Dialogue 4

Key vocabulary

ailem 2 my family tanıyorsun you know

tanımak to know (someone) ama but

onlar they senin your

ailen your family -le with

tanışmak to get to know istemek to want

istiyorlar they want İngilizce English (the language)

biliyor she knows bilmek to know (something)

yani so önemli important

bir one kişi person

onun her kocası her husband

koca husband adı his name

ad name oğlan boy

kim who o that

çocuk child Ali’nin Ali’s

çocuğu his child nerede where

İngiltere England İngiltere’de in England

Articles

Turkish has no articles. That means that a simple noun, such as şehir, can mean ‘town’,

and ‘the town’ as well as ‘a town’. The context will usually provide abundant clues as to

how such a noun has to be translated exactly. Having said that, the numeral bir (‘one’)

sometimes means ‘a’. You have encountered bir in the dialogue above, when Cengiz

mentioned that his sister is önemli bir kişi.

Vowel harmony

Turkish has a specific feature in word endings, which is called vowel harmony. The

vowels of these endings may change, depending on

2 For -i, see footnote 1. It indicates a direct object: ailemi.

Page 13

the last syllable of the preceding noun or verb stem. There are in fact two types of

vowel harmony: two-fold endings can have e- or a- forms. The vowels in four-fold

endings are either i, ı, u or ü. It all has to do with place of articulation in the mouth.

It all may seem ridiculously complicated right now, but the experience of most learners

of Turkish (or other languages with vowel harmony) is that it soon becomes second

nature. This is for two reasons. First, the harmony is based on very natural sounds.

Second, many of the relevant suffixes are so frequent that they appear in virtually every

sentence. This way of course you get ample opportunity for practice. For the time being

the following overview is sufficient:

Two-fold (e or a) after e, i, ü, ö > e

after a, ı, u, o > a

Four-fold (i, ı, ü, u) after e, i > i

after a, ı > ı

after ü, ö > ü

after u, o > u

The vowel that decides what form the ending is going to take is the last vowel in the

stem.

Examples: the suffix -im ‘my’ is four-fold, so it can appear as -im, -ım, -üm or -um.

the suffix -le ‘with’ is two-fold, so it can appear as -le or -la.

the suffix -ler (plural) is two-fold, so it can appear as -ler or -lar.

kardeş-im-le with my brother

arkadaş-ım-la with my friend

kardeş-ler-im my brothers

arkadaş-lar-ım my friends

kardeş-ler-im-le with my brothers

arkadaş-lar-ım-la with my friends

Note that when the noun that -im is suffixed to ends in a vowel, only an -m is added, so

that in these combinations vowel harmony plays no role. Examples are ailem ‘my

family’ and arabam ‘my car’, as well as of course babam and annem. Some more

examples:

Arkadaşlarımla Almanya’ya gidiyoruz.

We’re going to Germany with my friends.

Page 14

Bu yeni evim.

This is my new house.

Exercise 4

Fill in the correct form of the ending. The first one has been done already.

1 aileml___ with my family ailemle (as the last vowel in ailem is ‘e’)

2 kadın___ women (kadın ‘woman’)

3 arkadaş___ with a friend

4 kişi___ persons

5 dost___ with my friend

6 ev___ my house

7 adam___ with men (adam ‘man’)

8 Türk___ Turks

9 ad___ my name

10 öğretmen___ with my teachers

Language points

Verb endings

In the dialogues for this lesson you have met several sentences of the type ‘This is…’

and ‘I am’… When you compare the sentences beginning Bu John and İyiyim, you will

notice that they both contain a form of ‘to be’ in the translation. You may notice as well

that of the Turkish sentences, the one that has a third person subject (this is) has no

ending, while the one with a first person subject

Page 15

(I am) does: the -yim in iyiyim. Unlike English, Turkish does not use separate pronouns

(such as I, you or we) but verb endings instead. Except, that is, for third person subjects,

in which case there is neither ending nor pronoun. For ‘He is a good friend’ you say İyi

bir arkadaş, while ‘You’re a good friend’ is İyi bir arkadaşsın. In the first of these

sentences, arkadaş has no ending. Note that no pronouns are used to translate ‘he’ and

‘you’.

You have already met a few of these endings, and you will meet them over and over

again, as practically every sentence in Turkish contains one of them. So you don’t need

to learn them by heart, as they will become second nature to you before you know it.

Still, in order to provide a clear picture of the endings, consider the following, in which

the verb stem yap- ‘to do’, is followed by the present tense ending -iyor and the person

endings: