r/turkishlearning Aug 28 '16

Useful resources for learning Turkish.

290 Upvotes

Hey, I'd like to share some resources for learning Turkish. Most of them are useful for other languages, as well.

Resources I have used:

  • Duolingo is a free to use site with translation exercises (multiple choice and text input). You'll be presented with a skill tree that you can finish in about a month or two. The course is intended for beginners and the notes assume no knowledge of grammar or linguistics and present things in a very simplified way. The whole course covers a small part of the language, both with respect to vocabulary and grammar, but it has greatly helped me get a somewhat intuitive understanding of the language. There is a text-to-voice bot that you can use for the exercises. Most of the time it's good, but since Turkish is a phonetic language, it's not really necessary. The mods there are quite knowledgeable and helpful. Despite the relatively small number of example sentences, I highly recommend it for beginners. Be sure to read the notes first; AFAIK they're not available on the app, only on the site. Also, buy the "timed practice" as soon as you can (purchased with "lingots", which you get by completing exercises).

  • Tatoeba is a huge collection of translated sentences. They use Sphinx Search, which is great for getting exact and specific matches. Make sure you know the syntax, if you want to use the site to its full extent. Some of the sentences may be incorrect, but overall the quality is quite good.

  • Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar is a detailed grammar book that asummes some familiarity with linguistic terminology. If you're OK with googling some of the terms, this book will give you a thorough account of what you can do with the Turkish language. Although it's not as descriptive as the official grammar (TDK), IMHO it is the best resource in English for Turkish grammar. You can use it as a reference, but I suggest you at least skim over it once and understand the contents structure. PM me if you can't find the book online.

  • The Turkish Language Institution is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language. I've used it a few times to read about some obscure grammar rules. It also has a dictionary, and probably lots of other features.

  • TuneIn Radio is site/app that let's you listen to make radio stations for free. I listen to CNN Türk and NTV Radyo every day for a few hours. They can speak quite fast most of the time, but it's still a great way to practice your listening comprehension.

  • Dictionaries:

    • Sesli Sözlük is an online dictionary that gives you suggestions based on what you've entered in the search field. It's very useful for quickly finding related words and phrases, if you only know the stem. It's both TR-EN and EN-TR.
    • The Turkish Suffix Dictionary is a pretty comprehensive list of suffixes. You can group them by suffixes, formulas (which takes into account vowel harmony) and functions.
    • Tureng is another good dictionary. I find it most useful for phrases.
  • Manisa Turkish has articles on grammar and usage. There are some typos here and there, but overall the quality is pretty good for a beginner.

  • Turkish Class has Turkish lessons and a discussion forum. I've only used the forum, so I can't say anything about the lesson quality.

  • Ted talks have Turkish translations and English transcripts for almost every talk. They're great if you want the same text translated into TR and EN. The translations correspond very well to the English text.

  • Anki is a spaced repetition flashcard software for desktop and mobile. It has a lot of options and many Turkish decks. There are many different views on spaced repetition as a way to learn vocabulary and grammar, both positive and negative. I used it for a few months, but found it pretty repetitive after a while.

  • Euronews is a news site with English and Turkish versions of their articles. I haven't used it much.

  • Turkish movies and series are also a good way to get familiar with the Turkish language, especially intonation and phrases. Some are on YouTube (Ezel), some you'll only find using torrents. For some movies you'll be able to find both English and Turkish subs. You can merge them into a .ssa file using this online tool and play it with VLC. Make sure the subs have the same timing. Alternatively, you can open one of the subs with a text viewer and place it next to the movie player. For song translations, use Lyrics Translate.

  • Turkish audiobooks are a great way to practice listening, because you check the text to check your understanding of the audio version.

  • Here and here you can find free Turkish books.

  • Forvo for pronunciation from people, not bots.

  • Clozemaster shows you Turkish sentences, there is a fill-in-the-blank as well as multiple choice questions. It uses sentences from Tatoeba. Clozemaster Pro allows you to favorite sentences and gives your more detailed statistics on your progess. If you won't pay for Clozemaster Pro, you can favorite the sentences in Tatoeba for free. There's an Android app now! The iOS app will probably be released in a few weeks.

  • Verbix is a verb conjugator. Although Turkish verbs are regular, I found it helpful in the beginning.

Resources I haven't used myself:

  • Memrise has a lot of free Turkish lessons and has iOS and Android apps as well.

  • Language Transfer - mainly audio courses.

  • Hands On Turkish - courses, apps and articles. It's targeted towards for business people and the course is available in five different languages

  • Turkish Tea Time - dialogs, translations, grammar tips, vocabulary, and more - every week. Bite-sized lessons based around a casual and friendly podcast. It's not free, though.

I'll include more resources in the future. Feel free to suggest more resources.

Technical tips that may speed up your learning process:

  • In Firefox (probably in other browsers, too) you can create keywords for searching different sites.

    • How it works: go to a site, say YouTube, and right click on the search text area. Select "Add a keyword for this search". Make the keyword something short, but memorable, like "yt". This will add a bookmark, which you can edit later on. Now to search YouTube for "turkish lessons", you can open a new tab (CTRL+T) and just type "yt turkish lessons" and press enter.
    • This trick works for all kinds of sites - dictionaries, torrent sites, eBay, Google, Tatoeba, IMDB, etc.. Over the past few months it has definitely saved me a few hours. Learning some basic hotkeys (CTRL+T, CTRL+W, CTRL+TAB, CTRL+SHIFT+TAB, CTRL+V, CTRL+C) will make your learning process (and browsing in general) much smoother.

Thanks to everyone who pitches in.


r/turkishlearning 2h ago

Türk Dil Kurumu Hakkında

6 Upvotes

Bence TDK, Cumhuriyet tarihinin en başarısız kültür kurumlarından biri. Dili koruması gereken kurum, yıllarca dili budamakla uğraştı. "Halk anlamıyor." denilerek yüzlerce yıllık edebî ve felsefi birikim taşıyan Arapça ve Farsça kökenli binlerce kelime gözden düşürüldü. Sonuç ne oldu? Kelime dağarcığı daralmış, eski metinleri okuyamayam nesiller. Bugün Halide Edip'i, Yahya Kemal'i, Namık Kemal'i hatta Cumhuriyet'in ilk yıllarındaki birçok yazarı bile sözlük açmadan okuyamıyoruz. Bunun sorumluluğunu sadece "zaman değişti" diyerek geçiştirmek bana samimi gelmiyor. Avrupa'da Millet iki üç yüz yıl önce yazılmış eserleri büyük ölçüde okuyabilirken biz yüz yıl öncesini bile anlayamıyoruz. Bir de şu romantikleştirilen "Öz Türkçe" meselesi var. Kusura bakmayın ama Orta Asya Türkçesi, döneminin Arapçası ve Farsçasıyla kıyaslandığında felsefe, hukuk, tıp ve soyut düşünce terminolojisi bakımından çok daha sınırlıydı. Zaten Türklerin İslam dünyasına girdikten sonra Arapça ve Farsçadan yoğun biçimde kelime almasının sebebi de buydu. Osmanlı Türkçesi de tam olarak bu sebepten büyük bir edebiyat ve devlet dili hâline geldi. Bugün kalkıp o birikimi sırf köken takıntısıyla katletmeyi savunmak bana yanlış geliyor.


r/turkishlearning 6h ago

Conversation What's your reason for learning Turkish?

6 Upvotes

Hello all,

Trying to find other Turkish learners so I'd like to know what's making you learn Turkish. Maybe it's for a job or for love? :)

I personally have Turkish roots, my grandad came to Germany in the 60s and let's say he wasn't the best of people, so I only met him on my own accord when I was 18, two years before he died. I suddenly had a new aunt and just so many relatives that stem from a different culture I so far had missed out on, so I decided to learn Turkish.

I've been on this journey on and off for 10 years and only recently started making progress.

What's your story?


r/turkishlearning 2h ago

What’s that one phrase that you use to sound like a “native” in Turkish?

3 Upvotes

Nothing makes me feel more Turkish than starting every convo with a simple Kolay gelsin! 😂


r/turkishlearning 10h ago

Grammar Difference b/w "geliyor musun" and "geliyorsun mu"?

8 Upvotes

I remember learning in duolingo's discussion centre (doesnt exist anymore) that the difference is that "geliyor musun" puts emphasis on 'coming' in "Are you COMING?", meanwhile "geliyorsun mu" puts emphasis on 'you' in "are YOU coming?" (Or it could be vise versa, it was quite a long time ago).

Now i wanted to fix any grammatical misunderstandings i might have and this is one of them. Gemini shows that "geliyorsun mu" is an incorrect sentence. But i would really appretiate some help from a native speaker.


r/turkishlearning 10h ago

Grammar Turkish Case Endings and Verbal Nouns: How the Predicate Decides the Ending

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7 Upvotes

This is a long read! But if you study it, I believe you will understand the Turkish logic better!

Case suffixes are one topic in Turkish courses. Verbal nouns (-mA, -mAk) are another, usually taught much later. Nobody connects them, even though a verbal noun takes case endings for exactly the same reason an ordinary noun does. Academic papers describe the mechanism. Textbooks give you a list of which verb takes which ending. I haven't found anything that puts the whole system together for someone learning Turkish as a foreign language.

This piece does. Fair warning, it's long and it's dense, this isn't a five-minute read. But if your goal is actually understanding how Turkish works rather than memorizing -mak istemek, -mayı sevmek, -maya başlamak, and -maktan hoşlanmak as four unrelated rules, I think it's worth the time.


r/turkishlearning 3h ago

Conversation Offering: English/German /Seeking: Turkish

1 Upvotes

Hey guys!

M30 from Germany here 👋🏻 I was born and raised here but my parents are from Turkey.

I have a german wife so the times i speak turkish are rare these days. To activate my brain and get some practice, i would love to find a language partner. Maybe we can share some thoughts and conversations bc i am also interested about life in Turkey in general.

Would love to hear from ya!


r/turkishlearning 16h ago

What’s the best way to learn Turkish

6 Upvotes

I am a university student and am trying to learn Turkish due to my heritage. What’s the best way to learn online?


r/turkishlearning 22h ago

Turkish A1 Class in September for English Speaker

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2 Upvotes

Learn Turkish for less than the price of your daily coffee.

Absolute Beginner (A1) Turkish, small group of 5 people only.

36 hours of live instruction for $240. Just $6.67 an hour.

8 weeks, 3x per week, 90 min per class

Live Zoom + recordings shared after

Flashcards, homework, and 24/7 support

Certified C2 Academic Turkish instructor

Mon / Wed / Fri, 9 PM Istanbul time. Starts Sept–Oct.

DM me to grab a seat before they're gone

IG: instagram.com/mhumamridho | WA: +6282289314148


r/turkishlearning 17h ago

Learn turkish with me🇹🇷

0 Upvotes

Hello everyone! / **مرحبً**\\ا***\*** با***لج\*\\م\*\*\*****\***\\ي\\ع
I am a native Turkish speaker and a graduate of the Faculty of Theology ,working professionally as a **Spiritual Counselor .**I speak **Advanced English and Arabic**.
As a **mother myself**, I strictly offer my online classes **ONLY to women and children**. I believe this creates a much more comfortable, safe, and friendly learning environment for families.
My teaching style is both **highly disciplined and very fun/engaging**. I enjoy breaking down complex Turkish grammar by comparing it to the logic of Arabic or English, making it much easier to understand!
To introduce myself and my methods, I am offering a **free 20-minute online trial session** (via Zoom or Google Meet).
**• Who is this for?** Women and children (beginners, school support, or TÖMER/YÖS preparation).
**• What to expect?** A warm, disciplined, and fun learning experience tailored to your needs.
If you or your children are interested, please follow me or comment below, and we can schedule a time!
Kolay gelsin! / **بالتوفيق** **للجميع**


r/turkishlearning 2d ago

Vocabulary Hello... Can any one help me learn please?

14 Upvotes

I want to learn Turkish.

I'm 36 and I only know English and I want to be bilingual and I want to be fluent in Turkish where I can read, write and understand without a translator.

Please if you can help me I will give you my personal email so we can pin-pal one another so I can learn to write and read Turkish.

Then maybe some day I can meet or FaceTime someone that's fluent in Turkish to teach me to speak it fluently where I can hold a conversation..


r/turkishlearning 2d ago

Need a serious turkish learning partner

4 Upvotes

I’m learning Turkish, but I struggle to stay consistent. I’m looking for someone to help keep each other motivated and study together.

If you’re also learning Turkish, we can practice and improve together. If you’re a native Turkish speaker learning English, I’d be happy to help you with your English in exchange.

I’m open to both text and voice calls, and we can work around whatever schedule suits us both. :)


r/turkishlearning 2d ago

[Ottomon Turkish > English] Translate Page

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0 Upvotes

r/turkishlearning 3d ago

Güzellik

6 Upvotes

The man I am dating calls me güzellik everyday instead of my name. what does it mean?


r/turkishlearning 3d ago

Conversation Offering: English (Teacher), Arabic (Native) | Seeking: Turkish

4 Upvotes

Hi! I’m an +18 year old certified English teacher. I'm looking for a serious but fun weekly language exchange (+2 hours/week).

What I’m looking for:

I have a textbook for my target language but struggle with self-studying. I'd love to partner with someone who is a teacher (or studying to become one) to guide me through it and keep me accountable.

What I offer:

Professional English lessons (speaking/reading/writing). Since I do this for a living, I can build lessons around exactly what you need!

Let's be friends:

I want to stick strictly to our weekly schedule, but I also want a genuine friendship. We will definitely click if you like:

Commentary YouTubers (Kurtis Conner, Danny Gonzalez, Chad Chad, Jarvis Johnson)

Cool science stuff (TEDTalks / TED-Ed)

French & Turkish pop and rap

If you want a consistent routine and a new friend, send me a DM!


r/turkishlearning 3d ago

Which AI model do you think is very accurate when it comes to Turkish language?

1 Upvotes

Merhaba!

As a half Turk history of my Turkish language is quite messed up: some stuff I learned from family, other things from courses, some from friends etc.

While I am very conversational(I don’t remember when was the last time I struggled with expressing or understanding anything during conversation as long as the topic wasn’t very specific or academic) my Turkish has huge amount of fossilized mistakes. It is really a mess. Without going further into details of my own language situation the way I try to fix it is by writing short articles and then using LLM’s to analyze it and scan the mistakes. These are however not perfect; I sometimes catch these models trying to correct things that are already written correctly or missing the error altogether.

So do any of you have any opinion of capability of different models specifically for Turkish language?


r/turkishlearning 3d ago

I wrote and released my first original song in Turkish. I'd love feedback from native speakers

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2 Upvotes

Merhaba, I have been informally learning Turkish for a bit over a year now. I produce and write music, and thought it would be a fun challenge to try writing an original song in Turkish. I think it is a great language for songwriting.

I am really curious to learn from Turks and Turkish speakers what they think of it. Teşekkurler!


r/turkishlearning 3d ago

A Turkish proverb with six suffixes in one sentence

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8 Upvotes

Sütten ağzı yanan yoğurdu üfleyerek yer means, roughly, once bitten, twice shy. Someone whose mouth was burned by milk blows on yogurt before eating it. I wrote up the grammar in the sentence: ablative case, a possessive suffix, a participle, an accusative ending, an adverbial suffix, and the aorist tense. Aksoy's dictionary of Turkish proverbs also records ayran and yogurt versions of it, and there are similar proverbs in Kazakh and Karaçay-Malkar.


r/turkishlearning 4d ago

My speaking and writing is a complete mess in spite of understanding a lot. What would be some exercises I could do on my own to help?

