The Talking Turkish Phrasebook

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the far right is the Turkish translation. In the center column for each row is a play button. The recorded file will feature first English, then the Turkish in three versions: one slow, one with each syllable broken out, and a last version that will be spoken as it might be overheard in a conversation between native speakers.

10 Facts about Turkish

Status: Turkish belongs to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family, along with Azerbaijani, Turkmen, and Qashqai. While Turkish is mutually intelligible to varying degrees with these languages, standard Turkish has undergone extensive modernization and standardization over the 20th century.

Speakers: Turkish is spoken by over 85 million people as a first language, primarily in Turkey and Northern Cyprus. There are also diaspora concentrations in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Bulgaria, and Azerbaijan.

Dialects: While Istanbul Turkish is the standard dialect, there are many regional dialects across the country including Eastern Anatolian (with influences from Kurdish and Armenian), and Aegean and Mediterranean dialects (which often soften or drop final consonants). Urban vs. rural dialects can also differ notably in vocabulary and intonation.

Gender: Turkish is a completely gender-neutral language. There are no grammatical gender distinctions — the same pronoun, “o”, is used for he, she, and it. Nouns and adjectives do not change form based on gender.

Cases: Turkish has six grammatical cases: nominative; accusative; dative; locative; ablative (for movement from); and genitive. Nouns decline for each case differently.

Respect: Turkish expresses respect and formality via two main routes. First, there is a formal second-person plural pronoun “siz” (used instead of informal “sen;” similar to the Russian “вы” and “ты”). Verb forms will also change based on this formality. Second, honorifics such as Bey (Mr.), Hanım (Ms.), and Efendi (Sir) can be added to the ends of names (e.g., Ahmet Bey, Fatma Hanım).

Compound Words: Turkish is an agglutinative language, meaning it builds words by stringing together suffixes in a fixed order. For example, the word “evlerinizden” means “from your houses” and breaks down as: (ev – house) + (ler – plural suffix) + (iniz – your (formal)) + (den – from).

Vowel Harmony: Turkish is governed by a system of vowel harmony, where vowels within a word harmonize to be either front or back vowels. This affects how suffixes are attached, making the language more fluid and easier to pronounce. For example, the plural suffix changes from -ler to -lar depending on the vowel in the root word

Word Order: Turkish typically uses Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) word order. So, for example, “ben kitabı okudum,” literally translates to “I the book read,” placing the object between the subject and verb.

Language Reform: Ottoman Turkish had a heavy Persian and Arabic vocabulary. In the 20th century, the Turkish Language Association (TDK) replaced many of these with pure Turkish or newly coined words derived from Turkish. Despite this, modern Turkish still includes many loanwords from French, Italian, English, and Arabic, especially in fields like science, technology, and cuisine.

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Turkish Alphabet with Pronunciation and Examples

With the adoption of Islam, the Ottomans adopted Arabic script for their language. The system was in use for over 1000 years. Only in 1928 did Turkey adopt its current modified Latin alphabet, as the country turned its political and cultural attention fully toward Europe.

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Survival Basics in Turkish

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Introductions in Turkish

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Asking Directions in Turkish

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Shopping in Turkish

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Counting in Turkish

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More Phrasebooks

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The Talking Turkish Phrasebook

Posted: August 25, 2025

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the far right is the Turkish translation. In the center column for […]

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Posted: August 25, 2025

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the far right is the Estonian translation. In the center column […]

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The Talking Polish Phrasebook

Posted: May 28, 2025

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Each entry below, divided by category, features an English word or phrase in the left column and its Polish translation in the right. In the center column for […]

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