Action, occurrence, process, condition, and state of being—don’t these words remind us of flow or the dynamism of life? Of course they do, but beyond that, when one of these concepts is conveyed in a word or a group of words, they’re known as verbs. Verbs are an important aspect in the structure of a sentence.

In our previous articles, we talked about “100 Nouns” and “Pronouns” in Turkish. Now, it’s time to learn about the missing part, Turkish verbs, to be able to make full sentences.

A verb’s placement in a sentence may vary depending on the language.

All Turkish verbs are placed at the end of the sentence. The object follows the subject in a sentence, and then comes the verb.

Good news! There’s no grammatical gender in Turkish, so the verbs don’t change according to gender. However, depending on the tense, the Turkish verb cases are created by adding personal suffixes based on the personal pronouns used.

Let’s see how to say “verb” in Turkish:

· Fiil – “Verb”

Now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s take a look at our common Turkish verbs list and broaden your vocabulary!

Table of Contents

1. Turkish Infinitive Verbs
2. Types of Turkish Language Verbs
3. Other Common Turkish Verbs and Their Usage in Sentences
4. Learn About Advanced Turkish Verbs with TurkishClass101

1. Turkish Infinitive Verbs

The infinitive form of a verb is the uninflected form of that verb.

Positive

The positive infinitive forms of all Turkish verbs take the -mak or -mek suffix at the end based on vowel harmony. If the last vowel of the verb is “a, ı, o, u,” the suffix -mak is used. If the last vowel of the verb is “e, i, ö, ü,” then the suffix -mek is used.

You can start creating your own personal list of important Turkish verbs for your studies with the most common Turkish verbs below:

Düşmek – “To fall”

Gelmek – “To come”

Gitmek – “To go”

Giyinmek – “To get dressed”

Göstermek – “To show”

İçmek – “To drink”

Öğrenmek – “To learn”

Söylemek – “To say,” “To tell”

Temizlemek – “To clean”

Yemek – “To eat”

Açmak – “To open”

Aramak – “To look for”

Bakmak – “To look”

Bulmak – “To find”

Buluşmak – “To meet”

Dokunmak – “To touch”

Konuşmak – “To talk”

Kullanmak – “To use”

Okumak – “To read”

Tutmak – “To hold”

Yazmak – “To write”

Negative

There are also negative verb infinitives in Turkish (ex: “not to make,” “not to teach,” etc.). In this case, the verb is followed by the negative suffix -ma or -me based on the vowel harmony mentioned above. Then comes -mak after -ma and -mek after -me negative suffixes. Here are some negative Turkish verbs with English translations:

Yapmamak (Yap-ma-mak) – “Not to do,” “Not to make”

Almamak (Al-ma-mak) – “Not to take”

Boyamamak (Boya-ma-mak) – “Not to color,” “Not to paint”

Kırmamak (Kır-ma-mak) – “Not to break”

Kaçmamak (Kaç-ma-mak) – “Not to escape”

Gitmemek (Git-me-mek) – “Not to go”

Öğrenmemek (Öğren-me-mek) – “Not to learn”

Öğretmemek (Öğret-me-mek) – “Not to teach”

Çizmemek (Çiz-me-mek) – “Not to draw”

Silmemek (Sil-me-mek) – “Not to erase,” “Not to delete”

2. Types of Turkish Language Verbs

Action verbs

Action verbs are verbs that indicate an action, as the name suggests. They describe what someone or something does.

Below are some action verbs in Turkish:

Koşmak – “To run”

Oynamak – “To play”

Gülmek – “To laugh”

Yürümek – “To walk”

There are two types of action verbs: Transitive and Intransitive.

Turkish Transitive Verbs 

A transitive verb is followed by a noun or noun phrase that receives the action of the verb, which is called the “direct object.”

Transitive verbs sometimes have indirect objects, which name the object to whom or for whom the action was done.

For example:

Mike annesini arıyor. – “Mike is calling his mother.”

Verb in Turkish	Verb in English	Direct Object in Turkish	Direct Object in English	Indirect Object in Turkish	Indirect Object in English
Aramak	To call	Annesi	His mother	N/A	N/A

Mary kitabı Jane’e verdi. – “Mary gave Jane the book.”

Verb in Turkish	Verb in English	Direct Object in Turkish	Direct Object in English	Indirect Object in Turkish	Indirect Object in English
Vermek	To give	Kitabı	The book	Jane	Jane

A small clue for you: If you can make the sentence passive, then it means it uses a transitive verb.

Turkish Intransitive Verbs

An intransitive verb doesn’t have a direct or indirect object. It may be followed by an adverb or adverbial phrase, but there’s no object to receive its action. Let’s see how intransitive Turkish verbs fit into sentences:

Çocuk ağladı. – “The boy cried.”

Verb in Turkish	Verb in English	Direct Object	Indirect Object
Ağlamak	To cry	N/A	N/A

State Verbs

A state verb describes a state of being, not an action.

State verbs generally fall into four groups. Let’s discover some of these useful Turkish verbs:

Emotion: 

Sevmek – “To love”

Nefret etmek – “To hate”

İstemek – “To want”

Possession: 

Sahip olmak – “To have,” “To own”

Ait olmak – “To belong”

Sense: 

Görmek – “To see”

Duymak – “To hear”

Koklamak – “To smell”

Thought: 

Bilmek – “To know”

İnanmak – “To believe”

Hatırlamak – “To remember”

Düşünmek – “To think”

Verbs that Describe Occurrences

These are verbs that describe a sudden change that’s not necessarily intentional. The event that occurs on or to the object is involuntary, and there’s usually a time factor involved here. These verbs don’t take any objects and are therefore intransitive verbs.

