What a thing is for and what it is made of: -lık and “-den yapılmış”
In a shop two questions decide everything: 'what is it made of' and 'what is it for'. Turkish answers them with two different assemblies, and mixing them up is not allowed. For example: “Bu çanta hakiki deriden yapılmış” — This bag is made of genuine leather. A rule from the Turkish course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
In a shop two questions decide everything: 'what is it made of' and 'what is it for'. Turkish answers them with two different assemblies, and mixing them up is not allowed.
The material stands right before the thing, with no tails at all: deri ceket — a leather jacket, cam bardak — a glass made of glass, yün kazak — a wool sweater, plastik kutu. This is not the -i link from wave 1: there okul müdürü means 'the principal of the school', that is, the school has a principal. Here nothing owns anything, deri simply describes ceket, so there is no tail — an English compound doing the same work. When more detail is needed, the turn -den yapılmış — 'made of' — is used: hakiki deriden yapılmış.
The purpose is given by the suffix -lık/-lik/-luk/-lük — 'the thing for': tuzluk (a salt shaker, from tuz), gözlük (glasses, from göz), şekerlik (a sugar bowl), önlük (an apron), kulaklık (headphones). The same tail turns a quality into an abstract noun: yalnızlık — loneliness, arkadaşlık — friendship, alışkanlık — a habit — the job English gives to -ness. One letter, two different jobs, and only what it attaches to tells them apart: on a thing it is the purpose, on a quality the property.
The third job of -lık is counting, and in a shop it is the commonest: after a number with a measure it means 'worth that much'. Bir haftalık ekmek — bread for a week, beş liralık simit — five liras' worth of simit, iki kişilik masa — a table for two. This is exactly how an amount is asked for in bulk: 'Elli liralık benzin' — fifty liras' worth of petrol.
Table
| the assembly | what it means | example |
|---|---|---|
| material + thing | what it is made of | cam bardak — a glass made of glass |
| -den yapılmış | made of | yünden yapılmış — made of wool |
| thing + -lık | the thing for it | göz → gözlük — glasses |
| quality + -lık | the property as a noun | yalnız → yalnızlık — loneliness |
| number + -lık | worth that much | beş liralık — worth five liras |
| -lı / -sız | with it or without it | şekerli / şekersiz |
| the -i link (do not confuse) | possession | okul müdürü — the principal of the school |
By example
- Bu çanta hakiki deriden yapılmışThis bag is made of genuine leather
- İki kişilik bir masa var mı?Is there a table for two?
- Bir haftalık alışveriş yaptıkWe did a week’s worth of shopping
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
What a thing is for and what it is made of: how does it work in Turkish?
In a shop two questions decide everything: 'what is it made of' and 'what is it for'. Turkish answers them with two different assemblies, and mixing them up is not allowed.
What does it look like in an example sentence Turkish?
“Bu çanta hakiki deriden yapılmış” — This bag is made of genuine leather. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.