Hi

I wonder if someone can explain the Turkish endings more clearly to me...I understand that there are round and flat words and the endings follow accordingly, for example school is okul and my scool is okulum and telefon is telephone and telefonum (u with dots) is my telephone. I'm just a little confused as to how to choose the correct ending for differnt words, as there are lots of round words and lots of round endings similarly there are lots of flat words and lots of flat endings so how do I know which endings go with which words? I hope by reading this you are not now as confused as I am! If you can help me please do!!

Hayley :-S

In Türkçe there are eight vowels and all words (except some imported words) must obey both the major and minor vowel harmony rules. This obeyance defines how suffixes are added to root words.

You can find lessons on the vowel harmony rules here:
Major Vowel Harmony
Minor Vowel Harmony

Once you have read those I have written a tool to help you get familiar with which vowels fall into which group. You can find this tool here:
Vowel Group Test

Hope that helps

Excellent, ok thankyou Bod i'll give it a go

Here is my explanaition.

Rule 1 : Last vowel counts.
Look at the last vowel to decide which suffix to add.

If the last vowel is a sharp vowel than the suffix should have a sharp vowel.
If the last vowel is a deep vowel than the suffix should have a deep vowel.

Sharp vowels: e,i,ö,ü
Deep vowels: a,ı,o,u

This rule is enough to determine which suffix to use when there are only two forms of the given suffix.

Example 1:
The plural suffix in Turkish has only two forms. These are -lar and -ler. -ler is for words which have a sharp vowel as the last vowel and -lar is for words which have a deep vowel as the last vowel.

Exercise:
okul > last vowel is "u" and "u" is a deep vowel so it takes the suffix with the deep vowel which is -lar: okullar

sinema > last vowel is "a" and "a" is a deep vowel so it takes the suffix with the deep vowel which is -lar: sinemalar

kalem > last vowel is "e" and "e" is a sharp vowel so it takes the suffix with the sharp vowel which is -ler: kalemler

Example 2: The infinitive suffix has only two forms, -mak and -mek.

Sharp vowels: e,i,ö,ü > obviously if the last vowel of the verb stem is one of these than you use -mek.

Deep vowels: a,ı,o,u > -mak

git+mek
oku+mak

Example 3: Future tense has only two forms: -ecek -acak.
-ecek is for words which have a sharp vowel as the last vowel and -acak is for words which have a deep vowel as the last vowel.

Exercise:
infinitive: gelmek
verb stem: gel (drop the -mek or -mak to get the verb stem)

gel > last vowel is "e" and we have -ecek or -acak. Which one should I use? Of course sharp vowels match with sharp vowels and vice versa so we use -ecek > gelecek

So far it was easy. If the last vowel is a deep vowel use the deep suffix and vice versa.

Rule 2:
Some suffixes have 4 forms. If these 4 forms have the vowels ı,i,u,ü then follow this table:

If the last vowel is "a" or "ı" > use "ı"
If the last vowel is "e" or "i" > use "i"
If the last vowel is "o" or "u" > use "u"
If the last vowel is "ö" or "ü" > use "ü"

Example:
Simple past tense has the following forms:

-dı
-di
-du
-dü

Exercise:
Okumak > Oku > last vowel is "u" and takes "u" according the tabe above > okudu

dinlemek > dinle > last vowel is e and takes "i" > dinledi

With these two rules we have covered most of the topic.

Wow you explained that really well, It all makes more sense to me now!

Thanx a lot

that has really helped me get my head around it alot thanks. have spent most of the day tryign lol