Basics

Nouns (isimler or adlar) name people, places, things and ideas. Turkish nouns are simpler than in many European languages in some ways, but they carry a lot of information in their suffixes.

No Grammatical Gender

Turkish nouns have no masculine, feminine or neuter forms, and adjectives never change to agree with nouns. Even the pronoun o means he, she or it.

No Word for 'the'

Turkish has no definite article. Kitap can mean 'book', 'a book' or 'the book' depending on context. The word bir (one) often works like 'a/an': bir kitap (a book). A specific ('the') direct object is shown with the accusative ending (see the Accusative Case lesson): Kitabı okudum. (I read the book.)

Plural: -lar / -ler

The plural suffix follows 2-way vowel harmony: -lar after a, ı, o, u and -ler after e, i, ö, ü. It never causes consonant changes, because it begins with a consonant.

No Plural After Numbers and Quantity Words

After a number or words like çok (many), birkaç (a few) and her (every), the noun stays singular, because the quantity is already clear:

• İki kitap aldım. (I bought two books.)
• Sınıfta yirmi öğrenci var. (There are twenty students in the class.)
• Parkta çok çocuk vardı. (There were many children in the park.)
• Kediler bahçede oynuyor. (The cats are playing in the garden.)
• Bir arkadaşım İstanbul'da yaşıyor. (A friend of mine lives in İstanbul.)

Suffix Order

Several suffixes can be added to one noun, always in the same order: noun + plural + possessive + case.

ev + ler + im + de → evlerimde (in my houses)

Proper Nouns

Suffixes on names of people, cities and countries are separated with an apostrophe: Ankara'da (in Ankara), Ayşe'nin (Ayşe's), Türkiye'ye (to Turkey).

Common Mistakes

• ✗ iki kitaplar → ✓ iki kitap (no plural after numbers)
• ✗ otobüslar → ✓ otobüsler (harmony follows the last vowel)
• ✗ evdeler for 'in the houses' → ✓ evlerde (plural comes before case)
• ✗ Ankarada → ✓ Ankara'da (apostrophe with proper nouns)