Do know you can survive in Turkey by learning a single tense along with some basic parts in TR? That's the present continuous tense. Are you surprised? If you are have a look at the uses of the tense in Turkish below:

1.The main uses of the tense (two uses)
2.It's used instead of:
a.The simple present tense
b.The future tense
c.The past tense (-di'li geçmiş zaman)
d.The past tense (-miş'li geçmiş zaman)
e.The present perfect and perfect continuous tense in Eng.
f.Imperative mood
3.It is used in telling jokes.
4.It is used in giving a formal account of a novel, play or other works of art.
Note that it is used in some cases in b, c, d, f.

To begin with I will explain the use in f.
If the person would like his orders to be fulfilled right away,especially in spoken TR, he /she may express his orders in the present continuous tense:

(Mother to son): Odana gidiyorsun ve ev ödevlerini yapıyorsun (= git, yap).

In some situations people may prefer giving orders in the tense not to sound impolite or patronizing.(Actually giving orders in the imperative mood is not impolite in some cases. For exampe: between friends or employers and employees. And also you can add the magical word, please while giving orders. What's more the expressions in the imperative mood are not always necessarily commands,say, in giving directions or instructions.)

(Teacher to students): 36. sayfayı açıyorsunuz ve 2. alıştırmaya bakıyorsunuz (= açın, bakın).

Contribute to the uses above, please.(As you can see even though I have expressed myself in the imperative mood it does not sound impolite. Does it?

Only yesterday I was listening to Turkish radio - I didn't understand it but I did notice that the present continuous tense appears all the time in most speech!

They do that to confuse foreign listeners ! Very naughty.))))

Let me try practicing different uses of tr present tense.

1. future: ne zaman ahmet geliyor? - when will ahmet come? (looking forward to him )

2. telling something: her zaman eva'nı bulaşık ve ütü yapmak istiyorum ama o çok çok yaramaz, hiç istemiyor - ı always ask eva (my sister ) to wash dishes and do ironing but she is sooo naughty, never wants

3. imperative mood: bana arıyor musun? - please call me, will you?)