Why do you learn Turkish?

This is not a real question. I am Turkish but I will give the answers to this question. Yes, this article is about how to give an answer when people ask this question to you.

I love to learn languages. When people ask me why I am learning a language, my answer is usually "Because I like to learn languages". However people do not like this answer much, especially when the language you are trying to learn is accepted as one of the hardest. They keep looking at you with bigger eyes until they hear something special^^. In my opinion, if a language is hard then it just means it can take a bit more time to learn than the others but it can never be impossible. Moreover, already how hard you find it totally depends on your mother tongue and with the right help any subject can be simplified.

Let's start with your teacher's reason to learn any language and add some other options that might belong to you. And if you do not see your special reason to learn Turkish here, please just leave  a comment below. 

Some Reasons to Learn Turkish 

Just Turkish Sentences

listen to ‘Some Reasons to Learn Turkish’ on Audioboo

Both English and Turkish 

 ( Download )

1. Because I like to learn languages and Turkish is my favorite, it sounds so nice to me. 

Çünkü dil öğrenmeyi seviyorum ve Türkçe en sevdiğim dil, kulağa çok hoş geliyor.

2. I will go to Turkey soon. 

Yakında Türkiye'ye gideceğim.

3. I will visit Turkey this summer.

Bu yaz Türkiye'yi ziyaret edeceğim.

4. I'm planning to move to Turkey.

Türkiye'ye yerleşmeyi planlıyorum.

5. My family and I go to Turkey for vacation every summer.

Ailem ve ben her yaz Türkiye'ye tatile gidiyoruz.

6. I have Turkish friends and I want to talk with them in their own language.

Türk arkadaşlarım var ve onlarla kendi dillerinde konuşmak istiyorum.

7. I want to live in Turkey.

Türkiye'de yaşamak istiyorum.

8. I want to get a job in Turkey.

Türkiye'de (bir) iş bulmak istiyorum.

9. I want to work as a translator.

Çevirmen olarak çalışmak istiyorum.

10. I need to learn it for my university education.

Üniversite eğitimim için öğrenmem gerek.

11. I will attend a university in Turkey the next academic year.

Gelecek akademik yılda Türkiye'de üniversiteye gideceğim.

12. My spouse is Turkish.

Eşim Türk.

13. My girlfriend is Turkish.

Kız arkadaşım Türk.

14. My boyfriend is Turkish.

Erkek arkadaşım Türk.

15. I live in Turkey. 

Türkiye'de yaşıyorum. 

16. I found a job in Turkey. 

Türkiye'de bir iş buldum.

17. I will go to Turkey to study next year.

Gelecek yıl Türkiye'ye okumaya gideceğim.

18. I like Turkey, Turkish People, Music and Culture so much.

Türkiye'yi, Türkleri, Türk Müziğini ve Kültürünü çok seviyorum.

19. My father is Turkish but we always speak another language at home.

Babam Türk ama evde hep başka dil konuşuyoruz.

20. My fiancé is Turkish and we will live in Turkey when we get married.

Nişanlım Türk.ve evlendiğimiz zaman Türkiye'de yaşayacağız.

21. In my country the TV shows Turkish TV series. I like to watch them and want to understand.

Benim ülkemde televizyon Türk TV dizilerini gösteriyor. Onları izlemeyi seviyorum ve anlamak istiyorum.

22. My mother tongue is similar with Turkish. I like to find similarities between and also compare them.

Benim anadilim Türkçe'yle benzer. Aralarındaki benzerlikleri bulmayı ve ayrıca karşılaştırmayı seviyorum.

23. I work and live in Turkey. Not everyone speaks English here, so I need to learn it.

Türkiye'de çalışıyorum ve oturuyorum. Burada herkes İngilizce bilmiyor. Bu yüzden öğrenmem gerek.

24. My family is Turkish but I have always been raised and lived in another country and could not get to speak Turkish much. For this reason I want to improve my Turkish and be able to speak better.

Ailem Türk ama ben hep başka bir ülkede büyüdüm ve yaşadım.ve Türkçe pek konuşamadım. Bu sebeple Türkçemi geliştirmek ve daha iyi konuşabilmek istiyorum.

25. My company will send me to Turkey and I will have to stay there for some time. I think it is necessary to learn the language of the country you will live in. This way, life becomes easier.

Çalıştığım şirket beni Türkiye'ye yollayacak ve belli bir süre orada kalmak zorunda olacağım. Bence yaşayacağın ülkenin dilini bilmek gerek. Bu şekilde hayat daha kolay olur.

26. Anatolian Turkish is the most widely spoken Turkic Language. At least 75 millions of people speak it as native. Also,  when I learn Turkish, it will be a lot easier to learn the other Turkic Languages.

Anadolu Türkçesi en çok konuşulan Türk Dili. En az 75 milyon kişi ana dil olarak konuşuyor. Ayrıca, Türkçe öğrendiğim zaman diğer Türk Dillerini öğrenmek çok daha kolay olacak.

....................................................................................................................

Reasons can vary but learning something that you are interested in, putting your time and effort to reach your goal and to see that you get closer everyday really worth much I believe. Thanks for reading and happy learning! 

What is -mişmiş in Turkish?

We call this tense "Geçmiş Zamanın Rivayeti" /The rumor of the Past Tense. 

Rivayet means rumor. 

There is no certainty that "that verb, event" has occured. 

As you know there is another tense is called -Miş'li Geçmiş Zaman / Indefinite Past Tense in Turkish. And you may use it when you tell a story or something that you learned from someone else. This Rumor of the Past Tense use the same ending -miş but two times, and you add it when you don't believe the thing you learned or you just heard, let's learn what it is now! You can listen to example sentences at the bottom of the page.

We can use it for two common purposes;

1) You do not believe someone or you are not satisfied with something.

Example; 

A: Haven't I said clean here?

(Ben sana burayı temizle demedim mi?)

B: Don't you see? I already cleaned.

(Görmüyor musun? Zaten temizledim.)

A: You cleaned?! Why do I still see dust here then?

(Temizlemişmiş. O zaman neden hala burada toz görüyorum ben?)

We used the super power of -miş to have "ultra moody insulting effect".

One could just say, temizledin mi? did you clean? otherwise.

When you are not happy with the result of something that someone did, you can use this.

It does not have to be said with anger all the time. 

Another example; 

A: Neden bunu bana söylemedin? 

(Why did not you tell me this?)

B: Nasıl söylemedim? Telefonda anlattım dün.

How did not I tell? I told it on phone yesterday.

A: Söylemişmiş, ben niye hatırlamıyorum?

(You said it?!, why don't I remember?)

A did not believe B and used this unpleasant -mişmiş again.

Although it does not sound as much angry as the first example, 

still B would not be happy to hear it as it shows that A does not believe that B said it.

2) You tell a story to someone but you don't believe that really happened.

This is not so different use with the first one indeed. 

When you tell a story or something to someone you can use it, and this story is something you heard from someone else, too.

Example;

A: Öğrendin mi dün neler olmuş?

(Did you learn what happened yesterday?)

B: Evet, önce Ece eve gelmişmiş, sonra annesi aramışmış, o da ona yardım etmeye gitmişmiş. Bu yüzden gelememiş partiye.

(Yes, (she said that, I learned from her that) Ece has come to home, then her mother has called her, and then she has gone to help her. That's why she could not have come to the party (according to what I've learned from her))

A: Duy da inanma!

(Hear and/but don't believe!)

B: (Seninle) Aynı fikirdeyim. Bana hiç de doğru gibi gelmedi bu. Sadece gelmek istemedim diyebilirdi.

(I have the same opinion. I don't think/(I did not find) that it is like the truth, either. She could just say she did not want to come.

A: Bence de.

(I agree.)

How to say "the more... the more..." in Turkish

In this lesson, I will explain how to apply the grammar rules in Turkish to make sentences like "the more... the more...", "the more... the less..." in English.

1) Simple Present Tense, "You" Form as a General Statement
"The more you study, the less you make mistakes"
1. Daha çok çalıştıkça, daha az hata yaparsın.
2. Çalıştıkça daha az hata yaparsın.
3. Ne kadar çok çalışırsan, o kadar az hata yaparsın. *

The other two have similar meanings but when we make a statement like this, we use the third option.
Likewise;
The less you study, the more you make mistakes.
Ne kadar az çalışırsan, o kadar çok hata yaparsın.

2) Other Sentences
If it is not a general statement but the subject is "particular" then,
we can not use the third option but the first or second, and usually the second if the sentence starts with "the more". If it starts with "the less", then we have to say "daha az".

The first part is same for any tense or subject. That means, you always add -çe or -ça to verb of the first sentence like we did above in the first and the second sentence.


this is the general formula: tanı-mak -> tanıdık (we knew) + ça
after dık,duk you add ça
after dik,dük you add çe


Example 1
Seni daha çok tanıdıkça, daha iyi anlıyorum.
The more I know you, the better I understand.
(As I know you more, I understand better)
- tanımak: to get to know, to know someone

Example 2
Daha az/Az para harcadıkça daha çok yatırım yapabilirsin.
The less you spend money, the more you can do investment.

Example 3
Daha çok konuştukça, daha çok öğreneceksin.
The more you speak, the more you will learn.

Example 4
Daha çok okudukça, daha çok anladı.
The more he read, the more he understood.


This is also how we make sentences like, 
As he read more, he understood better.
Okudukça daha iyi anladı.
As I met more people, I became more popular.
Daha çok kişiyle tanıştıkça, daha popüler oldum.

The similarity is that we use the same verb for the first part of the sentence.

If you still have questions about this subject, please leave a comment below. Teşekkürler!

1000 Turkish&Spanish&English Words

Today I discovered a Website to study Spanish in Turkish and found a great wordlist there. There are 1000 Spanish words with their English and Turkish synonyms and I felt like I had to share this thinking  you also might find it helpful. Here is the wordlist and if you would like to download it please visit this link: http://goo.gl/74gm2

First Turkish Phrases

Here is a video to learn first Turkish Phrases for beginners. If you want to download the text as pdf, please follow this link and click the link under the video.

Kedi Kuyruğu Konuşur mu? Does Cat Tail Speak?

The answer is yes ! Cevap evet!

Let's learn some Turkish Verbs with the help of cats. Kedilerin yardımıyla bazı Türkçe Fiiller öğrenelim!

The title says "Kedi kuyruğu konuşuyor" - "Cat tail is speaking"

Korkuyorum - I am scared

Seni gördüğüme sevindim - I am glad to see you

Sinirleniyorum - I am getting angry

Arkadaş olalım - Let's be friends

İlgileniyorum - I am interested

Sana deli oluyorum - You drive me crazy

Aşk hissediyorum - I am feeling love

Endişeliyim - I am worried

Kızgınım - I am angry

Turkish Song: Ali Güven - Yadigar

This is a Turkish song from 90s. Turkey have been listening to this song on radios and TVs before Internet was widely used. We used to listen to the same song over and over again when they were just released. And this is one of those songs. I would recommend you to listen without looking at the lyrics first in order to test yourself. I hope you enjoy!

Ali Güven - Yadigar

Sözler (Lyrics)
Bu gece canım yalnız kalmak istiyor
Herkesten uzak her sözden gözden uzak
Bu gece canım yalnız kalmak istiyor
Hiçbir şey konuşmadan insandan dosttan uzak

Böyle değildim ben sensizliği bilmeden
Bu garip huylar senden yadigar
Ne varsa gönlümde sen aldın götürdün yar
Bu hüzün bana senden yadigar
İçimde ağlayan bir çocuk bıraktın yar
Bu acı bana senden yadigar

İngilizce Çeviri (English Translation)

I feel like being alone tonight
Far from everyone, from every word and every eyes
I want to stay alone tonight
Without speaking anything, far from people and friends

I was not used to be like this, before meeting your loneliness
These strange habits are all left from you
You took away whatever there was in my heart my beloved
This sadness is left from you
You left a crying child in me, my beloved
This pain is left from you



Yadigar means something that someone left for you/gave you or something that is left from someone. It can be an object like neckless from someone or even some emotional things or an illness.
for example;
Bu ev bana annemden yadigar.= Bu ev bana annemden kaldı.
(My mother left me this house. / This house is left from my mother.)

