Have you ever looked at a long Turkish word and wondered how all those pieces come together? Turkish might seem complex from the outside, but once you understand how roots and suffixes interact, everything starts to click. In this post, we’ll explore one of the best examples of Turkish word formation: “dönüştürülebilir.”  It’s a word you’ll often see on recycling labels, and it perfectly illustrates how Turkish builds meaning step by step through derivation, causation, the pa

This is one of the most productive word-forming suffixes in Turkish, and it is often the first suffix that new learners encounter. It follows vowel harmony and therefore has four forms: -ci, -cı, -cü, -cu . In addition, c  changes to ç  after the consonants k, t, ç, and p . (You can remember these four consonants with the mnemonic word k e tç a p .) This suffix creates nouns from nouns that refer to: 1. A person who does something as a job or profession, or specializes in a p

The suffix -li  is a powerful tool in Turkish. It creates countless adjectives, and once you learn to use it, your vocabulary will grow enormously. Let’s take a closer look at how it works. It generally means having (the quality of) , characterized by , or full of . We usually add it to nouns. Note:  The suffix -li  follows vowel harmony, so it appears in four forms: -li, -lı, -lü, -lu. Common Adjectives with -li Examples of adjectives in -li: başarı lı → successful dikkat l

The suffix -ki is one of the most common and useful suffixes in Turkish. In addition to forming possessive pronouns such as benimki, seninki, and onunki  (mine, yours, and his/hers/its), it also helps us describe place, direction, and time with ease. -ki with Place and Direction We add -ki  to words in the locative case  to make adjectives of place and direction. It has the meaning the one which is / that is . Examples of -ki in the locative case (adjectives of place and

Besides suffixes, we also make new words through blending , just like in English. These words are usually formed by joining the beginning of one word  and the end of another . Here are some examples: suni + tahta → sunta  (artificial wood) Avrupa + Asya → Avrasya  (Eurosia) sevdiğim + seveceğim → sevdicem  (a term of endearment, meaning 'You are the one I love and will love') geri + zekalı → gerzek  (idiot) Ne + haber → Naber  (What’s up) ? bilek + yüzük → bilezik  (brac