Dusty, rusty, fragile: four tails cover the wave’s adjectives
Unit 50 consists of adjectives almost entirely, and learning them one by one is pointless: they are assembled from nouns and verbs by four tails, and the tail says more about the word than the dictionary does. For example: “Bahçedeki kapı paslı” — The gate in the garden is rusty. A rule from the Turkish course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
Unit 50 consists of adjectives almost entirely, and learning them one by one is pointless: they are assembled from nouns and verbs by four tails, and the tail says more about the word than the dictionary does.
-lı / -li / -lu / -lü — 'with this'. toz (dust) → tozlu (dusty), pas (rust) → paslı (rusty), pürüz (roughness) → pürüzlü (rough) — English builds the same with -y. The vowel of the tail bends to the last vowel of the word: this is harmony, and it is obligatory — not 'tozlı' but tozlu.
-sız / -siz / -suz / -süz — 'without this'. The exact partner of the previous one: pürüzsüz (smooth, without roughness), rahatsız (uneasy, without rest), sonsuz (endless) — the English -less and -free in one tail.
-gan / -kan — 'prone to this'. From verbs: kırılmak (to break) → kırılgan (fragile), yapışmak (to stick) → yapışkan (sticky), unutmak → unutkan (forgetful). After a voiceless consonant the tail goes voiceless: -kan, not '-gan'.
-mış / -miş / -muş / -müş — the participle 'already so'. yıpranmak → yıpranmış (worn out), solmak → solmuş (faded), buruşmak → buruşuk — and here it is a different tail, -uk, meaning the same. English stands an ordinary adjective in place of all these forms ('worn', 'faded'), which is why they are tagged as qualities.
The ear test. If a word ends in -lı or -sız, there is a noun before it, and it is worth finding: half of this wave's adjectives come apart without a dictionary this way.
Table
| the tail | what it means | the base | the adjective |
|---|---|---|---|
| -lı / -lu | with it | toz — dust | tozlu — dusty |
| -lı | with it | pas — rust | paslı — rusty |
| -lü | with it | pürüz — roughness | pürüzlü — rough |
| -süz | without it | pürüz | pürüzsüz — smooth |
| -gan | prone to it | kırılmak — to break | kırılgan — fragile |
| -kan | prone to it | yapışmak — to stick | yapışkan — sticky |
| -mış | already so | yıpranmak — to wear out | yıpranmış — worn out |
By example
- Bahçedeki kapı paslıThe gate in the garden is rusty
- Kutuda kırılgan eşya varThere are fragile things in the box
- Perdeler güneşten solmuşThe curtains have faded in the sun
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
Dusty, rusty, fragile: how does it work in Turkish?
Unit 50 consists of adjectives almost entirely, and learning them one by one is pointless: they are assembled from nouns and verbs by four tails, and the tail says more about the word than the dictionary does.
What does it look like in an example sentence Turkish?
“Bahçedeki kapı paslı” — The gate in the garden is rusty. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.