Turkish Conjugation Made Easy

Turkish Verb Conjugation System: The Basics

To have a solid foundation for your Turkish conjugation practice, you must first grasp the basics of how verbs function in Turkish. A Turkish infinitive verb consists of two parts:

1. A root, also known as the stem. 
2. One of three possible endings (-mak/-mek, -ış/-iş, -ur/-ür, or -ar/-er). 

Please note that the -mak/-mek ending is the one you will encounter the most, especially as a beginner/intermediate Turkish speaker.

The root of the verb represents the action itself, while the verb ending carries all other information. But let’s keep it simple for now! Adding one of the endings above to a root will result in a verb that is descriptive of the action. 

For example:

• sev (the root) + mek (the ending) = “sevmek” means “to love”. 
• git (the root) + mek (the ending) = “gitmek” means “to go”.

You should keep in mind that when we add “mak”, “ar”, or any other ending, we’re not actually conveying any information about the specific action we are performing. These suffixes alone do not make any sense in Turkish. We always need a verb root to create the verb itself. 

To understand this better, let’s dive into verb moods and tenses. 

Turkish Conjugation According to the Subject of the Sentence

First things first – you should learn the verb conjugations that indicate the subject of the sentence, as you will see that subjects are dropped in most of the sentences in spoken Turkish. However, if you know where to look, you can easily understand the subject of a sentence by looking at the verb conjugation.

Here are the related Turkish conjugations for each subject type: 

• Ben (I) -m
• Sen (You) -n
• O (He/She), no conjugation
• Biz (We)-k
• Siz (You, plural) -iz
• Onlar (They)-ler/-lar

Let’s see some basic examples for each case to understand these Turkish conjugations better:

• Ben gittim. (I went…)
• Sen gittin. (You went…)
• O gitti. (He/She went…)
• Biz gittik. (We went…)
• Siz gittiniz. (You went… [plural])
• Onlar gittiler. (They went…)

Turkish Verb Moods

Moods in Turkish are similar to tense categories, and for your Turkish conjugation practice, it’s essential to know which mood is ideal for a specific sentence. As spoken Turkish might seem complicated at first, recognizing the mood of the sentence can be quite helpful in understanding the overall meaning of the sentence.

In Turkish, there are four main moods:

1. Gereklilik (Necessitative Mood), takes the conjugation -meli/-malı
2. İstek (Desire Mood, similar to Subjunctive Mood), takes the conjugation -e/-a
3. Dilek-Koşul (Conditional Mood, ), takes the conjugation -se/-sa 
4. Emir (Imperative Mood), takes no conjugation

Let’s take a look at one example for each of these moods:

• Oraya gitmeliyiz. (We should go there.)
• Oraya gideyim. (Unfortunately, there is not an exact translation although you can think of it as “Let me go there” or “If I go there”, depending on the context)
• Oraya gitseydik… (If we went there…)
• Oraya git. (Go there!)

Each mood conveys different nuances in a sentence. Once you feel comfortable with these, you can go ahead and practice the Turkish verb tenses!

Turkish Verb Tenses

Turkish features a variety of tenses, and I advise you to focus on the most common ones first during your Turkish verb conjugation practice. Once you get comfortable with them, you can continue adding the less common ones to your learning set.

My suggestion for you to start with these primary tenses:

1. Geniş Zaman (Present Tense), takes the conjugation -r
2. Şimdiki Zaman (Present Continuous Tense), takes the conjugation -yor
3. Gelecek Zaman (Future Tense), takes the conjugation -ecek/-acak
4. Görülen Geçmiş Zaman (Past Tense – Seen by the subject), takes the conjugation -dı/-di
5. Duyulan Geçmiş Zaman (Past Tense – Learned by the subject), takes the conjugation -mış/-miş

Let’s take one example for each of these tenses to understand them better: 

• Ben her gün spor yaparım. (I work out every day.)
• Ben şu an spor yapıyorum. (I am working out right now.)
• Ben yarın spor yapacağım. (I will work out tomorrow.)
• Ben dün spor yaptım. (I worked out yesterday.)
• O dün spor yapmış. (She/He worked out yesterday)

Please note that if you are using -mış/-miş to refer to a past event you are using it to indicate that you haven’t seen that event with your own eyes, rather you have heard it/learned it happened from someone else. That’s why we are using it to refer to another person working out yesterday, rather than yourself.

If you want to use these tenses to form a negative verb form, all you need to do is add -me/-ma negative conjugations to the verbs, as well as add the necessary devoicing moderations to the verbs:

• Ben her gün spor yapmam. (I do not work out every day.)
• Ben şu an spor yapmıyorum. (I am not working out right now.)
• Ben yarın spor yapmayacağım. (I will not work out tomorrow.)
• Ben dün spor yapmadım. (I did not work out yesterday.)
• O dün spor yapmamış. (She/He did not work out yesterday)

As you reach more advanced levels, you will start to notice other tenses that are made by adding two or more tenses together. Although these might seem confusing at first, if you practice the basic tenses enough you will gain the necessary understanding over time.

Here’s a basic example to get an insight into what these complex tenses may look like: 

• O dün spor yapmıştı. (She/He worked out yesterday.)

Although, this example looks very much like the one above, adding two past tense conjugations in Turkish creates a combined tense called “Duyulan Geçmiş Zamanın Hikayesi”.

As you can see, there is a lot to learn about Turkish conjugation, as there are many combined use cases. However, as I mentioned before, internalizing the basic tenses and their related conjugations will help you develop an understanding that will make learning more complicated conjugations a lot easier.

Why Is Turkish Conjugation Practice So Important?

The correct usage of Turkish verbs is crucial for effective communication. Always keep in mind that even a couple letters can change the meaning of a sentence in Turkish: 

• Uçakla gidiyoruz. (We are going by plane.)
• Uçakla gidiyorsun. (You are going by plane.)

Since the information about the subject pronoun is conveyed by the suffix, subject pronouns are rarely used in Turkish sentences and are only employed when emphasizing the subject. 

As almost all of the important information in Turkish sentences relies on the conjugation of the verb, a simple trick to communicate better in Turkish could be using subjects and other time-relevant nouns in your sentences as much as possible. However, once you master the Turkish conjugations, you will realize these other words are not necessary most of the time, and you will start dropping these words from your sentences just like a native Turkish speaker!