Turkish (from English)

1. About Turkish

Turkish is an agglutinative language of the Turkic family, spoken by roughly 85 million people primarily in Turkey and Cyprus. It is entirely unrelated to English, Arabic, or the major European languages — but it is internally very regular. Once the core grammar rules are learned, they apply consistently with few exceptions, which makes Turkish rewarding for systematic learners.

Key features to be aware of from day one

• Vowel harmony. Turkish vowels form two groups (front: e, i, ö, ü / back: a, ı, o, u). Suffixes change their vowel to harmonize with the last vowel of the root. This governs a large proportion of Turkish grammar and must be internalized early.
• Agglutination. Turkish builds meaning by chaining suffixes onto a root. A single Turkish word can express what English requires an entire phrase for (e.g., gelemiyor musunuz? — "are you not able to come?").
• SOV word order. The verb comes at the end of the sentence. The subject and object can be moved for emphasis, but the verb is almost always last.
• No grammatical gender. Turkish has no masculine/feminine distinction — the same pronoun o covers he, she, and it.
• Postpositions, not prepositions. Where English says "for you", Turkish says the equivalent of "you for" — the relational word follows the noun it modifies.

2. Vocabulary Flashcards — SRS Trainer

100 core Turkish words reviewed with a spaced-repetition algorithm. Cards due for review are shown first; new cards are introduced up to 20 per session. Your progress is saved in the browser and carries over between visits.

Again re-queues the card for the end of this session and schedules a 1-day review. Good schedules the card at an expanding interval (1 day → 6 days → grows with each correct answer). Intervals are shown on each button before you choose.

3. Quick Language Notes

The Turkish Alphabet

Turkish uses a Latin-based alphabet of 29 letters introduced in 1928. Most letters are pronounced as in English, but several require attention:

Verb Infinitives

Turkish verb infinitives end in -mak or -mek (the vowel follows harmony). In the flashcard deck, verbs are listed in infinitive form so you see the root clearly. When conjugating, drop the -mak/-mek to get the stem, then add tense and person suffixes.

Negation

değil — placed after a noun or adjective to negate it. "Ben Türk değilim" = "I am not Turkish."
For verb negation, the suffix -me/-ma is inserted before the tense suffix: "gelmiyorum" = "I am not coming."

The Buffer var / yok

Turkish uses var ("there is") and yok ("there isn't") as standalone words to express existence and possession — no "to have" verb exists. "Param var" (my money there-is) = "I have money." "Param yok" = "I don't have money."

More content — grammar tables, resources, and reading lists — will be added here as this page develops.

4. Top 500 Most Common Turkish Words

The table below lists the 500 most frequently used Turkish words in order of frequency. Verbs are given in infinitive form (-mak/-mek); the root for conjugation is obtained by removing that suffix. Mastering this list gives you coverage of the vast majority of everyday Turkish text and speech.

Words already covered in the SRS flashcard deck (the core 100) appear here too — repetition of the most frequent vocabulary is intentional and valuable.