to memorize the things they say in the CD. The CD is actually designed for tourists whom will be going to Turkey for a while. So some simple phrases are stated by a Turkish speaker in the CD. Some of which I have already memorized include, "Bunu ne Kadar?" (How much is this?) "Yardim Edebiler musiniz?" (Can you please help me?) LOL - I know that it's not much, but hopefully I'll know a lot more when by the time I visit Tukey next month. So I can't wait for that.

[bogazici86]

"Bu ne kadar?" and "Yardım edebilir misiniz?" are the right sayings I see you're glad because of my adding some rules about turkish language, I think about adding some conversations, too What would you think about this?

[Thin Air]

Originally Posted by bogazici86

I think about adding some conversations, too What would you think about this?

That would be awesome!!!

It'll give me time to memorize and prepare for them ahead of time for my trip.

Of course, you can do it on your own pace and convenience. There's no rush.

[alp_er]

Alp; I hope there's no problem for you because of my adding and improving some of the things here[/quote]

ohh my dear,of course no!! we're just trying to help people here,i dont rent this threadhehe good job btw ,i'Ll add something too

[bogazici86]

ok thanks my good friend

[Glamdring]

Why sometimes there is a suffix "siz", regardless of the root vowel.
For example, sadakatsiz (faithless).
Can you give me more examples of this "siz", with root vowel other than e/i

[natali]

oh thank you so much!! my dad was trying to teach me these endings the other day....but i forgot them!! thank you for posting this its very helpful

[bogazici86]

"sadakat" is an arabic word. I didn't analysed all the arabic words but " not all of them that end with "at" take the suffix "siz". I'll make a study about it for you. I can give more examples:
>> şefkat-siz
>>dikkat-siz
>>takat-siz

<=>but;;

>>vukuat-sız
>>teşkilat-sız
>>sıfat-sız
>>saltanat-sız

As you see, all of the above words are arabic but they differ in the way they take the suffix "-sIz". If you ask my personal idea (because I didn't study all arabic words as I said), this is related with phonology. "sadakatsiz, şefkatsiz, etc.." the [t] sound at the end of these words are different from the words like "sıfaTsız, vukuaTsız, etc..." at least in Turkish in terms of pronunciation. But in arabic, all these words' ending sound [t] is written with the same letter. But I think the pronunciation of that [t] sounds are different, I mean they changed in turkish maybe. So, there an irregularity on this issue as you see. If you have any point that you didn't understand, ask please. ok?

[Glamdring]

I understand.
It makes sense - when borrowing the word from Arabic, the "t" sound might have had additional features, that caused it not to be harmonized in the traditional way. These features are now probably completely lost, but they mattered at the time of borrowing.
Additionally, I was told that some words ending in -l (L) add -siz, regardless of the root vowel. Can you give examples? (the friend of mine cannot remember them now, but they are from some songs). And is the explanation similar?

Thanks a lot in advance.

P.S. The Ural-Altaic macrofamily is a hypothesis that has not been proven. The Altaic family itself is questioned, because of the major differences in the three groups.

[bogazici86]

I see yes. you mean the words like "mecal-siz, ikbal-siz, hayal-siz..." but "kabul-sÜz"; as you see, root vowel is "ü" and the word is ending in "l", but suffix is not "-siz" but "-süz". so, your friend's hypothesis about this is confuted. I think the same on this issue, too. I mean it's related with phonology. The "l" sounds are velarized. so, the suffix after that sound is "-siz" . I'll find more examples.

[Glamdring]

Hm. kabulsüz does not confute the hypothesis - it just extends it. Is "l" "soft" in "kabul" (i.e. the same as in "gel" for example). Anyway, the rule may be stated as:
if the word-final consonant is "l", the suffix vowels are always front (soft) (i/ü).

[lesenna]

As i could see in your both posts some root words have their harmonize not with a vowel but with a consonant? Like "t" or "l"? :wink:
Now i am confused...

[Glamdring]

Don't be confused - these are very rare exceptions. The harmonizing happens only to vowels.
We are wondering whether the consonants, in very rare cases, can cause effect on that harmonization, but so far I think without much success.
Here, as it seems, the "l" does not cause anything:
kılsız
akılsız
asılsız