For example:

Bugün hastalandım. – “I got sick today.”

Here are some Turkish verbs that describe occurrences:

Acıkmak – “To get hungry”

Soğumak – “To get cold,” “To cool”

Uzamak – “To get taller”

Bayatlamak – “To get stale”  

Körelmek – “To become blunt” 

Turkish Auxiliary Verbs

An auxiliary verb is also called a helping verb. The main auxiliary verbs in Turkish are etmek, olmak, yapmak, kılmak, and eylemek.

These essential Turkish verbs are explained in detail below:

Etmek  – “To do,” “To make,” “To perform”

This word isn’t usually used as a verb by itself. It’s used with other words, some of which are Arabic and Persian. However, although many Arabic words don’t follow the rules of vowel harmony, any Turkish suffixes added will always be based on the final vowel in the word.

For example:

Teşekkür etmek – “Thank you”

Takdir etmek – “To appreciate”

If the verb is formed with a single-syllable word, then the word etmek gets combined with the root word. If the word ends in a consonant, that letter will generally double.  

Af – “Pardon”

Affetmek – “To forgive”

Ret – “Refusal” 

Reddetmek – “To refuse”

Other usages of this helping word are:

Mutlu etmek – “To make happy”

Kabul etmek – “To accept”

Teslim etmek – “To deliver”

Kontrol etmek – “To check,” “To control”

Olmak – “To be”

This is the verb “to be” in Turkish. It also means “to become,” “to happen,” or “to occur.”

Although the verb’s meaning is stated above, it has a different meaning when used as a helping verb, as shown below:

Sahip olmak – “To have”

Pişman olmak – “To regret”

Mutlu olmak – “To be happy”  

Yapmak  – “To do,” “To make”

 Here are some verbs that can be formed when yapmak is used as an auxiliary verb:

Bakım yapmak – “To maintain”

Katkı yapmak – “To contribute”

Prova yapmak – “To rehearse”

Eylemek – “To carry out “

Eylemek can substitute etmek and serves the same purpose. It’s usually used in writing and is very seldomly used in conversations.

Sabreylemek – “To be patient”

Reddeylemek – “To refuse”

Niyaz eylemek – “To supplicate”

Arz eylemek – “To present,” “To offer”

Seyreylemek – “To watch”

Kılmak – “To make,” “To do”

When used as a helping verb, the meaning of this verb changes. Here are some examples for you:

Namaz kılmak – “To perform prayer”

Mecbur kılmak – “To oblige someone to do (something)”

Zorunlu kılmak – “To oblige”

3. Other Common Turkish Verbs and Their Usage in Sentences

Now we’ll introduce you to other useful and common Turkish verbs, as well as their usage in simple sentences. Keep in mind while reading the examples that we’ll be going over how to conjugate Turkish verbs in a future article.

By the time you get to the end of this article, you’ll know around 100 Turkish verbs. It might be a good idea to add the following words to your own Turkish verbs list for easy reference as you study. Are you ready to expand your Turkish verb vocabulary? Let’s go.

Satmak – “To sell”

Evimi satıyorum. – “I’m selling my house.”

Oturmak – “To sit”

Ben şimdi oturuyorum. – “I’m sitting now.”

Kalkmak – “To get up”

Her sabah 6’da kalkarım. – “I get up at six every morning.”

Kapatmak – “To close”

Linda kapıyı kapatıyor. – “Linda is closing the door.”

Uyumak – “To sleep”

Annem uyuyor. – “My mother is sleeping.”

Fırçalamak – “To brush”

Kızım saçlarını fırçalıyor. – “My daughter is brushing her hair.”

Yüzmek – “To swim”

Eşim her gün yüzer. – “My husband swims every day.”

Unutmak – “To forget”

Kitabımı evde unuttum. – “I forgot my book at home.”

Çalışmak – “To study,” “To work”

Türkçe çalışıyorum. – “I’m studying Turkish.”

Kaçırmak – “To miss”

Otobüsü kaçırdım. – “I missed the bus.”

Yaşamak – “To live”

Türkiye’de yaşıyorum. – “I live in Turkey.”

Uyanmak – “To wake up”

Her sabah 6’da uyanıyorum. – “I wake up at six every morning.”

Atmak – “To throw”

Lütfen bana topu at. – “Please throw the ball to me.”

Hatırlamak – “To remember”

Seni hatırlıyorum. – “I remember you.”

Last, but not least, we would like to talk about the verb yapmak, which means both “to do” and “to make.” We do want to emphasize that this word has a wide range of uses.

Ödev yapmak – “To do homework”

İş yapmak – “To do work,” “To do business”

Saçını yapmak – “To do hair”

Alışveriş yapmak – “To do shopping”

Hata yapmak – “To make a mistake”

Kahve yapmak – “To make coffee”

Kek yapmak – “To make a cake”

Şaka yapmak – “To make a joke”

Gözlem yapmak – “To make an observation”

Liste yapmak – “To make a list”

4. Learn About Advanced Turkish Verbs with TurkishClass101

Wasn’t it easy to learn the 100 most common Turkish verbs via one article? Why not shoot for 500 Turkish verbs? Do you want to know how to learn Turkish verbs quickly and easily?

First of all, don’t lose any time and visit our website. Then, make sure to include all of the Turkish verbs we went over to a personal Turkish verbs list. As you proceed to Turkish verb conjugation, you can create a study guide or PDF file for this as well. Further, be sure to take full advantage of the dictionary on our website—it will make your life so much easier!

Please let us know in the comments section if this Turkish verbs guide was helpful to you! Is there anything you’re not quite sure about after reading it? Note that every detail you learn will contribute to your success in speaking Turkish fluently!

Happy learning!