Yaşlı Vs. Eski

In Turkish we have two words that mean "old" and they are;

• eski
• yaşlı

How we know when to use the right one?

For living things we need to say "yaşlı".

*"Yaş" means "age". And yaşlı means "having age". -lı is a suffix add the meaning of "to have, with"

for example:
Balkonlu bir ev aldım. I bought a house with/that has a balcony
İki çocuklu bir aile. A family with two children.

*Eski means old, depreciated, worn out in Turkish. So we should use it to describe only non-living things.
If you look up a dictionary to learn how to say "old" in Turkish as an English speaker, "eski" will be the first word to see. But as you may agree, it is not nice to call someone "eski". It could be accepted for the plants only.

*You could call someone eski in only ths case;

oldschool - eskikafa

kafa and baş both mean "head" in Turkish. So if someone is oldschool enough then you are free to call him/her eski but with kafa together. Otherwise please don't forget my words to keep being polite when you speak Turkish. Thanks! :)

What is ise?

The Turkish word ise can have two different meanings and we usually see it as a suffix -se/-sa.
If it is added a word that has a,ı,o or u as last vowel, we choose -sa, and if it is e,i,ö or ü then we choose -se.

1) Conjunction
It can be used together with the word "eğer" but it is enough just to add -se/-sa

2) Comparison
It builds a comparison and strengthens it.

Conjunction Examples
Bugün markete gidersen ekmek almayı unutma.
If you go to the store today, don't forget to buy bread.

Seni ararsam, mutlaka cevap ver.
If I call you, absolutely answer it.

Öğretmen 5 dakika içinde gelmezse, eve gideceğim.
If the teacher does not come in 5 minutes, then I will go home.

Bu benim evimse, benim kurallarım geçerli.
If this is my house, then I rule. (kural: rule, geçerli: valid)

Comparison Examples
Adam konuşuyor, kadınsa hep susuyordu.
The man was talking but/however the woman was silent.

Ben para biriktirelim diyorum, sense sürekli yeni şeyler satın almak istiyorsun.
I am saying we should save money but you always want to buy new stuff.



*There are also some common words having the suffix -se/-sa like;
oysa, yoksa, öyleyse

Babam mühendis olmamı istedi, 'oysa ben'/'bense' hep öğretmen olmak istemiştim.
My hatfer wanted me to become an engineer, however I always wanted to become a teacher.

Bence taksiye binelim, yoksa geç kalacağız.
I think we should take a taxi, otherwise we will be late.

- Sonunda bir iş buldum! - Finally I found a job!
- Öyleyse bunu kutlamalıyız! - 'Then'/'If so' we should celebrate it!

Demek Vs. Söylemek

These two verbs demek and söylemek mean to say, to tell but sometimes we need to choose the right one to avoid grammatical errors.

I told that I will go.
There are three ways to tell this sentence in Turkish

1) Gideceğimi söyledim

2) Dedim ki gideceğim

3) Gideceğim dedim

(If you want to read about the uses of "ki" here is the detailed explanation.
The first and the third ones are more common to say.)

So what is the rule?

If you tell "exactly what you told" to someone (Gideceğim = I will go), then you choose the verb "demek". Otherwise söylemek always works. In some sentences demek can also work but to make it sure I would recommend you to choose "söylemek" unless you quote some words.

(If the sentence you tell your audience has a verb, the grammar changes a bit with the verb söylemek. You can read about it here.)

-- > If you read a book, you see the verb "demek" when there is a conversation:

The mother said; "I am happy".
Anne; "Mutluyum" dedi.
*söylemek version: Anne mutlu olduğunu söyledi.

He told me that he is going today.
Bana "Bugün gidiyorum" dedi.
Bana bugün gideceğini söyledi.