Turkish Verbs

-       Present Tense

In Turkish, to form a present tense sentence we put  a suffix at the end of the verb. See the examples below:

     İzle (mek) : (to) watch

    İzle –r – im : I watch    ( here we understand the time with the help of the suffix “–r”. “im” stands for I

İzle-r-im         I                            As you can see the suffix that comes after “–r” shows us

      İzle-r-sin       You                        who does the activity.

      İzle-r             He / She / It

      İzle-r-iz         We

      İzle-r-siniz    You

      İzle-r –ler     They

     Beside the suffix “–r” some verbs can take the suffixes  “-er, -ir, -ür, -ar” but this usage  has a little complicated rule. To know this rule, the learners need to practice the language.  

-       Past Tense

In Turkish past tense is shown with the suffixes  “-dı, -di, -du, -dü”

   İzle – di – m       I watched

   İzle – di – n        You watched

   İzle – di              He / She / It watched

   İzle – di – k        We watched

   İzle – di – niz     You watched

   İzle – di – ler      They watched

-       Future Tense

In Turkish to give future meaning we use the suffix “–ecek”

    İzle – y – eceğ - im       I will watch

    İzle – y – ecek - sin      You will watch 

    İzle – y -  ecek              He / She / It will watch

    İzle – y – eceğ - iz        We will watch

    İzle – y – ecek - siniz   You will watch

    İzle – y – ecek - ler       They will watch

 Here we see two more rules:

1.    If the verb ends with a vowel and the suffix also starts with a vowel we use one of the letters “y, ş, s, n” between the two vowels. For example the letter “y” above.

2.    Although we said that the future tense suffix is “-ecek” we used “-eceğ”. The reason is : If the words ending with the consonants “p, ç, t, k”  take a suffix starting with a vowel,   “p, ç, t, k”   turn into “b, c, d, g, ğ”