I wrote on another thread but the same goes for you too:
"After you go beyond a certain level in a language, you´re lucky to find a one-to-one correspondence of anything. Everything that could be said is a huge surface and different languages cover it with different blankets of different sizes, differently. Furthermore, a correct translation of a correct translation does not always have to come back to itself."
So, let´s get to your questions.
anyone = biri, birisi, birileri, kimse, hiç kimse, herhangi biri, herhangi bir kimse ... maybe more
Despite all the years I was immersed in English, I have no idea whether there´s a difference between "someone" and "somebody". So, I´ll give translations for one of them.
someone = biri, birisi, birileri, kimse, hiç kimse, herhangi biri, herhangi bir kimse
HAHAH, no difference
I can see a difference between "anyone" and "someone" though.
I believe I can better explain how to express the concepts of "anyone" and "someone" through example sentences.
does anyone know a good film to watch?
Now, first in English. What would change if I asked "does someone know a good film to watch?" Anyway. In Turkish it would be:
"İyi bir film bilen var mı?"
Where is "anyone" in this sentence? It is omitted. That´s the colloquial way of saying it. If you weren´t to omit that word the sentence would be:
"İyi bir film bilen biri var mı?"
"İyi bir film bilen birisi var mı?"
"İyi bir film bilen birileri var mı?"
"İyi bir film bilen kimse var mı?"
All are somewhat fine. But with "anyone" omitted, this sentence sounds much better.
"can anyone help me?"
or "Can somebody help me?" what´s the difference, really? Please explain if you know.
In Turkish it would be;
"Biri bana yardım edebilir mi?"
"Birileri bana yardım edebilir mi?
"Kimse bana yardım edebilir mi?" > sounds wrong to my Turkish ears, maybe %10 correct but overall wrong, I´d say.
You cannot omit "anyone" in this sentence.
"Bana yardım edebilir mi?" > So very wrong.
Because in the preceding example there was a quality of "anyone"; namely knowing a good movie. But in this case, there´s no quality of the guy you want help from. You could omit, if he had a quality of, let´s say knowing Turkish:
"Türkçe bilen bana yardım edebilir mi?"
"i will ask someone" = "birine soracağım"
but definitely not "kimseye soracağım"
but "bir kimseye soracağım" would be correct, theoretically.
"i will take it from someone" = "onu birinden alacağım"
Same here. Don´t use "kimse"
I might have complicated matters, but it was to give you a better idea of how Turkish works. It seems to me that you´ll mostly be OK using "biri" for "anyone", "someone" and "somebody".
Let´s see further examples:
"Anyone in there?" would colloquially be "Orda kimse var mı?" But... You´ll get away with "orada biri var mı?"
"Anyone will do" (maybe you urgently need a janitor or something)
(also please note that "will do" does not mean that someone is doing something, it simply means "to be fine" and in Turkish "olmak" is used to express this)
"Herhangi biri olur."
In this case, "kimse olur" would be so very very wrong.
"Biri olur" would be much less wrong, but still wrong.
"When I grow up, I want to be somebody."
You see, this has a completely different meaning, thus in Turkish you wouldn´t use neither of "biri", "kimse", "herhangi biri"...
"İleride büyük bir adam olmak istiyorum." would be a translation I´d give.
Are you German? I hope you´re German.
WOW! thank you for your detailed answer, it makes so much more sense to me. So I guess its much safer for me to most often use "biri". I always have such a hard time knowing how to express clauses like that, or to simply even say things like