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Tips and notes

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 verb in this lesson in their dictionary (infinitive) and informal
imperative forms:

Infinitive English Inf. Imp. English

yemek to eat Ye! Eat!

içmek to drink İç! Drink!

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