Turkish Adjectives, Turkish Adjectives and Sentences
Learn Turkish
20.03.2018, 15:21 20.03.2018, 15:21
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Adjectives and adjectival phrases precede their noun and do not agree in number.
Turkish is a descriptive language : adjectives abound.
If Turkish can make something into an adjective then it will do so.
Being an descriptive language an adjective or adjectival phrase always preceded its noun:
kara kedi a black cat as in English.
Turkish makes great use of adjectival phrases and clauses to describes nouns, actions and thoughts.
In English we may say:
The black cat with the long tail which is sitting on the mat looks hungry.
Turkish describes the cat not only as black, but also where and upon what it is sitting together with any other attributes, such as its long tail:
Turkish Adjectives
Turkish Adjectives
Adjectives and adjectival phrases precede their noun and do not agree in number.
Turkish is a descriptive language : adjectives abound.
If Turkish can make something into an adjective then it will do so.
Being an descriptive language an adjective or adjectival phrase always preceded its noun:
kara kedi a black cat as in English.
Turkish makes great use of adjectival phrases and clauses to describes nouns, actions and thoughts.
In English we may say:
The black cat with the long tail which is sitting on the mat looks hungry.
Turkish describes the cat not only as black, but also where and upon what it is sitting together with any other attributes, such as its long tail:
- Minderin üstünde oturan uzun kuyruklu kara kedi aç görünüyor.
- On the mat which-is-sitting long tailed black cat hungry looks.
In Turkish the subject and object are described adjectivally with regards to place and disposition.
Once all the describing is done, the verb is placed last in the sentence.
Introduction
Grammar
Turkish grammar is simplistic once you get used to the style. However, it can seem to be very difficult since the grammatical structure is totally different from the Indo-European languages. This is because Turkish is from a different language family called Ural-Altaic languages. Some languages similar to Turkish are ´Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Kazak, Uzbek, Tatar, Manchu´. Compared to English, the most fundamental differences in Turkish grammar can be listed as:
- Ordering of sentence parts
- A typical Turkish sentence is ordered as (subject + object + verb)
- Arkadaşım [My friend --> subject] araba [car -->object] aldı [bought-->verb].
- A typical Turkish sentence is ordered as (subject + object + verb)
- No gender
- There are no articles in Turkish, and no gender associated with words
- No gender in personal pronouns (the Turkish word for he, she and it is o)
- Vowel harmony
- Harmony of vowels is a very fundamental property of Turkish. The rules concerning vowel harmony need to be learned as one of the first steps because they affect the way almost all the other rules are applied.
- Use of suffixes
Suffixes are very widely used in Turkish. The meaning of prepositions, personal pronouns and tenses are all countered by adding suffixes to word roots.
- Kalbimdesin [You are in my heart]
Once you get to these differences and learn the basic harmony rules, the rest of the grammar is quite simple. Almost everything follows well defined, simple rules.
Sounds
Another important point is the way you read a written text. There is exactly one sound for each character in Turkish. A character always represents the same sound, regardless of its position in a word or the characters next to it. Therefore, it is straightforward to pronounce a word that you see for the first time once you are familiar with the characters in the Turkish alphabet.
Vocabulary
Once you are comfortable or at least familiar with the harmony rules, the main challenge will be the vocabulary. Turkish vocabulary can be very challenging since the words have no resemblance to the European languages except the few words adapted directly from these languages.
- Ordering of sentence parts
