Is manufactured, is shipped, is accepted: the passive
Unit 57 is all about what is done to a thing, not about who does it. English says it with the passive — 'is manufactured', 'is shipped' — and with sign language; Turkish says it with one tail inside the verb, and without it no line on the packaging can be read. For example: “Mal kabulü sabah dokuzda yapılıyor” — Goods are received at nine in the morning. A rule from the Turkish course: worked out on examples, not…
How it works
Unit 57 is all about what is done to a thing, not about who does it. English says it with the passive — 'is manufactured', 'is shipped' — and with sign language; Turkish says it with one tail inside the verb, and without it no line on the packaging can be read.
The tail -il / -ıl / -ul / -ül goes after a consonant: yapmak → yapılmak (to be made), satmak → satılmak (to be sold), kesmek → kesilmek (to be cut). From here come the whole market signs: satılık — for sale, kiralık — for rent; English needs two words where Turkish needs one.
The tail -in / -ın / -un / -ün — after a vowel and after l: okumak → okunmak, almak → alınmak, bilmek → bilinmek. The choice is purely phonetic; the meaning is the same.
Who acts stays offstage. If he is still named, he comes with the postposition tarafından: bu ev dedem tarafından yapıldı — this house was built by my grandfather. In live speech this is almost never said: the passive exists precisely so that the doer need not be named.
The impersonal 'no smoking here'. The same tail gives the impersonal form: burada sigara içilmez — no smoking here, 'cigarettes are not smoked here'; şantiyeye baretsiz girilmez — no entry to the site without a helmet. There is no subject at all, and this is the commonest way to write a ban.
Careful with the double tail. In verbs on -l the passive coincides with the reflexive: bulmak → bulunmak means both 'to be found' and 'to be located'. Context decides, and it is easy to go wrong: belge kutuda bulundu — the document was found in the box.
Table
| the verb | the tail | the passive | translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| yapmak | -ıl | yapılmak | to be made |
| satmak | -ıl | satılmak | to be sold |
| sevk etmek | -il | sevk edilmek | to be shipped |
| imal etmek | -il | imal edilmek | to be manufactured |
| okumak | -un | okunmak | to be read |
| almak | -ın | alınmak | to be taken, accepted |
| girmek (impersonally) | -il + -mez | girilmez | no entry |
By example
- Mal kabulü sabah dokuzda yapılıyorGoods are received at nine in the morning
- Şantiyeye baretsiz girilmezNo entry to the construction site without a helmet
- Bu masa siparişe özel yapıldıThis table was made to order
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
Is manufactured, is shipped, is accepted: how does it work in Turkish?
Unit 57 is all about what is done to a thing, not about who does it. English says it with the passive — 'is manufactured', 'is shipped' — and with sign language; Turkish says it with one tail inside the verb, and without it no line on the packaging can be read.
What does it look like in an example sentence Turkish?
“Mal kabulü sabah dokuzda yapılıyor” — Goods are received at nine in the morning. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.