Tenses

There are 5 fundamental tenses in Turkish. These are:

1. Present simple tense (Geniş zaman)

2. Present continuous tense (Şimdiki zaman)

3. Future tense (Gelecek zaman)

4. Past tense with -di (-di'li geçmiş zaman) --> Regular past tense

5. 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:

• To tell what you are currently doing

  • I am working now. --> Şimdi çalışıyorum.

  • I am eating ice cream. --> Dondurma yiyorum.

• To tell something you will do in the close future

  • Wait, I'm coming in 5 minutes. --> Bekle, 5 dakika içinde geliyorum.

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.