lira
“lira” — lira in Turkish. Noun, level A1, topic — shopping and money. Written "TL" — Türk lirası. The ₺ sign only appeared in 2012. In a live sentence: “Bu peynir kırk lira” — This cheese costs forty lira. You can hear how it sounds right here. One of 85 words in the set “shopping and money” in the Turkish course.
In short
| Written in Turkish | lira |
| Translation | lira |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A1 |
- liralira
Why it looks that way
Written "TL" — Türk lirası. The ₺ sign only appeared in 2012.
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Bu peynir kırk liraThis cheese costs forty lira
Nearby words: shopping and money
How much it costs, whether there is a smaller one, whether cards are accepted. A shop forgives mistakes: miss a word and they will show you the thing with their hands anyway.
- ne kadar?how much is it?Literally "how much". This is exactly how you ask about a price.
- dükkânshopA small shop, a street-front store. The chain grocery is market, the mall is AVM.
- pazarstreet marketThe same word means "Sunday": the neighborhood market was set up on Sundays and the day took its name from it. To speak of the day, people say pazar günü.
- tezgâhcountersoft g, the vowel stretches: tez-GYAH
- satıcısellerboth ı dotless, c as "j" in "jam": sa-tuh-JUH
- müştericustomerAn Arabic word. One word for the buyer, the client and the café regular.
- teraziscalesThe same root as the zodiac sign Libra — Terazi. In Turkish it is one word, not a pair.
- kilokiloThe full kilogram almost never appears in speech: at the market people say bir kilo.
- tazefreshAt the market they shout taze taze! — repeating the word boosts it, a very Turkish trick.
- olgunripeA ripe fruit and a mature person: olgun bir insan is "a sensible person".
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “shopping and money”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “lira” in Turkish?
Written "TL" — Türk lirası. The ₺ sign only appeared in 2012.
- How do you say “scales” in Turkish?
The same root as the zodiac sign Libra — Terazi. In Turkish it is one word, not a pair.
- How do you say “street market” in Turkish?
The same word means "Sunday": the neighborhood market was set up on Sundays and the day took its name from it. To speak of the day, people say pazar günü.
- How do you say “ripe” in Turkish?
A ripe fruit and a mature person: olgun bir insan is "a sensible person".
- How do you say “customer” in Turkish?
An Arabic word. One word for the buyer, the client and the café regular.
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “lira” in Turkish?
«lira». In a live sentence: “Bu peynir kırk lira” — This cheese costs forty lira. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Noun, level A1, from the set “shopping and money”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Written "TL" — Türk lirası. The ₺ sign only appeared in 2012. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.