PERSONAL PRONOUNS, POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES, POSSESSIVE SUFFIX (Kişi Zamirleri, İyelik Ekleri)

In this lesson you will learn personal pronouns and possessive adjectives, and then you’ll learn their  possessive suffixes in Turkish.

1. PERSONAL PRONOUNS IN TURKISH

Singular Personal Pronouns:

Ben: I

Sen: You

O: He, She, It

Plural Personal Pronouns:

Biz: We

Siz: You

Onlar: They

KEEP IT MİND!

If you are in an official environment and the person you are dealing with is even a 1 person, you should still say “SİZ”. That is, if there is a person in front of you and there is a formality between you and him/her, you should use “SİZ” instead of “sen”.

 

2. POSSESIVE ADJECTIVES IN TURKISH

Singular Possesive Adjectives:

Benim: My

Senin: Your

Onun: It’s

Plural Possesive Adjectives:

Bizim: Our

Sizin: Your

Onların: Their

KEEP IT MİND!

Again as we said above If you are in an official environment and the person you are dealing with is even a 1 person, you should still say “SİZİN”. That is, if there is a person in front of you and there is a formality between you and him/her, you should use “SİZİN” instead of “senin”.

 

3. POSSESSIVE SUFFIXES IN TURKISH

These suffixes are not exist in English, but we have in Turkish.

Possessive adjective + noun + possessive suffix. 

These suffixes make speaking more fluent. Because when you use the suffix, it is understood what the pronoun is. So you don’t always have to use the possessive adjectives. The suffix you will use will be sufficient for your understanding. As we said, this makes the speech more fluent.

There are different suffixes suitable for each possessive adjectives so that we can understand the possessive adjectives just by looking at the possessive suffix. In addition, each suffix may appear in different forms. As you can imagine, depending on the vowel harmony, the vowels in the suffixes can also take different forms. E.g. -nız, -niz, -nuz, -nüz. These all forms are using for “sizin (plural your)”.

We have showed the all relative suffixes in a table form for your easier understanding.

It may seem confused to you at the beginning. But actually you just need to learn six suffix in total. You can get over easily other forms, just think vowel harmony than you’ll start to change on your own into the other form according to vowel harmony. 

Other point is; as you may have noticed, some vowels are shown in parentheses (). This is because; The vowels in parentheses sometimes need to be used. I mean they have two different form which start a vowel and a consonant. (Expcept -ları, -leri !)

• If the word ends with any consonant, suffix should start a vowel.
• if the word ends with any vowel, suffix should start a consonant.

For example, when you use “onun (his/her/it’s)” if the last letter of the word that will “come after the possesive adjective” end with a wowel the suffix will start with “s”. Cause it is hard to pronounce two wovel side by side. We use a “s” to make it easier. E.g. onun perdei. That sound wrong. The right way to say it: onun perdesi. It should be there is a consonant between two vowels. But if the last letter of the word is a consonant, so you don’t have to use a consonant again, use just a vowel in the suffix. Eg. onun kalemi

In all the examples in the table above, words end with a consonant. Now let’s try to combine suffixes with a different word. This time let the last letter be a vowel and let’s see the difference.

The word “çanta (bag)” with all possessive suffixes:

çanta – (ı)m > benim çantam (my bag)

çanta – (ı)n > senin çantan (your bag)

çanta – (s)ı > onun çantası (it’s/her/his bag)

çanta – (ı)mız > bizim çantamız (ourbag)

çanta – (ı)nız > sizin çantanız (your bag)

çanta – ları> onların çantaları (their bag)

As you can see, all the suffixes here begin with consonants. Because the word (çanta) ends with a vowel anyway!

 

Now, let’s try to use the following words once with different suffixes.

öğretmen (teacher)  /  öğrenci (student)  /  araba (car)  /  şoför (driver)  /  ev (house)  /  bahçe (garden)

öğretmen – (i)m > benim öğretmenim (my teacher)

öğrenci – (i)n > senin öğrencin (your student)

araba – (s)ı > onun arabası (it’s/her/his car)

şoför – (ü)müz > bizim şoförümüz (our driver)

ev – (i)niz > sizin eviniz (your house)

bahçe – leri > onların bahçeleri (their garden)

 

If you have any question about this grammar or any subject about Turkish language just let me know in the comment below. Btw we also share all Turkish grammar lessons, some daily usefull tips, Turkish idioms and moire about Turkish language and Turkish culture on YouTube channel! You can watch all lessons for free now! Just click here and subscribe to don’t lose our videos.  See you in another lesson!