How strongly: pek, oldukça, gayet — and comparing whole groups
The familiar çok covers almost everything, but Turkish keeps a whole scale between 'a bit' and 'very', and at the doctor's you need it: 'it hurts' and 'it hurts badly' are different conversations. For example: “Bugün pek iyi değilim” — Today I am not feeling so great. A rule from the Turkish course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
The familiar çok covers almost everything, but Turkish keeps a whole scale between 'a bit' and 'very', and at the doctor's you need it: 'it hurts' and 'it hurts badly' are different conversations.
Weaker than çok sit oldukça ('quite, fairly': oldukça iyiyim — I am quite well) and epey ('quite a lot', a shade more colloquial). Stronger — gayet ('perfectly, entirely', always with a positive verdict: gayet iyi) and son derece ('extremely'). Apart from the row stands pek: in a statement it is bookish and means 'quite', but in a negative it has become the everyday, irreplaceable softener: pek iyi değilim — 'I am not so well', pek anlamadım — 'I did not quite understand'. Pek is what a Turk says who does not want to complain at full strength.
A quality can also be intensified with no words at all — by doubling the first syllable with a consonant: bembeyaz (snow-white), kapkara (pitch-black), tertemiz (spotless), upuzun (miles long), sapsağlam (rock solid). English builds the same intensity with fixed partners — snow-white, pitch-black, brand-new; Turkish inserts m, p, r or s by ear, there is no simple rule, and such forms are memorized whole — there are a few dozen of them in the language.
And the most useful part: you can compare not only one word with another but a whole group. For equality — kadar: bu ilaç diğeri kadar güçlü — 'this medicine is as strong as the other'. For inequality — the familiar daha with the from-case: bu ağrı dünkünden daha az — 'this pain is less than yesterday's'. Note dünkü: the suffix -ki turns a time word into a noun, and that noun can even take a case — dün-kü-nden.
Table
| the word | strength | where it lives | example |
|---|---|---|---|
| biraz | a bit | everywhere | biraz halsizim |
| oldukça | quite | neutral | oldukça iyi |
| epey | quite a lot | conversational | epey geçti |
| çok | very | everywhere | çok ağrıyor |
| gayet | perfectly | with a positive verdict | gayet sağlıklı |
| pek | quite / not so | strongest in the negative | pek iyi değil |
| bem-, kap-, ter- | intensity by a doubled syllable | only with these qualities | bembeyaz, tertemiz |
| … kadar | as … as | comparing whole groups | diğeri kadar güçlü |
By example
- Bugün pek iyi değilimToday I am not feeling so great
- Ateşi oldukça yüksekHis temperature is quite high
- Bu ağrı dünkünden daha azThis pain is less than yesterday’s
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
How strongly: how does it work in Turkish?
The familiar çok covers almost everything, but Turkish keeps a whole scale between 'a bit' and 'very', and at the doctor's you need it: 'it hurts' and 'it hurts badly' are different conversations.
What does it look like in an example sentence Turkish?
“Bugün pek iyi değilim” — Today I am not feeling so great. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.