Learner Driven Focused Turkish Language Mini Lessons

Novice Mid

Vowel harmony directly affects choice of suffix(es)

×
Mini Lesson: Lesson Objective - Listening

Click on the link to listen to the mini lesson on Vowel Harmony

Listen to Vowel Harmony sound track

Tip: you can leave the sound track open, close this mini lesson drop down, and then open the reading mini lesson and follow the text while listening to the sound track.

See mini lesson Turkish Vowels – Reading to learn the vowels in this lesson

×
Mini Lesson: Vowel Harmony - Writing

As an exercise find the correct answer to the following: which word has the right suffix and which is wrong?
araba-sı – someone's car
el-a – someone's hand
ev-i – someone's house
kamyon-u – someone's truck
kına-sı – someone's henna
gün-ü – explanation / words
göl-u – someone's lake

Note: all of these examples use Possessive Suffixes for the sake of simplicity. When we learn other suffixes they will also abide these rules, e.g. this rule applies to all suffixes.

See mini lesson Turkish Vowels – Reading to learn the vowels in this lesson

×
Mini Lesson: Vowel Harmony - Speaking

These are the solutions to the Writing Mini Lesson. First try to read them, then click on the link at the bottom and listen. How close were you?

araba-sı – someone's car
el-a – someone's hand - wrong, correct: eli
ev-i – someone's house
kamyon-u – someone's truck
kına-sı – someone's henna
gün-ü – someone's day
göl-u – someone's lake - wrong, correct: gölü

Listen to Vowel Harmony sound track

See mini lesson Turkish Vowels – Reading to learn the vowels in this lesson

Welcome to Learning Turkish Your Way!

Novice Mid

Vowel harmony directly affects choice of suffix(es)

Mini Lesson: Vowel Harmony - Reading

As we learned before the vowels in Turkish are groupped as front and back vowels. To understand the vowel harmony we need to also group them as Straight and Round vowels. Round vowels are produced by rounding our lips, and the others are Straight vowels.

Verbs, nouns, adjectives etc. in Turkish always take some suffixes, therefore it's important to know that the last vowel in the suffix(es) obeys some rules to match with the vowel in the word. Actually, this is what we call Vowel Harmony. There two major and two minor Vowel Harmony rules:

Major vowel harmony 1: Back Vowels - if the last vowel of the word is a Back Vowel e.g. a, ı, o, u the following sufix must be also a Back Vowel e.g. a, ı, o, u Examples: araba (car) -> araba-sı (someone's car); balta (axe) -> balta-lar (axes)

Major vowel harmony 2: Front Vowels - if the last vowel of the word is a Front Vowel e.g. e, i, ö, ü the following sufix must be also a Back Vowel e.g. e, i, ö, ü Examples: ev (house) -> ev-i (someone's house); kedi (cat) -> kedi-ler (cats)

Minor vowel harmony 1: Straight Vowels - if the last vowel of the word is a Straight Vowel e.g. a, e, ı, i the following sufix must be also a Straight Vowel e.g. a, e, ı, i Examples: kına (henna) -> kına-sı (someone's henna); kirpi (hedgehog) -> kirpi-ler (hedgehogs)

Minor vowel harmony 2: Round Vowels - if the last vowel of the word is a Round Vowel e.g. o, ö, u, ü the following sufix CAN ONLY BE a, e, u, ü Examples: göl (lake) -> göl-ü (someone's lake); telefon (telephone) -> telefon-lar (telephones)

See mini lesson Turkish Vowels – Reading for importance of Front versus Back vowels distinction

Mini Lesson: Lesson Objective - Listening

Click on the link to listen to the mini lesson on Vowel Harmony

Listen to Vowel Harmony sound track

Tip: you can leave the sound track open, close this mini lesson drop down, and then open the reading mini lesson and follow the text while listening to the sound track.

See mini lesson Turkish Vowels – Reading to learn the vowels in this lesson

Mini Lesson: Vowel Harmony - Writing

Note: all of these examples use Possessive Suffixes for the sake of simplicity. When we learn other suffixes they will also abide these rules, e.g. this rule applies to all suffixes.

See mini lesson Turkish Vowels – Reading to learn the vowels in this lesson

Mini Lesson: Vowel Harmony - Speaking

These are the solutions to the Writing Mini Lesson. First try to read them, then click on the link at the bottom and listen. How close were you?

araba-sı – someone's car el-a – someone's hand - wrong, correct: eli ev-i – someone's house kamyon-u – someone's truck kına-sı – someone's henna gün-ü – someone's day göl-u – someone's lake - wrong, correct: gölü

Listen to Vowel Harmony sound track

See mini lesson Turkish Vowels – Reading to learn the vowels in this lesson

Major vowel harmony 1: Back Vowels - if the last vowel of the word is a Back Vowel e.g. a, ı, o, u the following sufix must be also a Back Vowel e.g. a, ı, o, u
Examples: araba (car) -> araba-sı (someone's car); balta (axe) -> balta-lar (axes)

Major vowel harmony 2: Front Vowels - if the last vowel of the word is a Front Vowel e.g. e, i, ö, ü the following sufix must be also a Back Vowel e.g. e, i, ö, ü
Examples: ev (house) -> ev-i (someone's house); kedi (cat) -> kedi-ler (cats)

Minor vowel harmony 1: Straight Vowels - if the last vowel of the word is a Straight Vowel e.g. a, e, ı, i the following sufix must be also a Straight Vowel e.g. a, e, ı, i
Examples: kına (henna) -> kına-sı (someone's henna); kirpi (hedgehog) -> kirpi-ler (hedgehogs)

Minor vowel harmony 2: Round Vowels - if the last vowel of the word is a Round Vowel e.g. o, ö, u, ü the following sufix CAN ONLY BE a, e, u, ü
Examples: göl (lake) -> göl-ü (someone's lake); telefon (telephone) -> telefon-lar (telephones)

araba-sı – someone's car
el-a – someone's hand - wrong, correct: eli
ev-i – someone's house
kamyon-u – someone's truck
kına-sı – someone's henna
gün-ü – someone's day
göl-u – someone's lake - wrong, correct: gölü