Tenses There are 5 fundamental tenses in Turkish. These are: -
Present simple tense (Geniş zaman) -
Present continuous tense (Şimdiki zaman) -
Future tense (Gelecek zaman) -
Past tense with -di (-di'li geçmiş zaman) --> Regular past tense -
Past tense with -miş (-miş'li geçmiş zaman) --> Also called the story past tense In the basic grammar lessons, we will cover the present continuous tense and the future tense. Rest will be covered in the intermediate level lessons. To start with, let's review some verbs we'll use in the following lessons and their meanings: gelmek --> to come gitmek --> to go okumak --> to read kapatmak --> to close koşmak --> to run aramak --> to call konuşmak --> to talk vermek --> to give kaynamak --> to boil çalışmak --> to work yemek --> to eat beklemek --> to wait The meaning of tenses are given using some suffixes. There are some important properties common to all these suffixes denoting tense: -
The suffix for tenses is added right after the verb root if the verb is positive, or after the negating suffix if the verb is negative. -
The present tense for of 'to be' comes after the suffix for tense. -
Therefore, the order becomes: verb root + (negative) + tense + present tense to be -
This is different only for the regular past tense, where past tense form of to be is used. 1. Present continuous tense (Şimdiki zaman) The suffix for present continuous tense is -iyor. Present continuous tense is used, very much like the one in English: Present continuous tense is used only for verbs, it is not meaningful for nouns and adjectives. Present continuous tense of a verb is constructed this way: verb root + (negative) + iyor + present tense to be If the verb you want to add the suffix -iyor ends with a vowel, drop the last vowel and add -iyor. Otherwise, just simply add -iyor. Be careful about the vowel harmony rules for the 'i' of -iyor. Let's see how a verb is put into present continuous tense on the following examples: gel-iyor --> geliyor --> he is coming git-iyor-im --> gidiyorum --> i am going oku-iyor --> okuyor --> he is reading kapat-iyor-iz --> kapatıyoruz --> we are closing koş-iyor --> koşuyor --> he is running ara-iyor-sin --> arıyorsun --> you are calling konuş-iyor --> konuşuyor --> he is talking ver-me-iyor --> vermiyor --> he is not giving ye-me-iyor --> yemiyor --> he is not eating gel-me-iyor-siniz --> gelmiyorsunuz --> you are not coming (plural you) And let's see how present continuous tense is used with different cases of person. English | Turkish | to come --> gelmek | i am coming | (ben) geliyor-im --> geliyorum | you are coming | (sen) geliyor-sin --> geliyorsun | he \ she | is coming it / | (o) geliyor | we are coming | (biz) geliyor-iz --> geliyoruz | you are coming | (siz) geliyor-siniz --> geliyorsunuz | they are coming | (onlar) geliyor-ler --> geliyorlar | |