Basics

Hoş 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 O 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 verbs in this lesson in their dictionary (infinitive) and informal imperative forms:

Infinitive English Inf. Imp. English

yemek to eat Ye! Eat!

içmek to drinkİç! Drink!