English

No prepositions — endings instead

English builds in the house, from the house, to the house out of a noun and a little word in front. Turkish glues that little word onto the back, and the noun grows to the right. For example: “İstanbulda yaşıyorum” — I live in Istanbul. A rule from the Turkish course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.

Updated September 1, 2026 · Lingofly

How it works

English builds in the house, from the house, to the house out of a noun and a little word in front. Turkish glues that little word onto the back, and the noun grows to the right.

ev is house → evde is in the house → evden is from the house → eve is to the house.

The tails stack in a fixed order: ev-ler-im-de reads house-plural-my-in, in my houses. Read a long word left to right, in chunks, and it stops being frightening.

So where English needs three separate words, Turkish needs one: İstanbulda yaşıyorum, Istanbul-in I-live.

Table

No prepositions — endings instead
in Englishin Turkishhow it reads
in the houseevdehouse-in
from the houseevdenhouse-from
to the houseevehouse-to
in my housesevlerimdehouse-plural-my-in

By example

  • İstanbulda yaşıyorum
    I live in Istanbul
  • Eve gidiyorum
    I am going home
  • Rusyadan geldim
    I came from Russia

How the rule settles in your head

A rule is not memorized from an explanation. It is memorized from an attempt to use it and a mistake — that is why the app delivers it mixed in with words, not as a separate lesson: it resurfaces exactly where you forgot it.

Frequently asked

No prepositions — endings instead: how does it work in Turkish?

English builds in the house, from the house, to the house out of a noun and a little word in front. Turkish glues that little word onto the back, and the noun grows to the right.

What does it look like in an example sentence Turkish?

“İstanbulda yaşıyorum” — I live in Istanbul. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.

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