LingoflyTexts in Turkish
Short texts in Turkish with a translation alongside and comprehension questions, levels A1–B1. The first ones need two or three hundred everyday words; the B1 texts need about three thousand. The translation stands next to it whole, not word by word: stopping at every other word tears the sentence apart.
All texts
- 📖An ordinary dayA1 · Hello. My name is Elif, I live in Istanbul. In the morning I drink tea and eat bread with…
- 📖At the marketA2 · On Saturday I go to the market with my family. The market is close to our house, ten…
- 📖Saturday shoppingA2 · On Saturday morning I go to the store. My basket is small, but my list is long. Tomatoes…
- 📖My new apartmentA1 · My new apartment is on the third floor. The elevator is broken, so I take the stairs. The…
- 📖I was sick yesterdayA2 · Yesterday evening I started feeling unwell. My head ached and I had a fever. In the…
- 📖Four seasons in IstanbulA1 · There are four seasons in Istanbul. The summer is very hot and humid, and the winter is…
- 📖What does Kerem do for work?A2 · My name is Kerem, I'm an engineer. I work in an office, but two days a week remotely. I…
- 📖Two hours at the airportA2 · I arrived at the airport two hours before the flight. The line was long, but check-in…
- 📖My grandmother's gardenA1 · In my grandmother's garden there are two big trees: an olive and a lemon. At the edge of…
- 📖There's too much black in my closetA2 · There's too much black in my closet, so yesterday I went shopping. First I tried on a…
- 📖My roommate DenizA2 · My roommate Deniz is a very cheerful person. He gets up early in the morning, makes…
- 📖Our kitchenA1 · Our kitchen is small, but it has everything. In the fridge there are cheese, olives and…
- 📖The photo from ten years agoA2 · Yesterday evening a message came to my phone. My friend Emre had sent a link. I opened…
- 📖The fridge isn't workingA2 · My fridge hasn't been working for two days. First I checked the plug, the socket is fine.…
- 📖A concert in a small hallA2 · Last week we went to a concert. The band was three people: guitar, drums and a singer.…
- 📖Two sounds in the neighborhoodA2 · There is a small mosque in our neighborhood. The call to prayer is read in the morning…
- 📖Our two-story houseA1 · Our house has two floors. Downstairs there's a kitchen and a living room, upstairs two…
- 📖Two tests on TuesdayA2 · I looked at the class schedule: on Tuesday there are two tests, math and history. I…
- 📖End-of-month accountingA2 · At the end of each month we write down our income and expenses in a notebook. This month…
- 📖A night in the ERA2 · Yesterday evening I fell down the stairs, and my arm hurt badly. My neighbor called an…
- 📖Before signingB1 · Before starting the new job I read the contract from beginning to end. The duties are…
- 📖First week in the new homeA2 · The move is over, but half the boxes are still unpacked. For the living room we bought a…
- 📖I noticed the sign too lateA2 · We picked up the car in the morning, and the tank was full. Leaving the city, I noticed a…
- 📖I saw it in the feedB1 · Yesterday I saw a news item in my feed: the bridge in the city was supposedly going to…
- 📖My phone was stolenB1 · My phone was stolen on the bus. I went to the police station right away and told what…
- 📖I'm not sure, butB1 · My friend is asking whether to move to a new job, and I'm not sure. On the one hand, the…
- 📖From morning to eveningA2 · First I had breakfast, then packed my bag. Before going out, I turned off the lights and…
- 📖The neighbor downstairsA2 · Our neighbor from the floor below is a man of medium height, gray-haired. His eyebrows…
- 📖We didn't speak for two weeksB1 · Last month my best friend and I quarreled over a trifle. Actually neither of us was…
- 📖My mother's recipeA2 · This dish's recipe is my mother's, and it's very simple. First you peel and chop…
- 📖I kept the receiptB1 · Last week I bought a leather bag at the mall. In the display case it looked very…
- 📖The phone froze againB1 · My phone has been acting strange for a week now: it keeps freezing and gets very hot…
- 📖A summer in the villageA2 · In my grandfather's village there is fog every morning, and in the afternoon it's sunny.…
- 📖Our new neighborhoodB1 · Last month we moved from the city center to the outskirts, because the rent is cheaper…
- 📖What I learned in two yearsB1 · I started learning Turkish two years ago at a language course, then continued online. In…
- 📖My father's storyB1 · My father was born in nineteen sixty in a small village; as a child he would work in the…
- 📖While speakingB1 · The hardest thing about speaking a foreign language is not the words, but the ability to…
- 📖End of the monthA2 · The salary is paid on the fifth of each month, but the money runs out by the twentieth.…
- 📖I started my own businessB1 · Two years ago I worked at a factory; then I quit and opened a small workshop. In the…
- 📖Our neighborhood is changingB1 · Last year trash recycling started in the neighborhood, and three separate bins were…
- 📖The book clubB1 · We meet once a month; everyone comes having read a novel or a story collection. Last…
- 📖The neighborhood matchA2 · On Sunday morning we had a match with the neighborhood team; first we warmed up for half…
- 📖The shelf's measurementsA2 · I wanted to buy a shelf for the living room and first measured the wall. The length came…
- 📖After the illnessB1 · Last winter there was an epidemic at the office, and I caught the virus too. First my…
- 📖Holiday morningA2 · On the holiday morning we got up early and first visited the elders. Grandfather gave the…
- 📖The elevator disputeB1 · At the residents' meeting everyone voiced an opinion, but no one listened to anyone. One…
- 📖The job offerB1 · I was offered a job in another city, and I thought about it for a week. The salary is…
- 📖The old chestA2 · Grandfather's chest stood in the attic; the lid dusty, the edges worn. Inside there was a…
- 📖The stone pathB1 · The path behind the village goes through the forest and descends to the lake. Those going…
- 📖Start-of-month accountingB1 · At the beginning of each month we count the expenses one by one and round the sum. This…
- 📖The renovationB1 · We started renovating the kitchen in February and thought we'd finish in two weeks. First…
- 📖A small research projectB1 · As a whole class we did a simple study: we measured the air in the school yard. Every…
- 📖The village's historyB1 · Our village was founded in the nineteenth century; our ancestors came here from the other…
- 📖The river got pollutedB1 · The factory's wastewater had been flowing into the river for two years; no one took…
- 📖A day at the workshopB1 · At half past seven in the morning we enter the shop floor; first work clothes, then the…
- 📖The lost walletA2 · Once I lost my wallet on the bus; it went like this. Just as I was about to get off, my…
- 📖A difficult neighborB1 · Our upstairs neighbor is very touchy; he takes even the smallest word personally. Last…
How to read a text in a language you barely know
First pass — all the way through, without peeking at the translation. The goal is not to understand but to catch familiar words: there will be more of them than you expect, and that feeling matters more than any rule.
Second pass — with the translation beside you. Now it becomes clear what exactly was in the way: an unknown word, a construction you did not get, or just reading speed.
Third pass — all the way through again. The second pass brings noticeably more, and this step is what makes reading useful: it turns analysis into recognition.
At the first levels a dictionary is still too early: stopping at every other word tears the sentence apart, and understanding never assembles. That is why the translation stands beside the text whole, not word by word — in the B1 texts too, although there it is for checking.
Frequently asked
What level do you need to read texts in Turkish?
A1–B1. For the first texts the letters and two or three hundred everyday words are enough; the B1 texts need about three thousand. The translation sits next to it, so an unknown word does not stop the reading.
How many times should you reread the text?
Three times: without the translation, with it, and without it again. The third pass is what all of this is for — the second time you recognize noticeably more.