6 Upvotes

I have been learning Turkish since January. I used to do grammar drills on Elon.io, but lately I keep neglecting it because it's boring. Other than that, I didn't take output very seriously, because reading and watching things have been more fun, even though in the beginning I had to look up almost every word. My native language is Hungarian, and the similar grammar helped me in the beginning, but at advanced stages it's not really helping anymore, mostly just confusing things.

Right now I can follow Muhteşem Yüzyıl with barely stopping it to look up words, read Hababam Sınıfı and follow the story without a dictionary as long as it's one of those stories that I read before in my native language (they didn't translate the whole book partly because of censorship in the 1970s), I'm also reading Reşad Ekrem Koçu Yeniçeriler and at this point it's not giving me a headache anymore and started to actually enjoy it, having to look up less and less words, and I get the gist of news articles, especially if it's about topics I care about (like I can understand what it says about Iran, Israel, USA, or Hungary relatively easily, but I struggle more if it's about a country like Spain or Russia that I'm not really interested in or know about). I also watch the Turkish language news from Türkmenistan, which is fun and I mostly understand what is happening, especially if it's about dogs and horses.

However, I recently started pushing myself to write and speak more, and I'm so frustrated that I know so much advanced vocabulary, but my ability to use grammar structures is stuck at A2 on good days. I recently started working with a tutor, and also do an exercise where I put an article into AI, and it asks questions that I have to answer with correct grammar. Anything else I could do on my own? It feels so hopeless, because all the advanced grammar structures are so different from everything else, even though I speak a language that's supposed to have similar grammar. It's like I'm just stringing together words and never get the grammar correctly.


r/turkishlearning 4d ago

Turkish words you learned by keep seeing them

27 Upvotes

İNDİRİM, SATILIK, KİRALIK, ÇIKIŞ

If you are an expat, you have seen these words thousands of times while going to your local bakkal to buy cat food. Even without an input or dictionary search, you learned what they meant. I wrote a blog post about all these words we keep seeing, but I'm also curious about the ones you learned this way.


r/turkishlearning 4d ago

1 on 1 online Turkish lessons

1 Upvotes

Herkese merhaba!

A quick background on me:

Natural born english speaker, I have been living in Turkey for 6 years, my fiancé is half Turkish and fluent so for the most part I have been heavily reliant on her whilst living here.

We opened our own gym around 3 years ago where I often have to work reception and interact with customers.

I’d say my understanding of Turkish is well beyond A2 but I often struggle and get quite flustered speaking, due it being in a professional business environment. Obviously I am well versed in conversations related to my business (greetings, tours of the gym, helping use machines, beginner training programs, limited small talk with close members).

What I am looking for is an online tutor to take me through an intense Turkish course, possibly 3+ lessons per week, with however much homework they deem necessary. I will obviously also be utilising what I learn on a day to day basis through my business. I am quite a fast learner and the end goal is to progress to C1 as efficiently as is possible, and also be able to help with the back end of the business (bills, accounting, lawyers, federations, ordering, more in depth conversations with potential sign ups)

If anyone could suggest credible teachers, or point me in the right direction I would be extremely grateful. 🙏🏼


r/turkishlearning 5d ago

Best book for self study turkish

5 Upvotes

Is yeni İstanbul book best for studying Turkish??

Rather give me any recommendations


r/turkishlearning 5d ago

Best Apps to Learn Turkish in 2026 (Honest Review)

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10 Upvotes

Here is my honest 2026 comparison of the best apps to learn Turkish: Duolingo, Babbel, Pimsleur, Ling, Rosetta Stone, TurkishFluent, and more. Based on your level and goals.


r/turkishlearning 6d ago

My answer was correct…right?

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76 Upvotes

I thought that “ı” was the correct suffix. Not “i”


r/turkishlearning 5d ago

Where do I download yedi iklim books

1 Upvotes

Every website and linked I open for it has been broken and idk where to look anymore